*this blog is a piggyback off a previous write up-regarding singer Ciara and Russell Wilson‘s section and about women with children/single moms who date.
What now? How do we chose a mate? (see pp. 2-3 below)
Ok. So…
Me (and all my friends) remember all too well, those infamous words from my mother’s clever mouth–filled with timely idioms and perfectly placed vernacular. But after becoming a teen mom, there were 6 words that seemed to roll off her tongue most frequently [and they were]: “You’ve got a baby. They don’t.”
You see I was reared and grew up a urban/hood chick/the homegirl from Fridays after 4:30 through Mondays at 8 a.m., and Monday through Thursdays from 4:30 p.m (until the street lights came on).
But from 4-11th grades on Monday through Fridays from 8 a.m. ‘til 4:30 p.m.(varying school years and classes) myself and the likes of:
- Sarah Jessica Parker (“Sex in the City”)
- Carmen Electra (“Chocolate City,” “Scary Movie 4,” “Meet the Spartans,” “Played,” Prince protege)
- Rocky Carroll (“The Game” Tasha Mack’s boyfriend, NCIS)
- Drew and Nick Lachey (98 Degrees)
- Jeff Sams (Whitney’s young boyfriend in “Waiting To Exhale”/Vivica Foxx’s husband in “Soul Food The Movie”)
- Krista Rivers (the girl homie in “Do The Right Thing”)
…all roamed the halls of that very same school, climbing the very same steps and walking those very same halls of every scene in the MTV reality show Taking the Stage (2009-2010).
That being the case, being a teen mom was hardly in the plan anymore than I planned the day I stood high up on the ladder in the library looking for a book, by invitation and persistence; I stepped down to the cutest boy in school that looked me in the eyes for the very first time after walking past our “type” of crowd many-a-day during school.
One day (after all the times he saw me and never looked at me)…he actually looked at me one day in particular and said: “She’s cute.”
Being told I was cute by him-was everything.
Me: On the inside, I was like Rudolph after Clarice told him he was cute: “I’m cute! I’m cute!”
You see, he was apart of the cool kids who wore designer clothes.
We were the cool/artsy kids who flickered acrylic paint on our clothes, with a sleuth of safety pins down the legs of jeans (for tightening)– where the seams of mine would meet my pink, hightop Chuck Taylor Converse. That was about the only thing this guy found cool about my style and our type of crowd—then…he got to know me. And eventually, we lost our virginities and years later: along came baby.
That reality deferred the dream and pissed my mom and dad off to the highest levels of pissivity.
If I had to give you a visual of they way things were (in my life after some time + deciding what I was going to do)-my life (then) sounds reminiscently like every lyric of Lauryn Hill’s Zion:
…mixed with every lyric and scene in Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach:
Final plea: “…look at your career they said. [Angie] baby use your head.”
Final answer: …”But instead I chose to use my heart.”/ “But I made up mind, I’m keeping my baby.”
Now the joy of my world…was in Stephen…
That’s when things changed—drastically…immedi-jat-ly.
My mother wasted no time pulling me out of that school loonggg before my belly could even rise. Little did she know, I was happy with my friends there and happy being involved in pockets of scenes and things there, but I could certainly do without the politics and goings on that came with what my mom and dad knew nothing about (nor had I ever communicated it to them). So I was mostly okay with knowing it was time to go, but kinda not. In conjunction with that, between my mom and Ms. You Know Who constantly in my ear and head about staying focused, everybody was pretty much feeling let down. I was losing my momtor Ms. You-Know-Who and was prepared to accept my circumstances as-was. Just not what my mom planned…
You see my mom was from the old school train of thought-and just didn’t think it was proper for me to be at such a climate of school walking around with (an eventual) big belly-married or not. She wasn’t tolerating that. She pulled me out and I simply disappeared with no notes to toll my absence. I just kept phone numbers and addresses of all my friends who I would get in contact with sometime later—after I would see how this new life of mine was going to turn out.
Knowing that I was heaven’s bent on graduating on time, my mom began making phone calls making phone calls and setting up meetings with my boyfriend’s mom about splitting the bill for me to go to school far-far away while my belly’d grow there where I could live on campus, get prenatal care and attend school all-in-one.
Part of her didn’t want my being seen like that to match the scene where we were from. The other part of her couldn’t bare to see her baby face child walking around like that (after all that we’d been through about her fighting me on having a boyfriend for starters). And here we are, with me having won that fight: The predictable step two: “My child is pregnant.”
After all was set up and I was packed and prepared to go, she would only have to see my glowing face, gorgeous hair and growing belly opposite every other or third weekend I’d stay at my boyfriend’s house with their family at his part of the house.
As a few months and Sundays had passed, while at that dreadful place around other moody pregnant girls all ducked off into our rooms with the door shut, it was that it was the most loneliest time of my life during the week.
The most exciting it got there was one of the girls having her daily pre-post partum-like morning conniption fits until her meds would arrive in a little cup next to her bowl of cereal.
From there, it was off to our respective classrooms where at 11:10 every morning, my boy would wake and begin kicking me from the inside of my tiny little pooch of a belly. We worried each other so much-me: looking down and watching his tiny feet drop-kick me while I chased him from left to right trying to grab that lil’ sucker. Him: steadily drop-kicking and swimming from left to right.
He wanted out. And before I could swell at the belly good, he came prematurely. They made a tummy incision. Took him out, and violia! I made it back home in the short few months with no one hardly even knowing I had gone away and had a baby.
My mom however, made sure every step of the way during the first three years until we moved out—I would never forget my decision.
Well past newborn stage and good and into that jumping up and down in the baby crib stage, my mom made sure every step of the way this would still be treated like a newborn situation regardless.
If after I’d put him to sleep and went to sit out in the parking lot with friends, she knew at what part of the excitement to yell down from the window:
“You’ve got a baby. They don’t. Get up here in this house.”
When I’d do the same and dare take a stroll down the street a couple of blocks with away with my friend Crystal or Andrea, she’d have my brother sit, her friend come get her, and roll up on me to grab me by the neck like a stork to say her infamous words: “You’ve got a baby. They don’t.”
Her notorious words were constant jokes among my friends and me until one day, Crystal got the bright idea and insisted this not happen ever again. So every summer outdoor concert, park outing, or no matter where Crystal and me [or any of my friends] went no matter the season, Stephen was on Crystal’s, my other friends, or my hip-switching it up. (I had a thing against being young, with a baby and pushing strollers-don’t ask).
Newly single by this time, Crystal and my friends simply wanted to make sure they didn’t lose their friend or waste our [now 18-19] year old young lives simply because “had a baby.” So I did “get my life”-my baby just came with me, or us-whichever friend I hung out with for the day.
Life happens…
In between all this (and the meantime in between time), my roller coaster and road to being a single mom went like this:
After he cheated, (while we were still in school and just before I found out I was preggers) we cried and tried again.
After our boy, I cheated (he found out. We cried and tried again).
I still kept seeing the guy I’d cheated with. One of my best friends sat and told he and my brother everything. He ran up on me one night (after my coming home from seeing my “new” boyfriend) and he kicked my a$$. That night, while both of us cried we had confessionals. I told the truth. He confessed his secret too: The whole entire time I was away at the preggers jail, he was seeing a girl, too. We cried and tried again. Decided to save our family. It was the most intense, emotional time we’d ever had….and the lesson I learned: Never rely on anything said or done in the night time hours…always check with yourself in the morning to see last night was real...
The next day was to be the start our start anew—until my neighbor came home to tell me she’d just seen him boo’d up with some girl. Like the homegirls we were, we headed down to the spot. I spotted them–he and his new girlfriend that he cheated on me with while I was in the preggers jail.
My turn: I kicked his a$$. (He wouldn’t hit me back).
After I kicked his ass and that whole debacle, I had an epiphany and long talk with myself…
And single mommyhood officially began.
All of that is to say, (show and prove)—[that]…as you can see, I can speak on this because I’ve been a single mom with a baby’s dad who [as rumored about Ciara’s baby’s dad-rapper: Future] stepped out on the relationship a time or two.
Single moms go through the same highs and lows as single women in relationships with men.
The only difference is-it goes back to my mother’s notorious words: “You’ve got a baby.”
Unfortunately, as life happens, and we don’t make it as planned with the fathers of our child/ren, that doesn’t mean because we’re single moms we get any less sexier and stop thriving and being full of life as a single woman.
It’s okay for a single mommy to move on. And the hard core fact is this (in my mom’s words): The baby is/always will be “momma’s baby and daddy’s maybe.”
So 99% of the time, the baby is rolling with mommy and mommy is going to date, eventually.
So when I surf the net and read about how terrible it is that Ciara’s got her son all out, up, and around her new man…I can’t lie…my first thought (when I saw the pics) was: What the hell!
No…not because the baby was with her new man, but because we all knew that-that baby was rap star Future’s son.
That explained, my reaction was the same as when I see one celeb boo’d up with another celeb and then they break up…then they’re boo’d up with yet……..another celeb.
I can’t lie…when I see celeb hopping and full-on relationships going on from celeb to celeb it looks “weird”…simply because I can only imagine what it feels (or felt) like when [such n such] goes to an event or ceremony and [such and such] is there with [such and such] and the list goes on…
But such does life.
The problem with being a single mom…well…I wouldn’t call it a “problem” but rather—the responsibility that comes with being a single mom is: We can no longer date like we did as single women (even if the intent is to not bring our children around the prospective male companion) because the irony in that is: “prospective” could easily turn “respective”-then bam! We’re in love.
So the hot topic in the world of celebrity and what one woman has chosen to do with her seed (procreated with another celebrity) is Ciara, rapper Future (and their cutie patootie baby Future Zahir).
As you may well know, since April this year, Ciara has been seen on the scene out with Seattle Seahawks NFL player and all was fine and well until this weekend she was seen out allowing her son into the arms of the ball player during a break on the practice field where Ciara and baby Future Zahir showed up in support.
Other than the (initial) shock and awe thought that these very same pictures were going to be in eye view of another celebrity like Ciara (who too, just happened to be that same child’s father, it was cute to me)-knowing these pics would not surface without incident.
As a single mom, every decision she makes has to be made for the team.
Since we’re up in Ciara’s domestic situation, the fact of the matter is this:
We don’t have to be worried about Ciara’s decision to allow Russell Wilson play daddy with her son Future Zahir (and not just because he’s an NFL player who just got awarded an additional 8.7 million dollars) either. It’s because he’s not a thug, nor does he fit the same bill by which his very own father (rapper Future) is scraped across the coals over the net for: The father of kids with “5 baby mamas.”
Ciara dated 50 Cent. 50 Cent is a thug.
I would be worried about Ciara if she just left baby Future’s dad (Future) and the public saw the child in the arms of (any) known or professed thug-because these bros aint loyal. And the code of the thug is such that all persons or things (up to and including women) are to be treated with an indifferent and aloof handed spoon (if he is to safely adhere to the code and fancy himself such a thing).
A man like that has NO place in the life of a Ciara (with a 1 year old baby or any other woman with a child 1 year – 18 years old).
We’ve all observed Russell enough so far (and as a blogger who’s blogged about he and Ciara), I’ve researched and ascertained that the most thuggish-ruggish bone Russell Wilson has in his body is a good and sexy dance move:
…but other than that, he’s no thug and actually has the right dash of “corniness” [a woman with some sense, a 1 year old baby] should have (and allow her child to be held around and hover under)–by comparison to a thug…
“Thug life” is better suited for single girls and the “Ciara” [pre-baby].
No woman (with a child especially) in her right frame of mind and self esteem and whose got her priorities straight (where it comes to influences around her child) takes up with a self-professed or demonstrative thug. While they may be cool to play with, they do not make good, solid, boyfriends and husbands.
When Ciara dated (thug) 50 Cent, she was without child.
When Ciara dated (thug) Future, she was without child.
Ciara is not guilty and should not be put on trial for finally meeting (what seems to be) a great guy who happens to publicly adore her—so he must and has to adore her child as well (I’m sure she’ll oversee that).
The only thing Ciara is guilty of (as a single girl with no kids at the time) is procreating with a man who does have “5 baby mommas” and (thinking?) that perhaps whatever his patterns were with the others-she had the power to change that and him. that’s her only bad move in this all.
But that’s in the past now and can’t be undone. A baby boy has now been bred from that union.
All that said, Ciara should only be put on trial [and be made] a “bad” mom if she turned right around and dated another guy (or celebrity) like the baby’s dad as, it is painfully obvious, and evident and clear that rapper Future (in all his “5 baby mommas” glory)’s focus is on his career-and not a committed relationship.
Therefore, to turn around (post-him) and she baby Future are seen on the scene in the arms of a guy like his very own dad…..would be “a shame” for Ciara as a mom.
There is nothing wrong with Ciara letting her child meet, hang out with and getting to know a guy like Russell Wilson-whose focus is obviously on Ciara [and therefore–the baby, too].
Let’s not ridicule and mistake Future’s twitter “reactions” as jealousy or bitterness because not everybody is evolved enough to not care about the world looking at them in ridicule and strong enough to ignore it and carry on (especially not a prideful man whose baby is being seen in the arms of another man–all damning due to both parents…AND the man being celebrities)…
That said, I’m sure if rapper Future was any kind of man (all aforementioned considered), he would NOT mind a good guy like Russell Wilson in where (in between time) he can’t.
