Latest / Moming and Me: The Podcast / A Bitter Baby Mama Will Hurt Her Own Child… Just to Punish a Man Who Stopped Choosing Her.
Transcript
- Najah: Bitter baby mamas, we need to have a real conversation. And before you go getting offended. I'm not talking about women protecting their children from dangerous, neglectful or absent fathers. I'm talking about women who have a willing man. An able man. A man who is financially providing. And actively trying to be in his child's life. But because he no longer wants to be with you. you decide he doesn't deserve access to his child. That's not protection. That's punishment. And the child should never be punishment. Ladies, y'all gotta learn how to be hurt. Without becoming vengeful. How to be disappointed without becoming spiteful. How to accept that a relationship didn't work? Without trying to destroy the other parent. Because when you carried that baby for nine months. You had to know that at the end of it. You was gonna have to be that baby's mother for real. And not just when you're happy. And not just when the relationship is going the way you wanted it. And not just when the father is still choosing you. You don't get to stop being emotionally responsible. Because your feelings got hurt. People are allowed to leave you. A relationship ending does not mean somebody deserves to lose their child. And too many women know they don't have any other way to hurt that man. So they use the baby. You withholding visits, you ignoring phone calls. You creating unnecessary conflict. You making every interaction difficult. Or drag a willing, providing father through court. And not because the child is not being supported. Because let's be real. The court is the last place you still feel like you have control. Not everybody paying attorneys. Falling fees, court costs. And wasted money that could have been going directly to the child. All because you're hurting? What is wrong with you for real? It's lame and it's goofy. And more than anything, it's disturbing. Because you're not just hurting that man. you're interfering with the child's right to be loved by both parents. I've received too many messages from adults. Telling me that they met their fathers for the first time in their life. Only to find out that their father didn't abandon them. But the mother pushed him away. Blocked him lied about him Or just made being involved so difficult. That eventually the relationship disappeared. And now that grown child Is trying to build a bond with somebody who feels like a stranger. While realizing The parent they trusted is the one who helped create the distance. And guess what happens next? The resentment turns towards the mother. Eventually children grow up, duh. And they ask questions, compare stories. They find paperwork. They see old messages. And they start putting the truth together for themselves. So while you're trying to punish him today. You may be destroying your own relationship with your child tomorrow. A baby is not leverage. A baby is not revenge. A baby is not your emotional support system. And a father doesn't have to remain romantically attached to you. To remain committed to his child. Look, you could be angry. You can grieve. You can cry, you can feel rejected. But you do not get to turn your child into a weapon. All because you couldn't regulate your emotions. Get some help. Go to therapy. Write it down. Talk to your friends. Scream into a pillow. Do whatever you need to do. But leave the baby out of it. Because if you can't separate your heartbreak from your responsibility as a mother Then stop having babies. The world does not need more children healing from wars. That their parents started against each other. And I can speak on this because I am a baby mama. A baby mama who was a wife at that. I went through plenty of bullcrap. I had every reason to be hurt. Every reason to be angry. But I still didn't become a bitter baby mama. That man is not on child support. And my children have never and will never. Be pawns in some silly game between adults. I am too mature for that. And my children mean too much to me for that. Whatever happened between me and their father? Happened between me and their father. That has nothing to do with the relationship my children deserve to have with him. I'm not gonna damage my children. Just to prove that somebody damaged me? That's not motherhood. That's unresolved hurt wearing as a mother's title. So yes, I understand being hurt. I understand being disappointed. I understand a family not turning out the way you thought it would. But I will never understand using your child as a weapon. Because you couldn't handle not being chosen. Heal, baby. Grow up. And stop making your children pay for a relationship they were never part of.