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Hello everyone. It’s been a while. We have all been doing astoundingly well, while dealing with a lot of stuff. I have wanted to write, but have felt a bit stymied. Partly due to extenuating circumstances surrounding our recent oil spill, our move away from Queenstown, the subsequent and ongoing cleanup, etc. But it is also the following message, written as a comment on my “about” page, that has given me extended pause:
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“I’m sorry but how could you as a mother abandon your 2 other children? It’s extremly rare for mothers to give up custody of children and for judges to award custody to fathers, unless of course the mother has serious issues. Very unfortunate for your sons. You seem like the type that runs away from their issues instead of facing them head on.”
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Here is my response:
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Thank you, anonymous reader from Surrey, BC, for your message. You have articulated very succinctly, what I’m sure so many people think, and have been thinking, about me for many years.
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I encountered your message in my inbox after waking one morning from another dream about Cedar and Kristjan. After a good cry, I toyed with the idea of marking your message as spam, and blocking your ip address from my site, but in my continued efforts to be honest, and true, and to face my “issues” head on, I will publish, and respond as sincerely as I can. It is, admittedly, grotesque to me on so many levels, that I am about to voice this with the world, but I have also taken on a somewhat public personae, and so I feel obliged to share.
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I love my children. All five of them. I love them all, equally. And differently. There is not one single day that passes, that I do not think about Cedar and Kristjan, with yearning, grief, heartache, sadness, adoration, love, and hope.
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I carried them for 10 months, I gave birth to them with joy and ecstasy, in the healthiest, most wholesome way that I could. I nursed them and held them and nourished them through their infancy. I love them.
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And yes, I abandoned them. I abandoned them to their father, because at the time, I felt that this was the best that I could do for them. There was no judge, there was no litigation. I chose to relinquish custody, and I chose this for myriad reasons. These reasons involved my need and desire to protect my boys from further conflict and from the courts, and these reasons also involve the broken, messed up tragedy of my relationship with their father, and yes, my “issues”, my own failings as a person, and many other factors which are complicated, and private. This is not “the story” of what happened. That is a tome that won’t ever be published: disappointments, lies, crimes, memories,
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I refuse to denigrate my boys’ father. I have made forays into this territory. But I have decided that I don’t want to be the kind of person that speaks ill of others, or who makes excuses. I am so much better than that. If I indulge my story and my sadness, I can come up with a list of his transgressions and wrongs. But honesty compels me to recognize the simplicity of fact: He is a good father. He loves his children. He has done his best. And most significantly, He is there.
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I have learned throughout the years, that we simply have no access to what goes on for other people, in their private lives. And that there is a world of difference between judging an individual, and analyzing and assessing systems and structures, societies and cultures.
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Ten years ago, I would have judged–and I did–any mother who “abandoned” her children. It is unthinkable, unbelievable, unacceptable.
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In a way, it is a great privilege to be among the most reviled members of our society: a failed mother. A bad mother. I am an expert on bad parenting. Correspondingly, I think I have become something of an expert on judgement, and by extension, compassion. I understand loss, and I understand how incredibly fortunate I am to have Horus, Treva and Felix, and how fleeting these moments of infancy and early childhood really are. Despite the chaos and everyday madness of parenting 3 littles, I can access joy very readily. And I am in a situation and a marriage now, that is imperfect, but whole. My three youngest children have me, entirely.
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Without the slightest doubt, I believe strongly that every single mother loves her children, passionately, fully, and inevitably to a fault. Mothers’ choices and decisions are often–perhaps always–based on impossibilities: the impossibility of being good, of being right, the impossibilities of politics, and reputation; the sometimes-impossibility of partnership; the impossibility of (perish the term) “having it all”. We all want to “have it all”. And each of us will fail. In the past couple of days, the image of the little Chinese boy who bit his mother while nursing, has gone around the social networking circuit. My heart broke for that sweet innocent baby. And my heart went out to the mother, who must be in more pain than any of us can imagine.
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I spent the years between my separation from my children, and my pregnancy with Horus (my third child, and the first of three babies I have with my husband, my Love, Lee) attempting semi- consciously, to kill myself through alcohol and drug abuse. I often consider that it might have been more socially acceptable had I succeeded with my suicide project. Mothers who die are mourned and lauded. Sylvia Plath is not so much remembered as a bad parent, than as a tragic one. She has been immortalized in her own words, and in the words of others. She died an artist and a mother, having it all.
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Sometimes, in my more dramatic and desperate moments, I wonder if it might be easier for Cedar and Kristjan if I had simply died. I wonder to what degree they feel they have been replaced, or forgotten.
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The truth is, we are all alone. Conversely, the separations we see and feel are tenuous, imaginary. In my darkest times, I have cried for my own mother (I still do, sometimes, of course). But she is there, and I am here, and this is the pain of existence, that we all feel, from the first breath of life. And this is why mother-child is the most potent of relationships, the beginning of forever never getting what we really want or need.
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I gave Cedar and Kristjan what I could. I gave them love, and hardship, as all parents do. I gave them the best foundation I could muster. My body and my soul.
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My separation from them is an open wound that will never heal. Short of coming to terms with this, I have come to a philosophic understanding, an acceptance of things as they are, and an acknowledgement that what has been done is in the past.
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I hear stories, here and there: Kristjan is fierce, independent, a talented ballet dancer. Cedar is introspective and thoughtful; considerate, quiet. They are both exceptionally smart and beautiful.
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I have made innumerable blunders and mistakes, I have done innumerable wrongs. It does, I admit, take a terrible and determined mindfulness some days, to continue. I cannot take back the choices I have made, I can’t soften anyone’s interpretation of the facts, or rumours.
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Despite the expectations our culture has of mothers who fail, I refuse to publicly flagellate myself forevermore, or to continuously prostrate myself to you, my known and anonymous public: my family, my friends, acquaintances, former friends, and those who seek to judge or condemn.
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My private, secret apology is eternal: each time I respond to Horus, Treva and Felix with love and gentleness, I am also loving Cedar and Kristjan: liturgy, transformation, moment by moment. This blog, in effect, is both an indictment and a mea culpa. Never enough. What a sour and shitty prize for my sons, hey?
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Are Cedar and Kristjan unfortunate? Possibly. And yet, they live a life they would never have lived with me. They attend one of the most highly respected private schools in the country. They live in comfort with a father and stepmother and little sister who love them and care for them. They have many diverse advantages that might not exist had my path and theirs, and that of their father’s, been different.
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I have made terrible mistakes. And I am done with regret. I have learned so much, including the extent of my own strength. I have learned that regret is a black hole, a room full of empty bottles, a dead end. I have experienced emotional pain to a radical degree. I am very lucky. And I have learned that actually, You just can’t possibly mess with me.
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Forgiveness has allowed me to continue living, and to be the kind of parent I am to Horus, Treva and Felix. This is no consolation, for Cedar and Kristjan, but it is an honest forward movement, a tribute to possibility, and to life. Forgiveness has allowed me to love myself, despite everything, and to love my husband Lee, and to do my work for mothers and babies with an open heart.
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I am given solace by the fact that it is in our nature as human beings to want to know where we come from. I maintain hope that Cedar and Kristjan will one day want to know me.
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I own my wrongdoing. I own my betrayals. I own my abandonment of my children. After years of seething, raging hate, I can honestly say that I love their father. He has suffered much, on account of me.
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I am grateful for Cedar and Kristjan’s stepmother: for loving them, and for making a home for them where they are nurtured and cared for.
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Am I the “kind of person who runs away from [her] issues?” Oh yes. I certainly am. I have run and run. Upon finding that there is emphatically nowhere to hide, here I am. In New Brunswick, at the church, in Queenstown, online, on the streets, at the park, in the woods, in the world.
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I am building a place for myself and for my husband and my kids. And whenever they are ready, whenever they would like to see me, I have a home for my two oldest sons: I have a home for them in my heart, and in my house, (and at my church). I am ready for them to come to me whenever they choose; to connect with me, to be angry with me, to talk with me, to hate me, and maybe even to forgive me for everything I have done.
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I won’t be discussing this much more, if at all, in this blog. I want this space to be a place of celebration: love, babies, family, food…and one of analysis: birth, politics, philosophies.
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I understand that the above can’t possibly answer all the questions you might have about my life. I grow increasingly attuned to striking a balance between openness and a sort of privacy that jibes with my personal moral code. We are all together, walking solo.
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That’s all for now.
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Thank you, as always, for reading.
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You are a brilliant writer….and I am so sorry you had to re-live these feelings….All 5 of you babies are very lucky.
Love this, Yo. xo
I love you <3 xxxx
You are such a beautiful wordsmith. I want to commend you for your courage and willingness to address such a comment, and I want to thank you for allowing me the privilege to hear your heart in such an eloquent way. Be blessed!
Love to you Yolande. It takes a lot of courage to take life as you do and to make certain decisions.
Society always judges ¨bad¨ the hardest decisions, may be, properly, because social codes, to an extent, try to prevent pain and uneasiness on a social level. Unfortunatelly, this is not possible!
xo,
Elena
xoxoxoxo to you
Your piece comes at a poignant moment when I am writing about how violence and patriarchy have shaped aspects of my own life and that of other women in my family. I am very inspired by your energy and courage. Much love to you –
this was beautiful and thought provoking. I learn so much from your blog, thank you for your transparency.
kat
Woah. So open and honest.
I remember the moment that you told me that you had two older children who did not live with you. Having seen your interactions with Horace, my first thought was ” wow, there must have been some serious issues there.”
The reason that I thought that was because the interactions with (what I has believed to be your oldest child) Horus were one of patience, gentleness, and respect. You were the mother that I had wanted to be.
I have been/ am a rather judgmental person. I strive to be understanding and kind to others but more often than not the inner voice speaks and I fail miserably.
I was actually surprised at my self for NOT being judgmental when finding out that you have two older sons that lived with their father.
You said ” I was not a very good person when I was with their father.”
Having experienced the transformation of myself when spending a lot of time with lest than stellar people or even people who changed who I was when I was with them , I understand.
I have never judged you and your choices.(Which seriously shocks me) I believe that what you did, you did because you believed it was the best thing for Cedar and Kristjan at the time.
I was not there.
I do not know who you were at the time.
I do not know know the situation.
I can not judge.
BUt I know you now.
And you are still the mother that I would like to be.
Thanks for this. I’m a psychotherapist, mum, step-mum, grandmother, writer and avid student of the great teacher – the world. I like the truth you’ve spoken and I’m sorry for those who judge – it must be hell in their heads as I know no one who judges others who isn’t equally harsh on themselves. You’ve made some tough choices and had some tough situations hoisted on you – sounds like you’ve come through the crucible intact and luminous.
I wonder why some of the same people who hold the notion of equality between the sexes so highly are so hard on women who make these choices and so understanding of the men?
This is my introduction to your blog – I’ll be back.
Yolande, You are incredibly courageous, honest, and lovely. You needed to share with us neither the reader’s comment nor your painful truths of your life. I feel privileged and humbled to have been trusted with the story of your journey as a woman and mother. Thank you.
My heart seriously broke reading this mainly because of the judgement you received but also of what you went through. To leave your babies must have taken so much soul searching and thought.
I love reading what you write, it gives me hope, makes me feel normal with my views that others make me feel not normal about in real life and I think you are just lovely. Xx
Fuck perfect mothers! They do not exist!
That person who sent the message, staging incredulity about how you “abandoned your children” must have been twelve and certainly not a mother. Or, possibly the worst kind of mother: the over-mothering mother whose entire identity and existence hinges on her role of motherhood. Yes, you would threaten that horribly.
PEOPLE: Mothers do not cease to be individual people just because they have children. They continue to exist as autonomous, sexual, curious, growing, fumbling, moody, fucked up people (just like everybody else). And children? Children do JUST FINE when they know that they are loved and have people to believe in them, no matter what the circumstances, no matter who the people. Clearly, Yolande, your children know this. If they, for whatever reasons life threw at all of you, didn’t know it from you for a time, they at least knew it from someone and YOU KNEW THAT and made your decisions accordingly. You did not abandon them!!!!! JESUS. You did not put them in a plastic bag in a dumpster and walk away. You put them in someone else’s care because you believed it was the best care they could have at the time. Period. That was the most loving, intelligent decision and NOBODY, including yourself, should beat you up for that.
Fuck this stupid social conditioning that trains women to kill themselves over failing to fit into a role that nobody could achieve without killing herself. See the irony?
Yolande, you never did anything wrong. You’re allowed to be exactly what you are. Fuck.
A-MEN!
Yolande, I found your blog and site a few months ago while researching through unassisted birth videos, and it (and the way you live, mother, think, research, create) continues to inspire me.
And thank you, WhiteFeather, for your comment. Perfection is bullshit. Perfection is not love, it is not care; perfection is all ego and power-trips, and cold and afraid.
Let’s stay real, please.
Thank you!
Please remove the boys’ names. Their friends are often online. Their names are unusual. It is your choice to make aspects of your life public; please give them a choice and protect them by making them anonymous in this and future posts. Those who know you know who they are; to those who don’t know you, their names don’t matter. This is bravely said, but naming the boys exposes them, and they don’t need that.
I will not be removing anyone’s names from any of my posts. Cedar and Kristjan do not, in fact, have a choice as to whether or not they are my sons. I am their mother. Like most parents, it is my prerogative to blog about my kids. I have revealed nothing of their personal lives, and I have been respectful of their father and stepmother. Why shouldn’t their friends know that they have a mother who loves them? I hope that they themselves have been given honest and accurate information about me, their mother, as well as genuine access to me. If not, perhaps this blog will serve as some kind of reference or contact point in the future. Naming my sons “exposes ” them as my sons. Maybe they do “need” that, or want that. And I will not be bullied by another anonymous (yet by the sounds of it, peripherally involved) observer who seems to think they know best for my children. Your message is bizarre, creepy and offensive.
Furthermore–I have capitulated to requests that I not contact Cedar and Kristjan, I have submitted when told they don’t want to see me, I have somehow lived with the fact that they have been instructed to call another woman “Mummy”. Despite my immediate family following all the rules about not mentioning me or reminding my sons of my existence during the awkward and brief visitations they were allowed, my family too, has become alienated for the most part, from their nephews, grandsons. I have sat in lawyers’ offices in tears when told that even a preliminary foray into litigation towards gaining access to them would cost buckets in years and heartache and money and pain for everyone, and so, as per my ex-husband’s request, I backed right off and I shut up while I was erased from my son’s lives, because this was what was deemed “best” for them. And I decided *not* to air my laundry online, and to focus on my life and the future. And now, after letting slide countless hurtful, ignorant and offensive messages over the years about my “abandonment” of my children, and after sucking my teeth and sitting on my hands for all these years while my sons have grown up, I finally decide to respond honestly, respectfully, and definitively, to one last presumptuous and mean-spirited message sent out of the blue, without provocation, likely issued by someone who seems to think they have something to do with this situation, and you, another anonymous “stranger” have the colossal gall and arrogance and superiority and cowardice to request that I *not use my sons’ *names*?!!!?!? How. Dare. You. I am disgusted by your message. And no. I will continue to be discrete, and respectful, and private–considering that what I *do* is write about my life. And when I feel it necessary, and right, I will continue to speak and write my children’s names. Every single mother, however abject, or indicted, has the right to speak aloud her children’s names. I gave birth to them, I nursed them at my breasts, they heard their first words spoken from my lips, I have a right to their goddamned names, if nothing else. Now get the hell off my blog.
Standing ovation
Amen.
Tru dat!! Get off her blog!! Seriously?!!? Love your blog Yolanda, BIG huge cyber hug from me. I can’t even imagine what you have gone through, and I am so sorry for all the pain you have endured.
Thanks Catherine. Xo 🙂
Yolande I have been reading your blog for a long time now and your honestly, passion and transparency shines brightly. For christ sakes who is perfect and more to the point who wants to be? I woke up a while ago to the fact that generally we do our best at each moment and looking back in retrospect can help us learn from those difficult times, but we always need to be gentle with ourselves when we do. We fuck up, we do well, we are ashamed, we are proud – life constantly evolves and the more we front up the more we can get to a place where we can feel at peace.
My first reaction was to go in boots and all and completely condemn “Anon” for their cruel and cowardly comment – then after I read all the beautiful and encouraging comments – I didn’t feel the need to anymore.
You continue to inspire me 🙂
Thank-you for your courage, integrity and hope. I’m outraged that people think they can judge you, but your response is a gift to the world. Good on you.
Yolande,
I began following your blog a few months before I became pregnant with my first child (three more months to go!). Although I hold beliefs that are fundamentally different from a few of your own, I have such tremendous respect for you and for how fervently you seek truth and goodness. The eloquence and dignity of your writing is inspiring and I have appreciated your transparency and passion. It is always good hear out the other side of things, and you present your beliefs with great conviction. You inspire me to be brave in my own convictions.
I must admit, I have always been curious about the story of your sons Cedar and Kristjan and knew that because of your obvious love for all five of your children, there must be quite a story there. After reading your last post, I am humbled by what you have shared. Not that you need ever care about what some girl in Southern California thinks of you, but I just wanted to say that my already deep respect for you and this blog grew exponentially deeper. The internet can be such a breeding ground for bullying, thoughtlessness and stupidity. Thank you for what you have shared and for doing it with such integrity and such a lack of bitterness towards the one who challenged you in such a cowardly way.
And your response to this person who challenged your use of your own sons’ names…glorious! There is such a thing as righteous anger and you expressed it so well! Shame on this person! May they learn their lesson.
I wish I could tell you all the ways that you have inspired and challenged me, but I will refrain. Thank you for everything you share with all of us who follow you. The Lord bless you, your husband and all five of your children!
Hi Yolande,
I’ve been following your blog for a while now and felt compelled to express how
moved I am by your last post. I’m about to become a mother for the first time, and I am constantly bewildered and impressed and humbled hearing the experiences other women have in that sphere of their lives. It’s inspiring. It’s rich, fertile (ha) stuff, both the lovely and the tragic bits, stuff to get your hands in and learn from. I know I certainly won’t be some perfect mother, as if that even exists, and if it did, what would that even look like? Where’s the humanity in that? It’s so valuable to me to read and absorb stories like yours, and prepare for what has got to be the loveliest yet steepest learning curve ever!
Anyone who truly lives their own lives in a real and honest sense would never have the gall to judge as you (and many others) have been judged. Life is messy, no-one is exempt from this. Thank you for writing so elegantly about your situation, and allowing others this glimpse into openness and self-forgiveness, which I think we should all do a little more of, frankly!
All my best to you and your family,
Hayley (regular reader and fellow Vancouver native!)
Hi,
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile. It is brave to share this story and I am appreciating the honesty and courage. I believe that “good” mothers are mothers that love their children and themselves enough that they can let their children experience whatever happens for them and still be there for them, no matter how they feel, to let their children rage at them and feel everything they feel, and be listened to, loved, protected, safe. You are doing that, will continue to do that, and this is what is most important in motherhood. Everything else about being a “good” mother is all the bullshit people think matters and it really doesn’t.
Thank you so much and know you have sisters who understand this, and ignore anyone who is so wrapped up in their own fear and trauma that they don’t get it yet.
Warmly, Elsa
I love you. I love you. I love you.
in my heart i believe you choose what was best for your children in that moment. and from what i know and believe about parenting and being a mother…THAT is what a loving, caring mother does. those are hard choices sometimes.
i honor you for being a brave, courageous and honest human being. i am a witness of a woman who knows acceptance and who knows transformation…through pain and black holes she know and sees the light and she will be there dancing to meet who ever else joins her there.
i am thankful to have such a strong friend.
i need to speak about using the names of your children in your post. when we speak or think the names of the people in the world, connected to us through family, through blood or just by being human in the world…we speak to their souls. we heal the ties, the pain, the past, the present and the future. we bring joy and peace. answers to questions, gifts. they may not be allowed to be in contact with you in the 3D world but in the fifth dimension their souls hear you and know you and thank you for being yourself. full of love.
high class people speak from their heart and share this with the world.
today your words have touched me deeply, and i am blessed.
love to you
amber
Dear Yolande,
Twenty something years ago I found myself in the same position as your oldest sons do now.
My grandmother and father found it in my best interest to keep a part of my family and my mother away.
All the stuff that they tell you as a ten year old , well if your father tells you that it seems to be true.
My mother never gave up!
Bit by bit I learned the true story of my mum. Sometimes from her self and sometimes of friends and people around me and my mother.
Now I ‘m thirty something and I can see that my grandmother was acting out of love but also out of fear.
And if something is a bad advice giver it is fear…
I also learned with getting older that roots are very important. So some day your sons will want to know the true story. There father and stepmother will not be able then to look them in the eyes and make them believe that there story is the only true story…
Your sons will feel, sense and see in there father eyes that there is much more to tell.
Some day they will come looking for you and find out that they have brothers and sisters. So keep sending there names out there. So if there father will not help them they still have a chance to find you and Lee and all the rest of the family.
People make bad choices in the name of love and fear. But in the end love always wins. So tell your story and let your sons know how much you love them. Over and over and over and over…until they hear it from your lips.
Lots of love, you are a true mother!
Writing is a way of opening the quilt of our past and giving it a good shake, as you have done. Seldom do Mothers abandon children, they flee life threatening situations; be that figurative or literal.
I find it interesting that you gave all your children such non-traditional names. Since I followed the same path with my eldest, and have been called to task over and over; I wonder how you and your children will fare on this level.
No one could doubt your sincerity as a mother – you have had your heart in it from the beginning.
As a wife of a husband who was raised by a single father, I thank you for writing such an honest account of your reality. I agree with you whole heartedly, “We are all together, walking solo.” I often say, “We all share this one world while living in our own individual worlds.”
I pray that one day my husband is ready to heal and forgive. He is not ready to accept, much less to release, the pain of his mother’s abandonment.
I, too, use to be judgmental until I was forced to change by my willingness to live a life full of joy, peace, and happiness.
I do not know when your children will be ready to search you out but when they do they will be sure to love the women their mother has become.
I am glad I came across your story and pray for your personal growth.
Thank you once again for providing insight into your world.
Your message made me cry Leonor. Thank you so much, all the very best wishes for peace and happiness to you and your husband, and your family. Love, Yo
Not sure what to say, but I feel as though my whole being has just expanded.