Tonight the Streets Are Ours

Dear Arden,

I know you’re angry at me, and I don’t blame you. I’m certain what I’ve done has been traumatic for you, and it pains me to think about how you might be suffering, or what you might think of me now. But this was something I had to do. I’m hoping that enough time has passed since I left that you might be willing to consider what I have to say, to try to understand why I felt like I didn’t have any other options.

The first thing I need you to know is that I did not leave because of anything you or your brother did, or failed to do. I love you both with all my heart, and all my soul, and nothing that you ever do, or fail to do, could change that. Please understand that.

Things between your father and me have been difficult for a while, and in recent years, instead of improving, they’ve only gotten more challenging. As you’re well aware, your grandparents fought constantly when your dad was growing up, and it affected him in a lot of negative ways. So it was important to him that you and Roman not be exposed to the same sort of parental conflict that he was, and I agreed with that. But the truth is that just because two people aren’t yelling at each other doesn’t mean that they’re making each other happy.

To put it simply, your father and I have very different ideas of what it means to be a parent. And I reached a breaking point. I felt like I had done all the running of our household for seventeen years. I wasn’t getting the sort of support from your father that I needed. And I couldn’t take it anymore.

I felt like years of injustices and unequal distribution of responsibilities all caught up to me at the same time. It frustrated me to feel that your father prioritized his job over his home and, even when he was home, that he prioritized his fantasy sports over his real family in front of him. It’s never seemed fair to me, and lately it’s seemed less tolerable than ever.

It’s not something you and I have talked much about, but I think you know that before you were born, I was working on getting my master’s degree in social work. I had this idea that I could be a really great social worker. And maybe I couldn’t have, maybe that was all in my mind, but that’s what I imagined.

I was incredibly excited to have a baby. It was my dream come true. But I realized very quickly that I couldn’t be the sort of mother I wanted to be—the sort of mother I thought you deserved—and also be going to classes and studying and doing field work. It didn’t seem possible. Someone had to take care of you. And I didn’t want to get a babysitter for you, or send you to day care where a bunch of babies would all be vying for attention. I thought you should be raised by a parent. And your father was not interested in being that parent. So I set aside my master’s degree and figured I would come back to it once you were in school.

Once you were settled at school, we had Roman. And, again, this was my dream come true. The problem wasn’t that I got to be a mother again—that was a blessing. But your father didn’t agree that, since I had done all the work of raising you, this time around maybe it was his turn. He felt like he was the breadwinner of the family, and he was doing pretty well for himself at that point, and he loved his career. And my idea of going back to school was a pipe dream, which might never turn into anything profitable. He was going to stay at his job, and if I wanted to go back to school, he said, then Roman could go into day care.

But I’m sure you remember what a fussy baby your brother was. He needed his mother. He needed me. I wasn’t going to hand him over to some stranger who could never love him with the intensity that I did.