When I was nine years old, my parents sat me and my four siblings down to break some news no child should have to hear; they were getting divorced. Being the oldest, it was then my responsibility to help the little ones understand. Clearly, I wasn't the master of all things divorced, being nine and all, but being the older sister meant that I needed to step up in every aspect to help my siblings along the road of life.
The first change we endured was our father moving out. I was daddy's princess so I took him leaving the hardest. That move built up quite a lot of resentment in me towards my mom. Another change we had to deal with was our mom getting a job. Up until this point in time, she had been a stay at home mom so being left with grandma and grandpa was a little bit of an adjustment. When our youngest brother, Wesley, was born, he started to get really sick. He cried and slept a lot and he wasn't growing. Lots of things scared him and everything he ate made him sick. Mom took him to see doctor after doctor but they all assured her nothing was wrong and that she was just imagining it. That was until she saw a new doctor. He noticed everything right away and explained that he was allergic to gluten. As soon as she changed his diet, he started growing and playing and he started being a baby. In the unspoken 'how the be an older sister' book, one of my jobs is to protect my brothers and sisters no matter what. I take my job quite seriously, making sure everyone is nice to one another and making sure they never have to worry about me not being there for them.
On August 21, 2006, our grandmother died after being sick for a long time. When they found out she was sick, we all moved into our grandparent's house so we could be close in case something happened. 2006 was a rough year for all of us. Wesley was born and was sick all the time, our cousin McCall was born the same day our grandma died, and our parent's divorce was announced and finalized. 2006 was also the year I became a babysitter, a housekeeper, an adult, a protector and I learned what it's like to be a mom. Our father abruptly stopped being a parent when 2007 finally came so when we went to visit him, he didn't seem like he knew what he was doing. He didn't believe Wesley was gluten intolerant so when we'd go back to mom, I'd cry and explain that I tried to tell him not to feed him certain foods but he wouldn't believe medical advice coming out of a 10-year-old.
We spent the next year and a half getting nanny after nanny because apparently, it's unsafe to leave four children with a 10 year old girl. But no matter how much we liked the nanny, she'd mess up in some way making it a bad decision to keep her around. So, in the end, I would be there to watch the kids with a teenage girl texting in the background. I shouldn't have had to do all that.
Even though I grew up fast, I am grateful for what I learned at a young age. Because I helped my mother raise my siblings, I know how to cook basically anything, I know how to babysit above the expectations of most parents, I know how to take care of anyone around me because I learned at a young age how to be a mom.
Before I asked my father to jump the ship I call my life, he used to reprimand me for "parenting" because that's just for parents and tell me I needed to start being a kid again. I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but I can't just turn off the inner mom I have inside my brain. I am constantly making sure my siblings don't act like imbeciles in public and telling them to be safe and I have no freaking idea how to be a kid anymore. I honestly don't. I have almost been a makeshift adult for 10 years.
Now let me give parents who are thinking or in the middle of a divorce with small children; don't you dare make any of those children become an adult. I love my mom and will probably never understand what she went through especially because she was doing her absolute best to raise five kids under the age of nine. she didn't make me an adult, in fact was encouraged to be a kid but assisting her was the most helpful thing I could've done at that point in time.
Don't ever make a child have to grow up so fast. I was blessed with the best mother I could've ever asked for and have known that since the moment I was made on this earth. Please leave being an adult, to the actual adults.
