WHEN RAISING A CHILD ISN’T A CHOICE

‘Parenthood’ was thrust on me, literally overnight. I put parenthood in inverted commas because I’m not yet a parent in the birth-right sense, but I am walking along the parenthood path if you will. I’m a legal guardian to my now 14 year old cousin. And it happened overnight because my mum, who became my cousin’s legal guardian after his mum passed in 2018, suddenly passed herself a couple weeks before Christmas, 2019.

It’s a tough, rewarding, yet unavoidable situation I find myself in. I love the kiddo (he’d cringe if he knew I was putting my nickname for him on blast) more than I can put into words. Sometimes I burst with pride over him. But I miss the carefree life I had before. Sometimes I find it exhausting to have to think through everything on behalf of the both of us; I miss my mum doing that thinking for me instead. I realise the insight I have now is minutiae compared to her former reality; the respect I had whilst my mum was alive has most definitely increased now she’s passed, because I have an understanding (albeit limited) of all the balls she used to juggle.

Years ago, I vowed that he will become a successful black man in society and I knew I had a part to play in that, I just didn’t realise how much of a reality, and a responsibility it would become for me. It might seem like a given, but he has autism so life is a little more colourful yet opaque for him, and a little trickier for me to navigate.

I find myself constantly moving between the space of cousin, guardian and adult disciplinarian in the household; I want to appeal to him, to get along with him in a ‘cool’ way on one level, but sometimes that jars when I have to switch roles because he’s in trouble, for example.

We’re both still finding our feet in this.

It has been interesting to enter this phase with a ‘grown’ child to all intents and purposes. And, as weird as this may sound, I’m glad it has it’s happened in this way, all things considered. God knows my heart, my spirit, my temperament. Being freshly responsible for a teenager is nowhere near the same as being responsible for a much younger child. He doesn’t have to be my handbag, which helps with the occasional overwhelming feelings I get. There can be an escape and this helps because sometimes I need to recalibrate and give time to myself, unselfishly so.

Although my reality is my reality, I genuinely don’t know how I would readjust if everything suddenly went back to how it used to be.

I used to strive for myself and now I do so for the both of us. I’m trying to instil in him, things my mum did in me. At the end of the day, neither his mum or my mum are here, but I am. And in whatever way I can love, nurture, care for and fight for him and his needs, I will, always.