thisisallison

I was 17 when I found out that I was pregnant with my son and was a junior in high school and what a challenge it has been.

I’d like to put it out there that there’s nothing cute or fun about having a baby at 17. I thought long and hard about abortion but decided to keep him because I thought that he deserved a chance at this thing called life. So as it stands, nine months later I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. It probably comes to no surprise that I ended up not staying with his father. He doesn’t carry his father’s last name either. My son carries my last name and I like that we both share the same last name because there’s nothing like a child going to school or to the doctor’s office  and not having the same name as the parent that’s raising him or her but that’s just my opinion.

I knew it would be hard raising him without his father being an active part of his life but nothing could prepare me for the things that I would face. As a single mom, I went to undergraduate and graduate school so that I could provide for us. I got a teaching job and even worked part time jobs to make enough money to take care of us but it’s hard trying to raise your child and fight what he hears in the streets, in terms of how he should behave and carry himself as a man at the same time. What I mean is that my son has always been popular and therefore has never met a stranger. It wasn’t until middle school that I started to notice that he had changed, even his circle of friends changed. He wasn’t focused on his school work. He was always getting into trouble and as he entered into high school that was no different. You see, without me knowing, my son had already subjected himself to gangs and gang activities in middle school and that carried over into high school as well. I always told my son that he had two strikes against him, he was black and a male. But that didn’t resonate with him until years later.

I can’t count the number of times I have been in court with him over petty charges. I can’t count the number of times I had to pay money for him to complete community service so that things didn’t go on his record. I can’t count the number of times he’s stolen from me, my mom, and even my brother. I can’t count the number of times he’s lied to me. I can’t count the number of times he’s manipulated me. I can’t and won’t lie. The lying, stealing, and manipulation hurt a lot.  And I can’t count the number of chances God has given him and prayerfully he does not have a record, is in jail, or is dead. I’ve had to do everything on my own besides the help and support my family has given me but his dad was never around to support him or help me raise him. I can recall the one time I called his dad for help because our son was being hella rebellious and his father’s response was: What do you want me to do? I guess nothing which is what I was thinking to myself. There are so many times when he needed a man and all he had was me. Therefore, my son has had to learn some hard lessons about life through trial and error because he simply would not listen to me nor his grandparents.

The challenges I mostly faced raising my son is that I had rules and expectations that I expected him to follow, but in the homes of other single mothers of sons they had figured out how to get over on their mothers, so my son learned very quickly how to get over on me. In a sense he was a latch key kid and that wasn’t his fault. I taught full time during the day and then worked part time two nights a week to keep food on the table, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our head. I expected him to go home from school and do his homework like a good little boy and eat dinner and be ready to get to bed by the time I got him. However, he did the complete opposite. It was nothing but free time for him to wreck havoc. At 15 he got his first of many tattoos. And of course he lied about them. He started skipping school to go smoke and do God knows whatever else he was doing. That was a challenge in itself as I was a teacher at the very school he was acting out in. Therefore, I made the decision to switch the school he attended by moving into a different school zone and that was no help either. I would get him up before I went to work and made sure he had breakfast and yet again he would skip school. I really did not know what to do with him. One night he broke curfew and when I asked why he was late and where had he been, he told me: Fuck you, bitch. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I made the decision to call the cops on him for non compliance that night. He had been drinking that night as well. The cops talked me out of pressing charges, but I knew I could not let that go. They referred me to a court counselor and so I followed up with that department. We, rather he, went through three months of intensive in house training and it helped for the three months of active counseling and after that things went back to like it had been which consisted of him staying out late, lying, skipping school, drinking, and smoking. This went on for what seemed like years and years. It was always something with him, whether it was the school calling because he was failing all his courses or him sneaking and driving my car while I was sleeping. Not long after that I decided that school was not working for him and we made the decision that he would drop out of day school and try attending night school. Night school  lasted for a week because he was not motivated.

Once he dropped out of school, he resorted to a gang once again and that came with challenges of its own such as not knowing where he was or who he was with. He started robbing and stealing and doing a lot of things that could land him in jail or dead.  I hated the fact that he chose that lifestyle but there was nothing I could do about it, absolutely nothing because he had already had his mind made up about this decision about being in a gang. That was his life and he loved every minute of it so much that it almost took a turn for the worst. What I will say about the gang life is that it does not love you back. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was a summer night in June and no one had heard from him since earlier in that day and at this point it was almost midnight. Text messages and calls to his phone both went unanswered. Then out of the blue at around 1AM I received a call from him asking me if I wanted something to eat from IHOP. To see if he was lying, I told him to bring me a red velvet pancake. Hours went by and I finally heard the front door open and heard him stumble into the house. I was relieved to know that he was ok. However it was nearly 3AM at that time and he was due to go to work at 8AM that morning. Well, morning came and I tried to wake him but couldn’t. As long as he was breathing, I was fine. He had slept well into the afternoon. Once he did wake up, he was confused. He didn’t even know what the day was. Turns out he was high off two bars of  Xanax and Hennessy. Talk about a bad combination. To this day, I don’t know how he got home that night or who he was with but it was scary to know that he was out intoxicated in that manner. That was his turning point.

Sadly enough, whenever I read about an African American male being shot by the police I think about how likely and very easily that could have been my son. Believe it or not, there was one time when I had started preparing myself for his demise because that’s just how bad things had gotten.  However, he is currently 23 with two kids and possibly one more on the way and he’s still trying to figure it, though he’s in a much better space than he was before. He is no longer affiliated with a gang. They say it takes men longer to mature than it does for women. I hope it doesn’t take too much longer for him. He’s not quite there yet, but he’s making strides in the right direction. Through all of what we have experienced, I never gave up on him because I knew that God didn’t put him on this earth to be a failure. He knows right from wrong because of what I taught him and how I raised him, along with the help of family and special friends. But above all things, I believe in him. In his dreams and his vision that he has for his life.  I’ve never stopped believing in him. When he’s wrong, I let him know it. When he’s right, I compliment him. We celebrate triumphs together and we cry through trials together. I try to keep him uplifted in a world that shows and tells him otherwise. As I mentioned previously, he has two beautiful daughters and possibly another one on the way and what I’ve told him is to not be the man he warns his daughters about. All in all I will say that TuPac said it best that for a woman it ain’t easy trying to raise a man. I’ve done my very best, but now the rest is up to him.

With love, peace, and happiness,

L. Purvis