Getting pregnant and giving birth do not make you a mommy. Many mommies never go through these experiences, and many women who do go through these experiences repeatedly never become mommies.

July 10 is my oldest son’s birthday. In a sense, it is also my birthday. It was the day I was reborn. The day he gave me a reason to reclaim my life. His gift was much greater than mine.

Some people believe that being a mom is instinctual. Maybe it is for some animals, but not for humans. For human’s, it is a choice. A choice one must make every morning upon waking.

Today I will love you more than I love myself.

Today I will put your needs before my own.

Today I will sacrifice my desires for yours.

Today I will work my fingers to the bone to see you smile and hear your laughter.

Today all that I do, I do for you with no expectation that you will provide something for me.

All birth parents love their children, but it is not always enough to overcome their own demons of addiction and violence. I have come to understand that love does not conquer all the dark and challenging things. In my corner of the universe, birth parents choose partners, drugs, gangs, fetishes, crime, and violence over their children.

Some will argue that it is out of love that a birth parent makes the choice to not be a mommy because they know that they are unable to do so for such and such a reason. I am not saying that relinquishing one’s parental rights to a child for adoption is not a noble and loving act because under many circumstances it can be. I have the utmost respect for a person who recognizes they are not in a good place to be a mommy or daddy and chooses to provide a better life for their child.

Through their choices, some parents cause irreparable harm to their children, who are drug along for the ride. As parents, all of our choices affect our kids, even the small decisions have a ripple effect. But most especially the big ones such as who to allow into our lives and the lives of our children.

Mommies are the gatekeepers for their children, twenty-four hours a day. We filter the world, its people and ideas, that come in contact with our children.  As our children grow, we stand guard alongside them and then we hand over keys to the gate. Our children learn who and what to allow in and to deny based upon our prior decisions.

So guard the gate well.