Psst, It's NOT Always Your Fault: Diary of a Teenage Mom

By Sonder Bree

Why did I write this book? To convey a sense of ability. To let others know they're worth it, and to keep trying. It's my understanding of how it feels to be on the edge of despair and step back from that edge. It's also about how my child grew up in-spite of having a teenage mom. It's a book about my life, how I educated myself and worked up the corporate ladder while trying to learn about myself and my world around me. I succeeded, not always gracefully or noteworthy but its real and transparent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667875903

Book preview

PROLOGUE

As I start my story, I look in the mirror at the woman with gray hair still working on herself. Time is clearer as she enters the fall of her life. I want my son to know about the mother he had and as I write the word SON, I feel a tear, a complicated one, a tear of love and depth for the most important part of my life. One decision gave me strength through fear of always doing the wrong thing. I don’t want the story to be lost and my son never to know some of the reasons for my actions and decisions that developed this woman. This story is about how a teenage mom grew and even blossomed through many difficult and wonderful moments in life.

I’ll start at the beginning, knowing that perception is reality. Perception is never really wrong, just different in understanding how to untangle your personal reality. The saying I made up to help me through my complicated thinking goes like this, " Untangle your thoughts and burn the ends with no direction."

CHAPTER 1

The early years, How it all Began

I grew up in a house with relatively 13 people, most of my time. My five-foot-eight, 170-pound mother thought it would be fun to have eleven children, (seven girls and four boys), not realizing that they would actually become little people with opinions and as they grew, secretly wishing they would stay babies. She always said she wanted an even dozen (maybe she saw it in a movie once.) I’m the middle child born in the mid-50s. When the average family per government census was 3.3? (I’ve always wondered about the .3).

I’m not sure there is such a thing as a middle child in a family that large. Anyway, there were five younger and by the time she had me at 25, she began to realize children grow up and ask questions she couldn’t answer.

I hate to get negative so early in the story, but truthfully, mother seemed so angry all the time. I don’t remember ever seeing her smile, be happy, or enjoy the moment. What I do remember is, once, in a very rare moment, she let me go grocery shopping with her. It was the early 60s and she never spent more than 50 dollars a week on groceries for thirteen people and drove to three different stores for the cheapest items. I remember standing at the corner of the deli isle in one store listening to her talk to the meat cutter. She had a standing order with him, he saved all the end cuts of meat and cheeses for her and charged only pennies each week. When we finished shopping at each store, I remember being completely surprised seeing her smile at the checkout girl each time. What a great smile she had.

Being a curious child, I didn’t know it wasn’t acceptable to ask questions about anything. Being extremely inquisitive and wonderfully interested in learning about everything, I was innocently unaware of just how non-normal our family was. My world was chaotic as soon as I entered, and at a very young age, my day would start with getting dressed, chores, and oatmeal cooked in a vat on one of two small old gas stoves in our kitchen. She would get us up in shifts, oldest to youngest, to ease the overburdening of the bathroom needs, as well as to accommodate the size of the kitchen table. Then you walked or took the bus to school. It was the early 1960s, so I thought everyone’s life was like this. I must say though, you definitely wanted to go to school. The chores at home were endless and filled with mother’s obvious unhappiness.

Unfortunately for me, the young child inside was already learning to separate my physical being from my mind, and began internalizing all yelling and beatings as my fault. I relentlessly tried to get things just right to no avail, not realizing there was no getting it right. My mother was always angry and a perfectionist, or thinking back now, maybe bipolar. Your own actions will never be right to satisfy either types of those people. There are too many negative moments for any sweet, innocent child who absorbed everything deeply. I often wondered if there was a way to reverse or change a foundation like this? This is a question I will ask myself the rest of my life.

To give you an idea of our physical home, there was one bathroom which contained nether a sink nor a shower. There was, however, an antique claw foot tub which serviced up to thirteen people by the time I was nine. You can imaging the adventures that created. If you wanted to brush your teeth you went down to the cellar to that sink, although I don’t remember brushing very often, hence my older sister and I both developing periodontitis or gingivitis at around eight years old. The dentist then gave us some kind of purple stuff to rinse with that stayed on your teeth all day, this created such a beautiful look for school. Baths were once a week, being hooked up to city water cost money, so there were at least two in a bath at a time when we were young. The once-a-week bath was challenging when you became a young girl and your weekly gym class came at school. I remember desperately trying to hide how dirty I was and felt.

The girls’ bedroom consisted of bunk beds my mother got from the Army Navy Store along with one army blanket for each bed. There was a walk-in attic turned into a bedroom which had the only air conditioner, which of course was for the parents. Two other bedrooms were located in various parts of the house: one for