What if my son was gay?

When I was pregnant, a lot of people asked me what I would do if my son grew up to be gay.

I guess for teenagers with a pregnant friend, that's definitely on the list of things you MUST ask her. 

But I typically told them, "Well, good for him, then!"

My first openly gay friend was a guy I met in the summer of grade 9 while I went to summer school at John Cabot S.S. He's a year older than me, but I was taking grade 10 English to fast track while he was taking it to bump up his mark from the semester before.

Anyway, all the other students in the class were snotty little rich kids that were as dumb as doornails, while he seemed to be the only person in the class who could talk about more than just shopping or getting into fights. 

You know how you meet a person and you automatically know that they're homosexual and it's not to judge them, but it's kind of the same thing as a homosexual person knowing that someone is a heterosexual and that's just the way it works. Well I immediately knew, but I didn't question it or press it because I didn't know he was openly gay until of course he admitted it to me one fine, summer afternoon. 

Anyway, he was the only friend I made in that class, I found out around the time my son was born that he was diagnosed with cancer, but he fought it and to this day, he's doing much better.

I guess up until meeting Mark, I thought homosexuality was somewhat taboo. I hate to admit it, but my mother is a crazy traditionalist with that mind set of "If my son was gay, I would be so disappointed and ashamed" etc., etc. You know the deal; and that's what I grew up with. But as the years went by and I grew up with the ever-changing perceptions of social acceptance, I finally have a real answer to the question of, "What if my son was gay?"

This kind of relates back to one of my previous blog posts titled "Shorty", the one about how being a good parent means that I will do everything in my power to make sure that society's perception of my son's physical traits won't reduce the probability of his future success. Well the same thing applies with this instance.

I want my son to be the best he can be while still being who he is and proud of what he was born with. As long as he does right by others and does his best in all that he does, then gay or not, I'll be proud of him nonetheless.

Not to mention that if he does happen to be homosexual, then he better damn well make the best of it. 

The truth is, a lot of mothers want their sons to be loving gentlemen and grow up to become wonderful fathers and good, loyal, and loving husbands. I can't say this for ALL mothers, but for myself at least, I know that whomever my son chooses to partner up with and love for the rest of his life, I want it to be because they also chose him for being the best he could be in every aspect of his life. Even if  he gives it his all yet his "best" isn't enough to meet societal standards, then my job is to raise him well enough to wisely choose someone who will love him for just that. 

Now, to me, it doesn't matter if that person ends up being a man or a woman, as long as my son is with someone who treats him right and someone who deserves the best my son can give them.

A lot of people reading this can argue with me, I've gotten into many fights over social networks because some people aren't as open minded towards the acceptance of the LGBTQ crowd while I've been advocating the growth of a community free of discrimination against homosexuals and any the like.

My son is fairly observant, and although I don't know that he's personally met anyone openly homosexual, I know that he understands the loving, romantic relationship between two people. I want him to know that so long as two people are human, there are no limits to their love given it be real and loyal. Even if he is heterosexual, I want him to be accepting of other people's sexuality. In fact, I don't even want him to see it as anything weird or different. I want him to be able to brush it off as something as common as anything else so that he doesn't even think twice about whether a person is straight or gay, he just looks straight into the essence of who they are. The biggest problem people have nowadays is that they could be looking the most genuine friend in the face, but their race or religion or sexuality will deter them from pursuing a friendship. Why is that? It's such a problem in this society. We miss out on being such good people as well as meeting such good people simply because we're too busy being judgmental about all the aspects of other people that shouldn't even be considered the defining factors of human goodness or wisdom or intellect or trustworthiness or any of the admirable traits that we all aspire to attain. I mean, I hope that my son surrounds himself with good people, people who wouldn't judge him if he were gay, or half asian or half white, or catholic, or rich or poor. But at the same time, you can only surround yourself with people that are good if you yourself practice the same goodness and that's what I want him to be. 

So what if my son was gay?

It doesn't matter. If he is my son, then he will be honest, respectful, loyal, wise, humble, open-minded, and loving because I am raising my son to be that way. I'm not raising my son to be tall or short, fat or skinny, straight or gay, white or asian; I'm not raising him to be anything he can't change. I'm raising him to be the best of what he has and to respect other people for the best of what they are. And that's how it should be, and with him, that's how it will be.  

Mommy's Boyfriend

In the four years of my son's existence, my son has known mommy to have only ever had two boyfriends. One of them only being around until my son turned two and the other being my current boyfriend.

Despite what everyone else might think, no, I have never introduced my son to any of the other guys I've been with, in fact, my son's current perceptions of love and relationships are based on what exists between my current boyfriend and myself.

It's always a complicated thing to have a child involved in a relationship like mine because you don't want your child to develop trust issues based on your poor judge of character. And at the end of the day, your child is a part of who you are and it's up to the person you're with to thoroughly understand that your child is part of the relationship he's getting into.

Luckily for me, I have the most understanding boyfriend I could have ever wished for and I was reminded of that last night.

Before getting into anything, I need to give you a back story. Before we started dating, I was always insecure that being a teen mom was a reason for guys to be uninterested in me. To be honest, it actually is something that a lot of guys look at as extra baggage that they don't want to deal with. However, since I've been friends with my boyfriend, Anthony, he's always appreciated my motherhood as a reason to respect me. When we started dating, he saw my motherhood as a reason to love me. 

His respect for my son has always been far beyond doing it to impress me or anything like that. Immediately since we started dating, he never looked at my son as something he had to simply accept as part of my life. He didn't see it merely as an added feature that he had to deal with. He genuinely looked at my son as another part of me that he would end up loving too.

I was nervous bringing my son around him, not because I didn't trust him, but because I just had this insecurity that he would think my son was a burden. However, I came to realize that even though my boyfriend and I love having our alone time and having one-on-one dates together, he still enjoyed spending time with my son. And when the three of us went out together, it wasn't because my son had to be there, it was because we wanted him there.

But on top of that, there have been several factors that contributed to my growing trust in my boyfriend with my son. It wasn't in the simple things like caring about his general safety and discipline, but it was the fact that not only has he always tried to be a teacher to my son, but he's also been there for him as a good friend and has done things for him as an act of love and respect for the both of us.

So here's the back story:

Just last May, after my son had only spent one or two times getting to know my boyfriend, the three of us spent the entire day together. It started with spending a few hours at a car show, then going to Rib Fest, getting frozen yogurt, and finally spending the rest of the day at the park. 

The day carried out really well, we had a lot of fun, and I got to spend quality time with two my absolute favourite people. 

When we decided to go to the park, it was already later in the day and my boyfriend really only took us there so my son could squeeze in the last bit of fun before it got colder. There were still a lot of children at the playground, so my son ran to play with them while my boyfriend and I sat at a picnic bench watching him. Everything was fine for the most part until we both noticed something very peculiar.

My son randomly stopped playing, and we realized that from the top of the jungle gym, he was staring intently at family on the playground. It was a dad and his two kids, a girl and a boy, running around the playground playing tag. 

Both of us knew immediately why, my son was overcome with the feeling of longing, maybe loneliness, maybe even jealousy that these two kids had a dad they could play with, and at that time, my son hadn't seen his own dad in nearly two months. So, he did what any three year old would do in that situation (yes, he was still three at the time), he decided to play with those kids and get the attention of their dad.

I know what you're thinking, "What the hell!?"

My son doesn't always talk about his dad and he rarely ever showed that he missed him, so it took us both by surprise and we were even slightly baffled. I was actually hurt, I have never seen my son do anything like that before and it really hit me that my son my son was getting older meaning he was beginning to develop a daddy issues complex. However, because I was so overwhelmed by it, I simply couldn't move, I just stared with my jaw to the floor. But as soon as we saw it happen, my boyfriend didn't even take a second to think about it. He did what he felt he needed to do, didn't bother asking me what to do next, he simply got up from the picnic bench and ran over to the playground. He took it upon himself to start chasing Matheson as soon as he got there and started playing their own game of tag in order to get Matheson's attention; it worked. But then the father would do something with his kids like pick them up and hug them or kiss them or tickle them and my son's attention would go back to them. It was hard for me to take in, and at that point, I was in tears because I couldn't believe my little boy reached the point in his life where he was able to understand that his daddy wasn't being a very good daddy and I never wanted that to happen. However, back to the playground, my boyfriend knew it would be a bad idea to just tell him it was time to go, so instead, he picked him up and helped him with the monkey bars, and asked Matheson to try jumping off the ledge and into his arms or to climb up the weird bars and steps that would prove a little more difficult for a three year old. Either way, it was enough to keep his mind focused else where and my boyfriend really put in the effort to help Matheson because he cared. 

Now, since then, my boyfriend has always been there for my son. The two of them have established their own separate relationship. It's beyond just being "my mommy's boyfriend" and "my girlfriend's son", they're actually good friends and they both have that weird boyish connection that I'll never understand where they joke around about farting and pooping and burping, while engaging in weird discussions about toys my son has or likes and about car related things that my boyfriend wanted to teach my son about.

I remember one time after I finished having a shower, I came downstairs to see my boyfriend and my son with their eyes glued to my boyfriend's phone watching drifting videos. You can tell my son really looks up to him because he says a lot of funny things now that I know are influenced by my boyfriend. They generally involve cars, driving, drifting, racing, or just speed and vehicles altogether; but sometimes he'll remind me of some advice that my boyfriend would impart just to teach my son a lesson and clearly it would always stick.

Don't get me wrong, my boyfriend isn't trying to replace my son's father by any means and my son knows that. But they have their own friendship and my son has told me several times before that he loves my boyfriend or that he misses him when he doesn't see him for a few days. 

I understand that my boyfriend has become dangerously close to my son in the sense that if anything were to happen between us, it wouldn't just affect the two of us, it would also affect Matheson. We're both aware of that, but I think that's one of the funny hidden blessings behind our relationship. Besides being best friends and getting along as well as we do, my son sees that we love each other so much and it's something I noticed that he looks up to. A few months ago, my son told me that he loves my boyfriend because he makes us both happy, and because he knows my boyfriend loves us too. And one of the most powerful things about a child's mind is their ability to know when they are loved.

Sometimes, I tend to forget how important my boyfriend is in my son's life apart from my own. However, last night, while I was putting my son to bed, he said to me, "Oh no! I forgot to say good night to Anthony!" I said it was okay and that I would tell him before he leaves, and my son responded with, "Okay, you better make sure. I don't want Anthony to be sad because I forgot to say bye."

It showed me that my son really does care about my boyfriend as much as my boyfriend cares about him. It served as a little reminder that Anthony really has done so much for the both of us probably even without knowing and I couldn't thank him enough for being so amazing to the both of us. 

The Baby Daddy Problem

The most common form of the Baby Daddy Problem, that I have come to witness at least, is when mothers go ape-shit cray cray (for lack of a more suitable term) because their baby daddy is dating another girl.
Most of the mothers who have this problem tend to suffer from their own daddy issues or attachment issues. For the most part, it's jealousy, and some women just don't know how to deal with it properly. The saddest thing is that because mother's are generally granted primary custody of their children, they use visitation as a weapon against the child's father. This is where the "high school" mentality comes in. These women... no, sorry... these girls with children seem to forget that what is best for their kids is the love of BOTH their parents. Baby girl doesn't know you and daddy are fighting, she just wants to be with her daddy and feel loved by him.
I have seen so many cases where young moms or teen moms will refuse the father of their children the right to visitation because she is jealous of daddy's new girlfriend. Which I find funny in a particular unnamed case because even when the dad is not only paying child support without being able to see his kid, he also doesn't have any habits of doing drugs or drinking alcohol, he tries calling to talk to the child, even so much as hearing his child's voice knowing he's not allowed to actually visit, he even tries contacting the mother to see how his child's doing knowing that he's missing so much of his kid's life, but the mother still refuses to let this loving father see his children because he has a girlfriend. Of course, they will never blatantly admit it, but saying such things as, "I don't 'agree' with the people you hang out with" as a reason to revoke the right of visitation upon saying such things as "I just don't want you bringing our son/daughter near your girlfriend" or "I don't want your girlfriend trying to hug or kiss my baby," etc. etc. I mean, there is a pretty obvious indicator of jealousy and insecurity issues with mama bear.
Except it gets worse. These moms are usually prone to being in unstable, short relationships (usually lasting 3-6 months) that are typically stirred for more sexual reasons than reasons of companionship, they then have the audacity to bring men in and out of the home and around their children.
Look, ladies, if this is you, then you're insane. Sorry to come off strong, but if your jealousy has enough hold on your emotions that you feel it justifies your overall actions when you put your hatreds and jealousy over the emotional security of your own children, then you are truly cranked in the head. Your child will hate you once they're old enough to find their father and discover the true story for themselves. They will hate you for taking them away from their father because while you feed them the lies that daddy is the one who doesn't want to see them, at the end of the day, the truth will surface and at that point, the damage is done, you have already withheld your child's right to see his or her father when it was not your right to take.

You want to know why I feel so strongly about this? Well let me tell you about MY baby daddy problem.

My son's father chose to disappear before my son was born. He chose to abandon his son, and still, to this day, fails on the part of being a responsible father and replaces these responsibilities with any such indulgences that might trap the typical 21 year old boy.
But the thing is, indulgences and luxuries aside, he didn't have the right to remove himself from my son's life. He didn't have the right to leave my son without a dad, because as much animosity as I have felt toward him over the years, I have always known that what I feel for my son's dad should never change how my son feels for him. A father-son relationship is a world apart from the relationship of a 16 year old girl and a 16 year old guy who got into a bit of trouble in high school and started hating each other for it.
When you become a parent, you forfeit your right to put anything else above your children. It is an obligation, it is just a simple, unwritten law that governs society, that as a parent, you must put your child above everything else, and if you can sit there and tell me that your immature teenage girl jealousy is an exception to this, you best fucking believe that you are batshit crazy (pardon my vulgarity).
People ask me all the time why my son's father doesn't pay child support, or rather, why I never tried to claim it. In my opinion, I hold my own, there should never be a price on your child's head like that. Now, that is not my money, that is technically my son's. So, if at a certain age, my son decides that he wants to sue his father for unpaid child support, by all means, he can, and he will win the suit because that money is rightfully his, but until then, I don't need to claim any money that doesn't belong to me. Unfortunately, my son's father is unaware that our little boy will still be fully entitled to all the unpaid child support from the point of his birth up until the age of 18. But it further stands to reason that if he did a good job being a father now, my son wouldn't feel the need to sue him for unpaid child support because there shouldn't be a numerically valued price on being a good parent.

However, he doesn't pay child support, he doesn't pay for anything except for birthday and Christmas presents. I know he can afford to contribute to more than just that, if he's paying for his own full sleeve tattoo and a touch-up job for his girlfriend amongst other pricey indulgences, then he can definitely pay for more than just a Christmas present and a Birthday present for his son every year. Except he doesn't. Though I'm not any less inclined to allow him to see his son. My son deserves to know his father for who he is, all the good and all the bad. He has the right to form his own relationship with his dad based on what he sees for himself, not from what he hears from me.
You might be wondering, why would I let my son bother with a guy like his father when, as a mom, I should know that my son deserves the absolute best, he deserves the world and that he doesn't deserve a dead beat dad kicking around. Well, my logic tells me that if I am being my absolute best for my son, then that means I should always give his father the chance to do his absolute best as well, even if he's failed time and time again to be that for his kid. My son still loves his father. He doesn't know what drugs are, he doesn't know what they do to you, he doesn't even truly understand the responsibility that a father should have. All he knows is that when daddy comes to visit, that's Matheson and daddy time, and my son will always make the best of it because he misses his dad. I don't need to tell my son any of the bad stuff, I don't need my son to worry that his father isn't the same as the daddies of his friends at school. He just needs to know that he has one and what he sees is what he gets.
It's a weird sort of logic, but I don't hold jealousies or insecurities as a reason influence my son's well-being. This is primarily the reason why I absolutely can't stand mothers who refuse good, hardworking fathers the right to see their kids just because they feel self-entitled after winning a custody battle and have decided to use visitation as weapon when they're feeling butt-hurt over the jealousy of a daddy's new girlfriend. I mean, get over it. My baby daddy doesn't pay child support, his girlfriend is literally a crack head, and a user of other drugs, I mean the guy hasn't called or tried to figure out how our son's been doing in the last four months, but if he asked me tomorrow to see his son, the only thing I ask is a clear drug screening report from him (and from his girlfriend if he wants her to see our son too) and with that he's okay to visit under my supervision.

Be thankful for what you have. If you're the type of mother I described earlier, then I'm sorry, but even if my son has a dead beat dad, you're certainly no better as a mom. You actually force your child not to see one of their parents for your own selfish gain and that's honestly so much worse compared to a parent who chooses on their own not to be there.

The "Social Media" Baby

Everyone knows at least one social media baby; a baby that you see more pictures of in one day than most people post of themselves in a whole year. It's fairly common nowadays, especially amongst the SAHMs out there. I was totally guilty of this when I had my son in high school because I took a semester off to stay with him. Once I got to university and started working two jobs though, the countless facebook pictures started to dwindle off, and now that my son has started JK, taking pictures and posting them on social media channels is just an unnecessary task when I could just take a million pictures of him and keep them to myself. I really only post pictures of him once a week or on special occasions and I feel like that should be enough.
But for those of you wondering why people turn their kids into social media babies, let me explain what I believe to be the reason.

To this day, my son is my pride and joy. I take pictures of him all the time. Racking up to over 5000 pictures on my phones throughout the years, I've had to transfer them to an external hard drive or to my computer. Now pictures with my DSLR and with my average point and shoot, I have probably racked up to a near 7,000 images combined. Not to mention just under 200 videos from my mobile devices and my cameras.

It's just one of those things you do as a parent, you see your kids grow up so fast and you know you never want to regret not taking enough pictures or videos when it's too late to turn back.
But the big question is, why do we think you even give a crap to see our babies doing the same pose fifty times a day?
Truth is, it's for attention. You and I both know a person wouldn't take that extra time out of their day to put pictures of their babies up on the internet with the intention for no one to ever see them, it would be stupid and a useless waste of effort.
That being said, they will flood your instagram and your news feed and your timeline with endless amounts of pictures because to them, they couldn't care less for the hundreds of followers and friends who find it annoying, as long there's about ten who don't.
Truth be told, I love creeping my friends' kids. I love babies. I love seeing how some moms choose to decorate their baby nursery and how some choose to redecorate their toddler's bedrooms as they grow. I like seeing their kids doing silly things or dressed in adorable outfits. And the likelihood that those mom's that I love creeping also love seeing their friends' kids as well is pretty high. That in itself is a justifiable reason to post an hourly picture of their kid.
But keep in mind, there's more to it than just the attention. Stay at home moms get bored. It's not the type of bored where you have nothing to do because of course moms are busy doing mom things. It's just the type of bored where being a young mom and all, they want to communicate with people who can understand greater concepts than "squares have four sides and red and blue make purple". But it's hard to have that communication because... well.. a young mom is a young mom. That means all her friends of around the same age--all those people she could be communicating with--are busy doing things that normal young people do before becoming a mom is even a thought. Young moms just don't have the luxury of socializing and hanging out with friends. Hell, they rarely have anyone to talk to except their kids, so when they want to talk about their kids, they really have no one to tell except maybe grandma and grandpa... So where's mommy's outlet? How does she compensate for that lack of socializing so to speak? Through social media.

Smartphones make it so easy to watch your kid and still see what the rest of the world is up to and to some degree it satiates that desire for social interaction because facebook and twitter and instagram synthesize personal communication. Now for mommy, that's the best way for her to feel like she isn't just staying at home with her kids day in and day out while her friends are having fun being young. Social networking gives you the opportunity to know what people are doing and what they're thinking about; you can see where they are and who they're with; you can see what they're eating and how much weight they lost in the last three months without having to arrange babysitting so you can see these things for yourself. As a mom with limited socializing options, it only makes sense to share what you're doing with the rest of the world to feel like you're part of this social circle.
For example: Wow, you just had sushi and bought a new arm chair from pier 1? Well, let me show you the snacks I prepared for my kid today and this is what he wore to the mall!
I mean as a mom sitting a foot away from your baby, does it not stand to reason that you're going to take pictures of what you know to be the most beautiful thing in the world (your offspring) and post these pictures everywhere?

That's why I did it. That's why to this day, for those who follow me on instagram, you will see pictures of my son doing dorky things because he's always with me and I spend most of my time with him, and sometimes, I just need to share these things that make me laugh or smile over social media networks.

However, it's not just about the attention, it's the pride. And it's not just mommies doing this, it's everyone. Everyone turns their loves, passions or pride into their own versions of a "social media baby"
If you're going to post twenty selfies of your tits popping out a day, its because you're probably proud of your flawless tits and you like the attention. If you post ten pictures of your car a day, odds are likely, it's because you put a lot of effort or money into that car, you probably love it, you're proud of it, and hell, you like the attention. If you post twenty gym/workout/lift pictures of yourself a day along with all the protein supplements you're pumping into your system, its because you want to show off your body, your effort to get that body, you're proud of your progress and you damn well like the attention. If you post twenty pictures of the awesome food you eat, and the nice jewelry you wear, and all your outfits, its because you're a bloody hipster...... aaaand because you like the attention. If you post a thousand clubbing pictures, you like the attention and want to show people you like to have fun.
So as I defend the young moms out there who may go crazy with posting pictures of their kids; just remember, if they want to post twenty pictures a day of their children, rest assured, it's because they're proud as hell parents, and they just so happen to like the attention.

Books are treasures

Not everyone is a book nerd. Not everyone likes books. But I like to believe that most parents still want their children to love and respect books as treasures.

I started reading to Matheson as early as he was only a fetus, since before I even knew I was having a boy. I would read everything to the jelly bean, from simple "easy readers" books that I planned to read to him as a baby, and even to reading aloud some of the novels I went through for my own fancy during pregnancy. At first it started out as a relaxing thing. For me, reading out loud during pregnancy helped me get used to the fact that I was expecting a baby. I suppose it was because I was acknowledging the presence of someone who could hear me even though he wasn't entirely there yet. As the pregnancy progressed, I thought maybe he'd be more accustomed to my reading voice out of the womb if he heard it enough from inside so I started reading to my fat belly every night before bed. Whether or not it had an actual effect on my son, I can't be too sure, but over the years he's maintained his love and fascination for books so I can't say it didn't help.

Before he was born, I already had a set of easy books for him. Just simple stories that I could read to him every night. It became a lot harder when he was around 8 months old because he started talking and interjecting between all the pages and if I didn't get through the book in under a minute, we wouldn't end up finishing the book at all. 

By the age of two, his attention span was much more forgiving and I was able to finish reading books cover to cover, though I still had to read pretty fast before his attention span dawdled to something else. But because he was already so fluent in English, I started introducing French books to him as a challenge and over time he was identifying some things from the stories we read like une baleine, un canard, un chat and other animals. 

Luckily for me, he's appreciated all types of stories and I noticed his love for books started off early when he began requesting the books he memorized so he could say them with me as I read to him. 

After I started university, my son was a little over two, I was also working two part-time jobs. The bed-time story routine stopped for a while because of that. It was really hard for me to get home before his bed-time so he usually went to bed without a story at all. Eventually I quit both my jobs so I could focus on school and the book-reading routine continued. Now, at the age of roughly four and a half, and a good bed-time story routine instilled, my son absolutely loves stories. On top of having a short story every night, we're reading an abridged version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and he seems to be pretty invested in it so far. He always remembers where we left off and he'll ask questions about characters and their motives so I know he's paying fair attention.

It's little things like that that make parenting so fulfilling. I can't explain my love and fascination for books and for reading, but I know he's developed a love for them as well. He remembers all the plots, long or short, and even though he's still in the process of really being able to read, he understands the construction of a good story. He's developing his comprehension skills and I noticed that he's doing a good job identifying characters with their traits, their roles in the story and their titles. He always tries to determine their motives, while understanding when a character has done something bad or something good and tries to come up with ways that a mischievous character ought to redeem his or herself, even if it's as simple as having a character admit to stealing the cookies before dinner and giving mom an apology hug. Many parents can dispute this, but I believe character analysis at a young age is a very healthy tool in becoming a good judge of character when kids get older and face their own real life villains and encounter true to life heroes.

I guess as you go through the motions of a learning parent, you realize the importance of books and the impact that stories have on your children. Books really are treasures in a manner of speaking and with my son, I do expect him to treat books with a level of respect (unless I can agree that they are absolute garbage, like The Mortal Instruments series, my sentiments towards that story line is a whole other post of malcontent and sheer dissatisfaction). I want my son to value the simplicity of words written on sheets of paper that have the ability to take your mind out of reality, even if for a few moments. If you grow up with books the way I did, you learn to love the sheer simplicity in turning pages and the thrill of a building plot. I want him to appreciate the classics for the principles they inspire and even contemporary works that he can follow through to the denouement and still let his creativity and imagination alternate the resolve. I can say I want him to be like me, but I don't. I just want him to develop the admirable traits that people get when they have a care for such things as books and I'm thoroughly hoping he does become an avid reader, even if his taste for books vary dramatically from my own.

So anyway, this month, I've gone a little crazy with my book purchases, but namely because there are so many things on sale at Indigo. I've purchased a fair amount of reads for myself as well as for Matheson and I must say I'm pretty impressed so far. For anyone looking to get a good read for yourself or for your children or as a gift for a friend or family member, these are the books I've picked up this month and I do recommend them.

    

My titles:
Antigoddess by Kendare Blake
Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Dark Witch (Book one of The Cousin's O'Dwyer Trilogy) by Nora Roberts

My son's titles:
Advent Elf by Barbara Korthues
Christmas Hat by The Templar Company PLC
Snow Tree by A.J. Woods
The Dark by Lemony Snicket
Grumpy Badger's Christmas by Paul Bright
The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
Jack the Bear by Christina Leist

Supporting local talent: City In Fall - Razz & Calabru

This is a weird change of pace, but I think I should include this in my blog.

The music video in this post is of a song written and composed by local Toronto talent: Razz & Calabru.
Now you're probably wondering, what is this doing on your "teen mom" blog. Well, I think a huge part about being who I am and about my identity is the fact that on top of being a mom, I'm also a student attending a university in the downtown core of Toronto.
I met Stefan Calabrese, also known as "Calabru", two years ago from my first year Frosh group. He ended up being one of my closest friends at school and made the best company I've had the pleasure of knowing throughout my years at Ryerson U. He later introduced me to Marco Razzolini, who I tend to forget is even named Marco because I've always known him as Razz, but between the two of them, I can proudly call them friends.
After getting to know both of them and spending a lot of break time between classes with them in my first year, I can attest to them being wonderful and genuine people as well as being talented artists.
I know any mother should be so lucky to have a son as gifted, hardworking and driven as these two. It's amazing to say that they've come this far from a dream that they've been pursuing since a little before I met them. I remember when they used to sneak into the recording studio at school on Friday afternoons even though they weren't allowed to use any of the equipment, but then they moved on to bigger and better things and a year later, they were selling CDs and BLIS music group sweaters to family, friends and people around campus. (Thankfully for winter, I can finally start wearing my BLIS hoodie again).
Anyway, I'm doing what I can to help spread their name as they just released a new video and watching it sent chills down my spine simply because I can say I know these guys and I'm so proud of how they've progressed between the time I first met them and now. 

Anyway, check out their new video, even if it's not your taste, take the time to support your local talent. 

How Beyblades taught me a thing about parenting

So I'm pretty puzzled about this Beyblade thing. My son's been raving about this fad for months now and I didn't think it necessary to buy him the toy because he has more than enough toys as it is. On top of that, I was about 10 years old when the whole Beyblade thing was all the rage and first came out as a trend so I thought by now it had lost all it's flare, but apparently I'm wrong.
As the school year progressed and all my son's friends had a Beyblade toy to boast about, I figured maybe it was about time he got one too.
Anyway, out of curiosity, I watched a few episodes of this Beyblade show with him and I can't say I'm particularly impressed, retro Pokemon and Digimon are where it's at, but he doesn't seem to sympathize with me on that. However, I'm just "mom" and I guess I'm getting to that point of parenthood where I'm not actually as cool to him as I thought I was.
My curiosity with this Beyblade fad was piqued two weekends ago while at my uncle's house because my little cousin (who's five years old) has one of these Beyblade stadium things with these spinning hunks of plastic and metal that are the essence of the "Beyblade". So while there, Matheson and my boyfriend, Anthony, probably played with it for about an hour, though I'm sure they would have played for longer if we didn't have an agenda to attend to that day; and after missing his nap, Matheson caused a fit because we told him he couldn't play anymore and had to eat dinner.

Since that day, all my son would talk about were these Beyblades, throwing in hints about Christmas and Santa Claus and the fact that Target and Toys R Us are having a sale on Beyblades (yes, my son reads the flyers so he can update me on toy sales). Finally, that day came, that day being today, and I bought my son a pack with two Beyblades for 10 bucks. I decided to play with him and unfortunately, I'm possibly the most competitive mom out there. Anyone who knows me knows that I'll never just let my son win anything, ever. From tic tac toe to checkers, even racing to finish our food at dinner and now with beyblades. Yeah, so I got a little into it and kicked his ass about 15 times in a row playing these Beyblades which is probably awful, but I got to play with him and I made sure that he was enjoying the toy.

I ignored his requests to get this Beyblade thing for so long and I'm only realizing now that these fads are part of a proper social upbringing. Learning from that, I want to make sure my son still gets to experience a social life filled with really lame fads that die fast, but still being able to value them as he gets them.
However, as a responsible parent, you can never really let go of the fundamentals. It's important to understand that fads at the age of 4 years old might only be of Beyblades and Angry Birds, but it could lead to fads at 16 years old being "later-to-regret" tattoos and a hit of M or two at every party, every weekend. I keep forgetting what it's like to be in school and around friends who you try to fit in with. It's just a matter of having a safe balance of letting your kids have fun while teaching them how to do the right thing.
After buying my son this Beyblade, I told him that he needs to be responsible with it. Sure, it was only ten bucks, so what do I care if he breaks it in the next week? Well, I don't want him to believe it's value can be measured as less or more than anything else, the point is, it belongs to him and someone gave it to him. It's now become something to take care of. Like the gloves and hat he leaves at school all the time and day in and day out I get mad at him for being so careless with his things, I want this toy to be a learning tool for him to hold a sense of responsibility for his belongings. I want him to make use of it and I want him to understand the value of his possessions and to be grateful for what he has. Setting these ideals for him is what I believe to be an important part of teaching your child how to make good choices. The worst part about growing up with very hardcore, traditional immigrant parents was that they never TAUGHT my brother or myself how to make decisions, they just kept making decisions for us and told us they were always right. They didn't let us think, they thought for us. Until one day, they decided my brother and I were old enough to make decisions on our own and they threw us to the dogs and we ended up being pretty helpless for a few years, indulging in drugs and alcohol and sex without a clue in the world with how to handle it (Yes, both my brother and I had our fair share of demons that way, but we've learned better and both changed).
All I can say about it now is that as tiny and insignificant as this Beyblade thing is, it showed me something. Everything you give to your children should be given to them with a purpose. From the banana they eat as a snack at school to the amazing present you give to them on their birthday, it all comes with a lesson on value and how to use and treat their things. If my parents guided my choices instead of made my choices for me, I would have had a better sense of appreciation and value for the blessings I had as a teenager and I would have made better choices in facing my obstacles, however I learned from my mistakes. I'm grateful for my parents, I truly am, and I take their example as a lesson. But now it's that time to apply that to my son. Hopefully teaching him how to take care of his things and his new toy will give him a better handle on values like this in the future. I explained to him that how he treats this toy will show me whether I can trust that he will be deserving of other toys moving forward into Christmas. I said he has a choice; he can choose to treat it well and treat it with value and prove to me that he can be responsible and careful for his toys or he can treat it like poop and it'll show me that he won't be able to handle a new toy responsibly. It's up to him and I know it's a heavy lesson to learn, but if I want him to be the man I want him to grow up to be, then time is of the essence and I ought to start him off with these Beyblade things.
Anyway, back to kicking his butt in Beyblade.

Tis the season?

It's that time of the year.

COLD AND FLU SEASON! 

Although, it is cold season and I've been sick with a cold and suffering from a very painful ear infection (while staying a safe distance away from my son for the time being), that's not exactly what I meant.

It's Christmas season and with the Santa Claus Parade this weekend, I'm more than excited to start a month long preparation period for such festivities.

Winter 2012

When my son was two years old, I decided to make a dinky little Christmas tree for the bedroom and all the ornaments on it. It was a lot of fun to make and he was so excited decorating it because he was proud to say he helped mommy make the ornaments. The tree served as a cute little trophy in itself as the first big Christmas craft he's ever been a part of making and I caught him a number of times stopping to stare at it with a smile on his face. Unfortunately, last year, we were simply too busy so instead of doing a bunch of home made crafts like we did the year prior, we ended up picking up a new tree from Home Depot and bought a couple hundred dollars worth of Martha Stewart Christmas tree decorations and called it a day. It's fair to say that it involved very little DIY activities and the only quality time we really had in the process was when we were picking out the decorations at the store because once we got home he was pretty bored of decorating the tree. My son and I ended up getting into a fight near the end of the decorating because I wanted the lights to be all white, but Matheson, being three and attracted to colourful things, obviously argued to have the multi-coloured setting on the Christmas lights switch (which, by the way, looked positively horrid). However, with much persuasion, I prevailed; to some degree...

Now that we have a bit more time this year, I want to get back into the motions of home made crafts. Everything from the gift wrap to the Christmas decorations around the house and on the tree. Especially because he's older, I think now is a good time to invest more time in fun little art activities for Matheson to do after school and I know for sure he'll love to put his arts and crafts in his bedroom and hang them up on the wall. I absolutely love this time of the year, hopefully I can do a few tutorials of our DIY decorations and have some posts of his Christmas crafts for those who might need ideas to do with their own kids.

Shorty

What gave me the idea to start this blog was my itch to write a post about a criticism I wanted to voice out publicly, but I didn't have the means of doing so. While I was at work yesterday, a monumentally tall man walked into our store and commented on how short I am. He had to have been 6'5" or 6'6" as my boyfriend is around 6'2"-6'3" and this guy was still much taller than him. I, however, stand 5 feet from the ground and find myself breaking my neck to look people in the eye on most occasions so the contrast was fairly comical if I do say so myself.

Anyway, the comment he made had my thoughts trailing back to a memory of something a guy I once dated had said to me about my son: "I feel bad for Matheson, he's gonna be a really short dude."

Although this is quite obviously the likely nature of what will become of my son's height when he's fully grown, it's not necessarily something I dwell on as a reason to "feel bad" for him.

As a parent, you can't help but daydream about the future of your children. I always catch myself fantasizing about the different things that my son can be based on what his interests are now and on the skillset he's developing. Sometimes you wonder what your kids will look like, but no matter what becomes of their physical appearance, you will always, ALWAYS hope and pray that they remain healthy and safe. But again, referring back to the comment regarding my son's height. Who cares?

My son is pretty charismatic and he has a large social circle at school. He's bright for his age, but boys will be boys, so I can guarantee you'll mostly catch him running and jumping around more often than you'll see him heavily focused in his activity books at home. But do any of those things change because he might be shorter than any others? Not really.

After thinking it over, I realized that whether he's tall or not, his height won't impair him from doing much of anything that most men should be able to do. My dad is only 5'5", and it's fair to say that he was actually a womanizer before he got married. He's always been physically capable of doing very labour-intense tasks for a long period of time. With very little help, he renovated majority of our house when we first moved in last year, with an intermediate-level skill set in plumbing, electrical, flooring, carpentry, and most other things related to that line of work, he also did all of the front yard landscaping and plays the drums, the guitar, the piano, and the bass like a professional. Now after listing all these things about my dad, I can't say I feel bad for him because he's short. In fact, I can't say his height has anything to do with any of his skills or personal traits that makes him such a well-rounded jack of all trades.

So why do you feel bad that my son is going to be a short dude?
Don't be. It's part of my responsibility as a parent to help my son focus on the things that make him who he is that he can embrace. Hypothetically, if I lingered on the supposed sorrow I ought to feel of having a doomed-to-be-short son, how would I ever be able to help him figure out what it is he's good at and what skills I should help him develop and tune to be a useful person? If he can't be good at being tall, fine then, move on to the next one. I know many of you are probably wondering what kind of air head I was dating at the time who would say such a thing, but it's not relevant what I ever saw in him because we're not together anymore and it's because of comments like that that I realized he wasn't worth my time or my son's.

It's funny because at one point, I did worry about my son's height as if it was some sort of a problem. Maybe it's my affinity for tall guys as a compensation for my own lacking-height, but I admit there was a time when I thought about my son being short as a negative thing. I suppose that came from the very superficial mindset I had as a teen mom with finicky ideals of how parents should regard their children and their futures, but as I am still growing up myself, I'm learning a lot about living with what you were born with and embracing every bit of it.

I think one of the important things I learned from growing up through my teenage years while raising my son is that everyone is born the way they are born. Simply "accepting" your child as they are is never good enough. Society can simply accept your child for who they are and the traits they bear, but as parents, you need to LOVE your children for EVERYTHING that they are to make it really count. I'm addressing more than the concept of height, but all traits that children are born with that some parents might see as a problem, whether physically, developmentally or socially. It boils down to the fact that individual members of society might find reason to "feel bad" for your kid, but in my experience, your kids are counting on you to love them for who they are. I pity the people who sympathize with the notion that my son should be felt bad for because he'll probably be short, as far as I'm concerned, I feel bad for you because you don't have an amazing little boy who learned how to play perfect paradiddles at the age of two.

Why am I even "That teen mommy" to begin with?

I finally decided to start a blog dedicated to my personal sentiments of being a young mommy. After having a "facebook pregnancy" - one where virtually every detail of my pregnancy was shared with my friends and family over facebook five years ago I now have a growing fan base for my son who is now four years old. I figured, why not start a blog? People always tell me I should write a book, but there's nothing about my life worth pouring into a hardcover autobiography. Besides, I'd much rather write a blog that could be followed and read at anyone's convenience with no strings attached. I like the idea of knowing that random people can have access to the things I write without having the obligation to buy a bundle of pages scripted with ink about my relatively boring life story.

Teen moms rarely write about their stories of going through high school and being pregnant or raising their children while going through college, and I suppose it's because of the negative stereotypes associated with teen pregnancy and perhaps we'd much rather avoid drawing attention to ourselves. It could be because teen moms aren't all typically apt to writing out every detail of their life like I am, or maybe it's because we're all too busy being pregnant and fat and eating everything and then transitioning into the mommy life so we haven't the time to write diddly squat about the experience.

I remember being 16, first finding out I was pregnant and having the WORST resources for going through teen pregnancy. There were some prenatal classes for pregnant teenagers that my obstetrician recommended I go to. I went to one and hated it. And with that, my pregnancy was brutally disappointing. I tried looking up articles and blog posts written by teen moms just because I wanted to know what I was up for, but to my dismay, I came up empty handed. I eventually sought counsel in other friends who already went through teen pregnancy and they gave me some useful tips, like "Well, [my daughter] is crawling now so when they're at this age you need to watch out extra carefully and you really can't leave them out of your sight. She rolled off the bed once while my brother was playing video games when he was supposed to be watching her. Thank God, she didn't crack her skull." At least when I was 16 years old, I thought this was pretty useful, but then you actually get to that point when your little guy is crawling around and you realize it's common sense not to leave them alone... ever.

But despite the selectively useful advice I got from my friends, I had no form of comparison to see if my teen pregnancy was as much of a social exile as everyone elses.

So now that I'm 21, with my four year old son in junior kindergarten, I'm taking that step to write a blog about my experience as a young mommy, a teen mommy, as a student, as a parent in general, and from time to time I'll share pieces of my experience being quite literally 16 and pregnant.