Trigger Warning - Suicide

My mother was the eldest of three. She was 8 when her mother killed herself. My grandmother had a mental illness, that at the time was untreatable. She struggled with it for years and after a long battle and many suicide attempts she finally succumbed to it.

She had spent the last few years of her life isolated from her children, not going out, constantly ill, would faint at random times, and was rarely happy. My mother was raised by babysitters even when her mother was in the next room. She had said that the first couple attempts at suicide were scary but after a while she stopped caring and was desensitized to it. The day my grandmother died my mom came home from school to find the babysitter there crying and said “she did it again didn’t she?” And then went straight to her room.

My grandfather loved my grandmother and did everything in his power to help her. Being the HVM that he is he didn’t offload his three children onto someone else, he raised his three children on his own. He sacrificed and worked his ass off to provide a good life for them and they all thrived.

I don’t see single parent families as problematic or less than two parent families. My mother doesn’t wish for a different family. She doesn’t whine and complain about her mother being gone.

When I see people these days complaining about how two parent families are so much better and how single moms are horrible, I think about my grandfather and what my mother experienced as a child.

My mother admits that life got better for her and her siblings AFTER her mother was gone. Even though it wasn’t her mothers fault, it’s true. My mother loves her mother and understands so this isn’t a anti-woman thing this is just a story. When one parent cannot be a parent, it negatively affects the children.

No one knows what’s going on behind closed doors. No one knows if one parent is mentally ill, a bad influence, or abusive. Don’t stay in something toxic or continue something toxic because society says two parents are better than one. Don’t let other people’s ignorant opinions on your family and your choices affect you, because they don’t matter.