I try not to be judgmental. As a single mother I get my share of judgment from other people so I try to refrain. However when I hear of grandparents raising their grandchildren I have to say the judgmental part of me rears its ugly head and I judge. After all, what kind of mother doesn’t raise her child?
My sister is a single grandparent right now. Before this she was a single mother. She raised her daughter alone because her daughter’s father had a drug problem. Now she is raising her grandson alone, because her daughter is struggling with her own demons.
I feel bad. There is that judgmental part of me that wants to kick my niece’s butt, to tell her she wasn’t raised to walk away from her son, to grow up and take responsibility for her actions, to remind her that her son is a human being, not a toy you are tired of. I know it wouldn’t do any good, but it might make me feel better. My great nephew is the cutest thing ever; he is so sweet and has the best disposition. That still doesn’t make it easy to raise him, alone, in your forties.
My sister was looking forward to being a grandmother, now she has to be Noah’s parent, the only one he has at the moment. It’s hard work. It’s hard work when you are twenty but when you are in your forties and have Lupus, it’s even harder work. What choice does my sister have? No one wants their grandchild to be raised in a foster family or in an unsafe, unhealthy environment. However I can hear it in her voice, my sister is tired, this is not what she expected to be doing at this time in her life.
Recently poor little Noah had a double ear infection so my sister has been shuttling back and forth to the doctors and walking the floor at night. I talked to her the other day and she said she’s forgotten so many things, like how to juggle a baby, a pacifier and a diaper bag. The whining doesn’t bother her, or the sleepless nights, in her words the thing she had forgotten and which is about to drive her nuts, is the snot. She said, I had forgotten how much snot one baby with a fever could produce. I had to laugh, and thank my lucky stars that it’s not me raising baby again.