The thing that burns is that my parents (my son's owner's) feel I have nothing positive to give or teach them so I am unnecessary except to pay child support. Where would anyone get ideas like this? Logically, the more people teaching/loving/supporting a kid; the better off that kid has it.

I live in a great place in a town that was voted one of the top ten best places to raise a kid by home magazine in 2000. Walk two blocks in any direction and there is a park or field or school. This is not an exaggeration. I hold a 3.6 GPA in my JR year at SOUL. The air is clean and the rate of crime and violence is 10 times lower than where they are. They currently live on welfare in rural Oklahoma, neither one of my parents graduated high school. The nearest opportunity for the boys is the local fast food joint about 15 miles away. All I can do is wait for the pressure cooker to blow. An old couple in a trailer with two teen boys.

I gave those boys up then 8 and 11, because at the time, it was the best thing for them. My herstory was rocky and mom has good reason to be concerned. We were homeless thanks to Oklahoma's "Welfare to Work" Program, my mother’s constant emotional abuse, and my tendency to seek out people just like her as friends and lovers. Not that she was a bad mom, as a little kid she was great to live with. But she has the devil of a time letting us go... She acted then and still does, just like a jealous, passive aggressive ex.

... Fast-forward five years... Time with me now would be good for the boys. At this time she will not even discuss it. I get its "my way or no way". I have no voice. My mom refuses to believe there is anything good about me. She refuses to even try to know me. It would be nice for her if she did. She would not worry and stress so much. She seems determined to think the worst and if I try to fight her in court, she will bring up every thing I ever did wrong from the age of two. I can’t do that. My inner child would kick my a**. There are some things that are just wrong, taking peoples' children away is one of them, ripping your mother/child up in court would be another one.

I feel betrayed because when I brought them to her she assured me I could see and talk to them at any time. I did not need a lawyer. That this was only for a few years. I would have found another way if she had not promised me that. They would come home when things changed. I worked hard, things have changed. Now it’s all I can do for phone calls. I rarely can call because the thought of her picking up the phone seems to freeze me up more often than not. I haven't gotten a picture in three years. She never calls me unless she wants to scream at me for wanting to see them or for talking to them or for sending them presents or to tell me how sick and how tired she is. Nothing beats the feeling that your own mother manipulated and lied to you this way, deliberately hurting so many people in my life, "for our own good." Jeesh and I remember when I couldn't wait to turn 18 and be free of my mother, now I can't wait for my sons to turn 18 and be free of her.

To Adrian, Thanks for the vote of confidence. These days I surround myself with people who can appreciate who I am. I do not tolerate the presence of manipulative dishonest "unavailable" people in my life. I cannot fight my mother without destroying myself financially and spiritually and putting the boys through hell in the process. They are doing well (so I am told) If so, I don't want to rock their boat. So here I am. "Standing in the door holding a cookie." For as long as it takes. That's part of why I like this site, one day maybe the boys will find it and know that the picture my mother paints of me, comes from her own rage at things that happed to her as a child, not who I am.

Thanks for letting me vent, now I'll go do something easy, like calculus.

Nikki.