I recently received what may be one of the most unwarranted insults of my life.
The kind of insult that does not necessarily come wrapped in obvious cruelty, but instead hides itself inside a statement that sounds almost reasonable if you only hear the surface of it.
The kind of statement that makes you stop, replay it, question it, and wonder how someone could look at years of your life and reduce it down to one accusation.
For most people, an insult usually comes in a form we expect. It might be about someone's appearance, their personality, their beliefs, their choices, or the way they live their life. Those things can hurt, but they are often easier to separate from yourself because they are opinions about individual parts of you.
This was different.
This was about my parenting.
And if there is one thing I need to say before anything else, it is this: don't come at me about my parenting.
Not because I believe I am a perfect parent. I am not. I have never claimed to be. I do not know a single parent who is. In fact, I think anyone who believes they have achieved perfection in raising children has forgotten one of the most important truths about parenting: we are raising human beings while being human ourselves.
There is no parent who has never made a mistake. There is no parent who has never lost patience, questioned a decision, wished they could handle a moment differently, or wondered if they were doing enough. There is no parent who has watched their child go through every stage of life without feeling fear, frustration, pride, worry, and sometimes even heartbreak.
Have your children never struggled?
Have they never had emotions you did not fully understand?
Have they never made choices that hurt you?
Have they never tested boundaries, pushed limits, or taken a path that made you wish you could protect them from every consequence?
Of course they have.That is life. That is 100% what parenting is!
Children are not created to be perfect reflections of their parents. They are their own people. They have their own personalities, their own choices, their own battles, and their own lessons to learn.
A parent's job is not to create a flawless child. A parent's job is to love, guide, teach, support, correct, and continue showing up through every version of that child. A parent's job is to let mistakes happen, let things hurt them, let life take hold - and to be there for them when it all does.
That is what makes parenting so difficult. We are given one of the greatest responsibilities a person can carry, but there is no handbook that tells us exactly what every child needs. There is no guaranteed formula. There is no moment where someone hands us a certificate and says, "Congratulations, you have officially mastered raising another human."
We learn.
We adapt.
We apologize.
We grow.
We try again.
Over and over again.
Unfortunately, there are people who still carry their own candle so high that they forget everyone else is also trying to find their way through the dark.
They look at their own experiences, their own choices, their own perspective, and somehow convince themselves that they have earned the right to measure someone else's entire journey. Because their paths looked different, or because they don't agree with a different parenting style. It doesn't make them wrong no more than it makes you riteous... it just makes you different.
But you cannot measure a life you have not lived.
You cannot judge a road you have not traveled.
You cannot know the weight someone carries when you have never had to pick up their baggage and responsibilities.
Because so much of parenting happens where nobody is watching.
It happens in the quiet moments.
The moments that will never make a social media post.
The moments that will never earn applause.
The moments where a parent is exhausted, overwhelmed, scared, and still chooses to show up.
It is the late nights spent worrying.
It is the conversations nobody hears.
It is the decisions made behind closed doors.
It is the tears wiped away when nobody else knows they were shed.
It is the constant mental list that never turns off.
Are they okay?
Did they eat?
Did they sleep?
Are they struggling?
Did I miss something?
Could I have done more?
Motherhood and parenting are already heavy enough without someone deciding they need to add more weight to another person's shoulders.
And that brings me to the sentence that has continued to echo in my mind.
"They deserve a present parent."
I want to be very clear about something.
They do.
They absolutely do.
Children deserve a present parent.
They deserve someone who is there.
Someone who listens.
Someone who remembers.
Someone who advocates.
Someone who puts on a coat of armor ready to fight at the slightest notice.
Someone who celebrates them when they succeed and supports them when they struggle.
Someone who is present not only for the moments that are easy, but for the moments that are hard.
And that is exactly what they have.
They have me. They have my husband. They have US.
I will be honest and say that those words hurt. They did exactly what words like that are meant to do. They found a place where I was already vulnerable. In a place every "good parent" resides. Because let’s be real - does a bad parent care? No... only good parents view their own mirror and tear themselves apart for their children.
They made me question myself. They made me replay years of memories and wonder if somehow I had failed in a way I did not see.
Because every parent who truly cares has those moments.
Every good parent has questioned themselves.
Every good parent has wondered if they were enough.
But then I remembered something important.
I remembered what presence actually looks like.
Presence is not simply showing up when someone notices, reminds or dictates or when the calendar itself shows you when its your time to shine.
Presence is not only being there for the moments that make a good picture.
Presence is built in the ordinary moments that most people never see.
Presence is making sure the school forms are filled out, the registrations are completed, the meet-the-teacher nights are attended, the back-to-school needs are handled, the schedules are remembered, and the little details that make a child feel secure are taken care of.
Presence is being there for the assemblies, the award ceremonies, the graduations, the lunches, the random school days, and the moments where a child simply needs to look into a crowd and know their person is there.
Presence is not just the games people see. It is the practices, the tournaments, the early mornings, the late nights, the driving, the waiting, the standing outside when the weather is miserable, and the moments where you are stretched thin but still find a way because your child deserves that support. It id bebopping from one place to the next making sure that your children with conflicting schedules and events know that each of them matter as much as the other.
Presence is appointments. It is dentists, orthodontists, doctors, specialists, therapy, paperwork, phone calls, follow-ups, and remembering details that nobody else even knows exist.
It is knowing their shoe size, what style they are that week, their friends names, their teachers names, their favorite color and wildest dreams.
Presence is the school nurse calling and knowing you will answer.
It is bringing forgotten clothes.
It is helping with homework.
It is conversations with their schools to make sure they are on the right track to success.
It is research, planning and anticipating needs.
It is filling cabinets.
It is making meals.
It is cleaning up messes.
It is teaching lessons.
It is wiping tears.
It is holding a child through sickness, fear, disappointment, and heartbreak.
It is being the person they come to when life feels too big.
That is presence.
And there is something else that makes this situation even more complicated.
I am not only a mother to the children I gave life to.
I am also a stepmother. So I know how hard that side of it is too.
But I need people to understand something about that. Im not thar different from anyone else wearing two different momma hats.
I do not have two different versions of myself.
I am not one woman to the children who share my blood and another woman to the children who do not.
There is not a different level of love.
There is not a different level of sacrifice.
There is not a different level of commitment.
There is simply me.
The same woman.
The same heart.
The same mother.
I know what it means to love a child who came from me. I know the connection of carrying a child, bringing them into this world, and watching pieces of yourself grow into their own person.
But I also know what it means to love a child who did not come from my body.
I know what it means to choose a child.
To step into a life that existed before you arrived.
To love a child through circumstances you did not create.
To support a child through emotions you did not cause.
To show up because they deserve someone who will.
Being a stepmother is not easy. It requires patience, understanding, and a willingness to love without always receiving recognition. It requires choosing the child even when the circumstances are complicated.
And I have done that.
I have shown up for them also.
I have celebrated them also.
I have supported them also.
I have cared about their hearts also.
But what makes this situation even more insane to me is that I have not only shown up for the children.
I have shown up for you too.
That's right. I have shown up for you - the one who wants to cast undercover hatred my way...
I have encouraged relationships with you, while you've tried to wreck mine.
I have helped them understand when it's too big to understand.
I have softened disappointment caused.
I have made room for grace even when it's not deserved.
I have protected their hearts from carrying more pain than they ever should have had to carry.
Because children should not have to carry adult situations.
They should not have to choose sides.
They should not feel like loving one person means betraying another.
Even when I had opinions, I respected that your parenting journey was yours.
Even when I disagreed, I did not make tearing you down my purpose.
Even when I could have said more, I chose what was best for the children.
Because that is what good parents do.
They put the child's heart above their own pride.
That is why this hurts.
Because I have spent years trying to build bridges while feeling like my own bridge was being questioned.
I have spent years encouraging connection while feeling like my place was being challenged.
I have spent years protecting relationships while being told I am the one who needs to prove my commitment.
No.
I do not.
The years prove it.
The ordinary moments prove it.
The sacrifices nobody saw prove it.
The children themselves prove it.
Those children with kindness in their heart, disipline in their minds, who are well mannered, well educated and secure prove it.
I have never come at you about your parenting, even when I have had opinions, because that was your road.
Your choices.
Your responsibility.
Your journey.
I respected that even if no respect should be given.
So now I am asking for the same respect.
Stay in your lane.
Do not step onto my road and tell me how to walk it.
Do not question miles you did not travel.
Do not judge sacrifices you did not carry.
Do not define presence in a life you have not lived.
Because you do not know the beginning, middle, and end of what present parenting looks like for my children.
You know pieces.
I know the whole story.
And the people who matter most know the truth.
They know who answers.
They know who remembers.
They know who shows up.
They know who stays.
Presence is not proven by a sentence.
Presence is proven by years.
And years of love, sacrifice, and showing up cannot be erased by someone else's opinion.
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