The Doe’s Latest Stories

A few months ago, I had the privilege of writing about how COVID changed where we work. It helped us realize that work doesn’t always have to come at the expense of family and that by changing where we work, we could save time, save money and be more green. For my wife and I, we reinvested that time and money into our family and it’s helped us better move through the world together and be happier. COVID has probably been the largest work upheaval to have occurred since the creation of the workweek and workday. This pandemic forced us into an examination of how our work and personal lives interact. We should voluntarily continue that examination because the mindset of “it’s always been done this way” is always a strong one, and we should always fight that urge of complacency.

Like a machine that overheats, humans need rest to be at their best.

An Eight-Hour Workday Doesn’t Work for Everyone

The standard workweek since the late 1920s has been 40 hours of work, eight-hour time periods spread over five consecutive days. It’s what both my wife and I have done for a very long time before COVID. Through the flexibility that working at home has provided us, we’ve discovered that we don’t need to work like that anymore. My wife is very much more productive at home. No one drops in randomly to socialize. There are fewer meetings, no water cooler conversations and other office distractions that happen regularly. She’s found that she can extend the Monday to Thursday workday by 30 minutes (which is shorter than her previous commute), and with the gains she’s made in efficiency, her workweek is done by noon on Friday. It’s two hours of extra work on those four days for four hours of extra weekend almost every week. She likes to spend that extra time in the garden, reading or crocheting. It’s what she likes to call the “extra sanity saucy” on her week, that bit of peace and relaxation that’s hers to claim. That’s her work story. She has good supervisors who have had a very large shift in perspective and have started tailoring the time spent working to the employees. People are exceptionally different. There are natural night owls, early risers and late sleepers, people who work fast in spurts and people who work steady all day, no matter what gets in their way. With the disconnection from that office space, the employees have been able to tailor their work schedules to the strengths they bring. Some employees have started working at 6 a.m., some at 10 a.m. Some have moved their workload around like my wife has but to a greater extreme: They do four ten-hour days, and one of her co-workers does three 12-hour days, working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Wednesday, because he found he works best having much longer, more productive days. He’s getting more work done because he was able to tailor his hours to himself. The same work he was doing in 40 hours in 36 hours and a four-day weekend.My wife's workplace is very task- and milestone-oriented, and not every job can have that flexibility to define their own hours. Working the line in a factory or having a government office that needs to be accessible to the public have different requirements. That doesn't mean the traditional use of workers is the best way. If you were to search the term “four-day workweek,” you would see that there is a change in many places in the world. Some government offices have switched to 10 hours Monday to Thursday. This change allows them to be open for a wider swath of time that allows people who need government services to come in before 9 a.m. or after 5 p.m. Extending government hours past the traditional bankers hours of 9 to 5 served the community better than having a fifth day with the same hours. It also meant the employees saved on gas, and the building’s lighting, heating and cooling could be minimized for a three-day weekend. It saved taxpayers money, it saved employees money and it was caused by disconnecting ourselves from “the way it’s been” and reexamining how we best use our time. There are a few companies that have made this switch, as well, and have found retaining employees to be easier when the competitors are still using a five-day week.

An eye toward the worker and how they best use time can allow them to do their best work and feel more fulfilled by it.

We Need to Take All Employees’ Needs Into Account

Before 1926, Sunday, the “day of rest,” was the weekend. Henry Ford standardized the five-day workweek in 1926 when he realized a longer weekend would increase productivity during the week. He could get more and better work during every work hour by maintaining his workforce, just like his equipment. Like a machine that overheats, humans need rest to be at their best. It was possibly a cold calculus on Ford’s part, but it worked out for everyone. People work better when they are happy, when they are fulfilled. We understand people better now than we ever have. We know people don’t fit into tidy boxes; they are messy and complicated. We need to reexamine how we get the best work from people but also how we best serve people. I‘m a prime example of this. I have medication-resistant attention deficit disorder. I mentioned the people who work fast in spurts earlier and that’s me. My brain is constantly grasping for something more interesting, more distracting. I can strong-arm it into focusing for a limited period of time, but I could never do a 12-hour day. Counterintuitively, my work tends to get done over 16 hours instead because I’ve figured out that I need breaks and lots of them to let my mind be distracted. Fighting it to stay focused for eight hours is exceptionally taxing and often just impossible. So I write for an hour and take a break. This break is a time to do a sudoku, read a chapter or a comic book or do some other task that has a distinct end (the day could be lost if I were to play a few minutes of a video game). I repeat this process, excluding my daily revision work, which is saved for late in the night when my mind has recharged. I’m doing better, more consistent work this way than I ever did before COVID, and it’s because when I work isn’t defined by “the way it’s always been.” It’s not defined by others' expectations but my actual abilities.This is a call to consideration for companies, unions, the government and, most importantly, employees. Look at the people and the work that is being done around you and tailor when you work to both or at least experiment to see what is best. An eye toward the worker and how they best use time can allow them to do their best work and feel more fulfilled by it. My wife is happier and more fulfilled by adjusting her schedule, and my own work is of a higher quality. Of note, my final revision of this writing is at 12:23 a.m. I was only distracted once.

When the court document that signaled the overturn of Roe v. Wade leaked—like a large portion of the country—I was heartbroken. It wasn't only about the thought of losing abortion access. There's a vast amount of misunderstanding amongst members of my community that I feel still drives the pro-life argument.I grew up in a rural, fire-and-brimstone Texas small town. I attended church three times a week, volunteered consistently with the youth group and even read the Bible for the congregation on Sundays. Many people who have never been around or exposed to this lifestyle are still aware of some of the restrictions parents place on their children: no cursing, no caffeine, no passwords. What most people don’t know is the dark underbelly of how religious institutions and conservative environments prey on naive girls’ lack of sex education.In Texas, it is not only optional to provide sex education in schools, it’s illegal to provide sex education in a public school that is not abstinence-only. That means that students are only taught the dangers of sex without learning the actual mechanics or protections surrounding it. My teachers told me lies such as “every time you have sex, your oxytocin levels get cut in half, and by your third partner, you are incapable of loving someone.” They put duct tape on our arms and ripped it off, telling us that’s what it felt like when you had sex with someone and they left you. They even put a bedsheet on the floor, made our entire class sit on it and told us that if we had more than one partner, we would be sleeping with everyone in the room.I finished sex education without even knowing what a penis was or what it meant to have a period. I was 15. My experience is not unique. I have talked with many girls now about the sickening sex “education” they received in religious, conservative environments. I remember turning to my parents and asking for clarification, but all I received was a scolding for asking. I was told eventually that God would bless me with a child.

What most people don’t know is the dark underbelly of how religious institutions and conservative environments prey on naive girls’ lack of sex education.

Abstinence-Only Education Endangers Women and Propagates Abortion

I find it hard to describe to people how dangerous this situation is. I could have been raped not only without knowing what sex was but without the vocabulary to describe the anatomy involved with what happened. Yet people wonder why the rates of rape, teen pregnancy and STDs skyrocket in abstinence-only states. None of the results of this type of education or upbringing is positive, so why do lawmakers consistently advocate it?Many people also don’t realize that abortion bans were not a political issue until post-segregation. In 1968, when it lost the battle with Brown v. Board and needed a new platform to politicize, a group of Southern Baptist lawmakers removed integration as an abomination against Christ and replaced it with abortion, except in the cases of rape or incest.The abstinence-only education, the rules to “protect” our innocence, the lack of birth control—they don’t prevent unplanned pregnancies; they cause them. Rather than having the hard conversations surrounding sex necessary to keep abortions from happening, pro-lifers and conservative groups turn to ban them, leaving women with the options to have a child they aren’t prepared for, dump the child into a crowded privatized foster care system or put their own health at risk to terminate the pregnancy without a doctor.

Banning Abortions Won’t Stop Abortions From Happening

The belief that banning abortion is the best way to end abortions is like banning cars to end car accidents: It's not realistic, and life-altering accidents still happen. But for the sake of argument, let’s imagine a world where these are our only options and abortion (even in cases of rape or incest) is completely illegal. Out of all industrialized countries, even with proper medical attention, the U.S. ranks last amongst industrialized countries in maternal mortality rate and Texas has the highest maternal mortality rate in the U.S. There are currently around 400,000 children in the foster care system. Private placement agencies get a check whether kids are placed into a safe home with funding or not. This means that foster youth are 2.5 times more likely to get involved in the justice system.When Roe was passed, the crime rate dropped significantly (around 47 percent) 20 years later because children were not being put into unfit or dangerous homes. There are, in fact, more couples that want to adopt than there are children in foster care, and many are LGBTQ+ couples. Just last year, the Supreme Court defended a Catholic adoption agency’s right to discriminate against gay couples wanting to foster, making the foster system unnecessarily more crowded. If the mother decides not to put their child in the foster care system, she will not have universal healthcare and face food insecurity as social welfare programs continue to be unsustainable fixes to larger issues. If a person decides that they don’t want to raise a child in either of these conditions, it is certain they will take matters into their own hands and there will be an over 20 percent increase in pregnancy-related deaths.

The belief that banning abortion is the best way to end abortions is like banning cars to end car accidents.

I Want to Educate Young Women About Sex and How to Prevent Unplanned Pregnancies

The debate around pro-life and pro-choice is arguably one of the greatest political marketing tactics ever created. The truth is, there aren't many people who are pro-abortion: Logically, we are all on the same side. No one wants a world in which their only options for an unplanned pregnancy are giving up their own life and scarring a child because they’re unwanted or putting them into a system that has no support for their physical, emotional or mental well-being. The statistics and research show clearly—for the life of women, codify Roe. For the life of children, codify welfare.I stood outside the Supreme Court this week, protesting for my rights; I couldn’t help but notice the pro-life side where I once stood and where many of my friends and family still side. If you’re a pro-lifer and you believe that abortion is murder, that’s fine. I don’t have any desire to try and change your mind. But I do beg you to ask yourself: What is the state of our country if women would rather commit “murder” than bring up their child? And why aren’t you doing more to change it? More than anyone, I want to end abortion. I want to end abortion by educating youth about consent and how to prevent unplanned pregnancies using widely accessible birth control. I want to end abortion by creating a better foster care system. I want to end abortion by improving our healthcare system. I want to end abortion by creating a world where everyone wants and chooses for a child (planned or not) to grow up. Don’t you?

“What did she ask you?” I sat across from my sister on my bedroom floor, nervously stroking the faded blue carpet. We were both exasperated, one eye roll away from cursing the whole world. Our shoulders tensed, holding the weight of the room. “Actually, it was a guy, the same one who came to our house a couple years ago. He just asked all these questions about if I was being taken care of and if our house was clean. I said yes, of course. He didn’t ask about anything important,” she said with an exasperated laugh. Looking around, the house wasn’t tidy, but it was passable. At just 11, my sister was discerning. She always knew what was slipping through the cracks, what adults weren’t noticing or didn’t seem to care about. She was unafraid to call out teachers and counselors who expected too much from a kid without a mom, whether it was a poster board for a project or birthday cupcakes. Somehow, my sister knew there was no shame in telling people what was going on in her life so that they could craft their expectations accordingly. And I, seven years older than her, had become an intuitive, if hyperaware, MacGyver. I was adept at answering questions the right way, or the way that wouldn’t get anyone in trouble. I knew when to show a little emotion, but not too much, to people in charge. We had both molded our understanding of adults around the fallout of our mother’s absence: They could be unpredictable and unfair, so it was best to always think a few steps ahead.

I knew I had taken on much of my mother’s job description once she had left the house to bounce between psychiatric institutions and her siblings’ homes.

I Was Often Mistaken for My Sister’s Mother

On that same bright and sticky June afternoon, I was called to the guidance counselor’s office. With six college acceptances and one full scholarship in hand, I wasn’t worried. I had just received an award in the AP Psychology class I was called out of—Most Likely to Change the World—and was feeling optimistic. When I opened the door to my counselor’s office, I was greeted by an unfamiliar face: a woman in drab business casual, just a touch more formal than my counselor’s typical garb. The woman from the Department of Youth and Family Services had an unusual slew of questions for me. Instead of asking about our mother’s schizophrenic episodes or whether our father was feeding us properly, her questions, which always felt more like accusations, were about me. “An employee at Great Clips said that you got upset and yelled at your daughter—I think they meant your sister—then took her out of the salon.” She looked at me with cool suspicion, the kind I was used to from adults in institutions: cops, counselors, judges. Something about a smart, capable and unsuspectedly kind teenager seemed to put them off. “That’s not what happened,” I gasped. “They shaved off part of her hair without telling anyone what they were doing. Then, they said, ‘We can’t do hair like this.’ I was horrified, and my sister was crying. So I told them off and took her somewhere else. This is crazy; I’m obviously not her mom!” Aside from reminding me that few adults could be trusted, the social worker’s visit was pointless. Feeling deflated and insulted, I returned to class with tears in my eyes, counting the days until I’d be free of this mess in college.

I Had to Take Over My Mom’s Responsibilities

The hairdresser who mutilated my sister’s beautiful, tangly curls got one thing right: It seemed like I was the kid’s mother. Despite my being baby faced, rail thin and spending all my spare time on Tumblr, waiters and grocery store clerks often said things like, “And for you, Mom?” I wanted to be surprised, but I wasn’t. I knew I had taken on much of my mother’s job description once she had left the house to bounce between psychiatric institutions and her siblings’ homes, even if I had never signed up for it. In the same way my mother took me on all her errands before her illness took over, I took great joy in bringing my sister on my little jaunts around town. As soon as I received my license, I shared my newfound freedom with my sister. Getting a burrito after school? She’d be getting one, too. Going to ogle stuff I can’t afford at Target? “Just get in the car!” In those moments, we were just sisters, not warriors fighting a system that seemed determined to make our lives harder.While I couldn’t buy her new shoes or pay for either of us to see a therapist, I knew that these little tastes of freedom were important. Our father worked long hours and was often tired and frustrated, which I could empathize with. I was tired as hell, too. But I also had an insatiable drive to prove that the world wasn’t all bad; in fact, it could be pleasantly mundane. I didn’t have words for it then, but it wasn’t normal for teenage girls to be everyone’s shoulder to cry on while also cooking meals, grocery shopping, working two jobs and getting straight As. Some kids got to be kids, and I envied them. And while I knew that I had grown up too fast, I wanted my sister to know that she could be a kid—at least as long as I could help it.

I am not our mother, and I never will be.

I Want to Bring Joy Into My Little Sister’s Life

I don’t think I would have called it that at the time, being that I was still a kid myself in most ways. But when the holidays came around, I knew I had to make an effort. Having had several ambivalent birthdays and uncelebrated rites of passage (prom, sweet 16), I wanted to give her a semblance of normalcy. I wanted her to have a few memories of her and me doing anything else but solving adult problems. So I became the Easter Bunny. Recalling the cellophane-wrapped baskets I hunted for as a toddler, I drove to the dollar store and filled my flimsy little cart with everything egg-shaped. In the middle of the night, I mapped an egg hunt down the hall and under the kitchen table. I smiled proudly to myself until I heard our pug crunching one of the plastic eggs open. After I wrestled it out of her tiny cavern of a mouth, I collapsed in my twin bed. Just like a parent. In the morning, my sister giggled at the plastic prizes hidden around the house. She looked proud of herself at the end of it, her treasures spread around her while she played a Wii game. I don’t know if she knew I did it, but I knew for sure that we both sensed a little magic. Later, I was Santa Claus and all of his elves, contracted by my dad to brave the Black Friday hoards and get her the toys from her Christmas list. Truthfully, I loved these tasks. I not only got to bring a little wonder to my sister’s day but I also could flex my adult skills, like using my debit card. I hoped that all these little acts would show her that even when someone lets you down, there will be others who are prepared to lift you up. My sister is my solace, my friend and my constant reminder that we were brought into this world to do so much more than struggle. I am not our mother, and I never will be. But I am a big sister, and it’s a job I take seriously.

Mother’s Day used to be a complicated day for me. You see, I have no relationship with my birth mother, even though I spent the first 14 years of my life in her care. After she and my dad got divorced, she seemed to take out all her anger, insecurities and frustrations about being a “failed woman” and a divorcée on me. Eventually, I spoke up about what was really going on, and after a long custody battle, I cut contact with her entirely and moved in with my dad and his wife. Before I managed to escape, there was a long period of time when I thought I was like my mother. I felt that because she and I shared DNA, I was a reflection of her and that all those dark and awful things about her that had caused me so much pain—that they were also somewhere in me, waiting to come out the moment I had children of my own. I was terrified of being anything like her, so I did my best to distance myself from the person she was and the person she wanted me to be. I stopped celebrating Mother’s Day altogether, as well. Whenever May came around, I’d dread the holiday-themed everything and the many school activities and events centered around moms and motherhood. I simply couldn’t reconcile the fact that my only option was to celebrate and demonstrate my love to someone who I didn’t want to be around—someone who would put on a happy face and act like the most loving and caring parent in the world, but turn around minutes later, in the privacy of her car, and verbally and physically abuse me for “making her look bad” in front of my classmates’ parents. Then, in the summer of 2006, I cut contact with her. I left and never looked back. From time to time I’d still get calls, texts and emails from her, but they were rarely conciliatory messages. She wanted to fight, argue and make sure I knew I was wrong for leaving her. “I am your mother, you owe me everything.”

She went from being my dad’s wife, to being my stepmom, to being one of the most important people in my life.

Slowly, My Stepmom Became My Rock and Closest Confidant

Now, I’m not going to say I didn’t miss her. I did. Although, to be perfectly honest, I can never be sure if I missed the person she actually was, or the person that I had always expected her to be. You know, the loving mom we all see in movies. The one who is her daughter’s best friend and confidant, and will sneak her out of class to get ice cream and talk about boys. I never got that, and I was angry at her for denying me what I felt was my right: a good mother. Therapy helped a lot, although it wasn’t my choice at the time. Both my dad and my stepmom knew that I needed help, even though I wasn’t quite ready to ask for it. I eventually learned to let go of the pain I was holding on to; I learned the importance of forgiving but not forgetting. Once I did, not only did I feel lighter, but I was also able to see what had been right in front of me: my stepmom. She married my dad not too long before I moved in, and from day one, she took the role of the responsible, loving, sometimes strict mother that I’d been missing the first 14 years of my life. At the time, I had been too hurt and too angry to see it, but little by little, my stepmom became my rock. She showed up to my school events and cheered me on, even though she knew most parents at my fancy private school would gossip about her. She took me shopping when my clothes suddenly didn’t fit after one of my last growth spurts. She was even the one who I called for the day I got my first period. She went from being my dad’s wife, to being my stepmom, to being one of the most important people in my life. One day, I can’t really remember when, or where we were, I simply started calling her mom. It came out naturally, like I’d been doing it all my life. Like I was always meant to call her that.

In my experience, motherhood is best when it’s chosen and fully wanted.

Thanks to My Stepmom, I Was Able to Celebrate Mother’s Day Again

Suddenly, Mother’s Day wasn’t quite so bleak anymore. I didn’t dread the month of May as much as I previously had (now I only dislike it because it means that awful summer weather is near, but that’s a story for another time). Mother’s Day became a holiday of hope for me—it went from a made-up holiday, where I was forced to “celebrate” someone I despised, to a day when I got to give back to my mom a little bit of everything she gave me. I mean, I try to do that every day, but the woman won’t sit still and pause her endless to-do list unless we come up with a good excuse; Mother’s Day is that excuse. Every year, though, we’re bombarded with messages in the media urging people to celebrate the person who “gave us life” and carried us for nine months. Somehow, the ads always make it sound like the only valid version of motherhood is the one that includes a biological connection between parent and child, and that couldn’t be farther from what I know to be true. In my experience, motherhood is best when it’s chosen and fully wanted. I’m pretty sure (although this is just a theory of mine, I have no way of really knowing for sure) that my birth mother did not want to be a mother. She, like many women, did what she felt was “the next step” in a married woman’s life. On the other hand, my mom chose to be my mom. She chose to take on the burden of raising kids to which she had no blood relation. She has defended me, loved me and been the role model I needed when the person whose DNA I actually have wouldn't. To this day, nearly 16 years later, she chooses to love me the way I always wanted to be loved by a mother. There were no sleepless nights with me as a newborn, but she says she’s making up for those now that I’m older and go out at night with my friends—especially if I’m not home by 2 a.m. “I can’t sleep until I know you’re home safe. What can I say? I’m your mom…” she texted the last time I went out that late.

When I Become a Mother, It’s Because I’ve Chosen to Be One

As time went by and I let go of the anger and hurt I had, and I learned to let myself be loved and cared for, my views and feelings on my own future motherhood have shifted. My answer to the (still very annoying) question “When are you having kids?” is no longer a clear “Never.” It’s evolved. I now realize that I do want children of my own one day, but only when I’m ready to choose motherhood, and not because as a woman, that’s what’s expected of me at a certain age. (And, to be perfectly honest, I can’t wait to see my mom go full-on Grandma Mode). I now realize that I am a representation of the love, care and guidance I have received from my mom more than I am a reflection of a person whose only link to me is our shared genetic material. The road to becoming my mom’s daughter has been dark and full of pain, but there was always light at the end of the tunnel because she was always the light at the end of the tunnel. I am a better woman because of her and I will never get tired of thanking her for saving me. My mom didn't give birth to me, but she’s my family. She was always meant to be my mom.

After my son was born, three decades ago, I had postpartum depression. I only recently realized that’s what it was. For years, I didn’t understand why I felt the way I did: anxious, angry, hopeless, overwhelmed with feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt and inadequacy. I had no name for my indifference—indeed, for my total lack of love surrounding being a new parent—until recently, when I stumbled across an article about it. It was only recently that I read about postpartum depression in an article online while I was researching depression that I could put a name on it. It doesn’t help that there is a diagnosis for my problem.

The Idea of Being a Mother Was Terrifying to Me

I wasn’t happy about being pregnant, but I wasn’t going to have an abortion either. Not out of religious reasons but just because there really wasn’t a reason to do so. I was married to a very nice man.I didn’t love being pregnant and never felt an overwhelming connection and wonder about creating a new life with my husband. I read many books about childbirth and parenting an infant, with no thrill in my heart. I walked through my pregnant days terrified about being a mother. It wasn’t a joyful time for me. I had severe morning sickness, which didn’t help. There were times that I wished I could have just one day without carrying around a big belly. I didn’t like being so obvious to the world about my condition. People would tell me how I should feel. Their comments only made me feel even more alone in my depression.Then, I gave birth. I was just glad the pregnancy was over. I have always felt guilty that I didn’t immediately fall in love with my baby or take to parenting the way I thought I was supposed to. I was terrified of taking care of him. Only a week after he was born, I begged my physician husband to stay home with me one day. I felt a lot of societal pressure to be the perfect mother, so I pretended I was confident, but in reality, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was frightened I wouldn’t know how to take care of a baby. Everyone I knew seemed to take to motherhood so readily and knew exactly what to do. My mother worked full-time, so she wasn’t available to me. I even took a Red Cross class on how to care for an infant. Unfortunately, the course only exacerbated my feelings of inadequacy. I was desperate.Looking back now on the list of the official symptoms, I can knock off most of them: excessive crying, difficulty bonding with your baby, withdrawing from family and friends, overwhelming fatigue, fear that you're not a good mother.

I was desperate.

Despite the Postpartum Depression, I Was Still Able to Keep My Son Safe

In addition to my list of failures, I didn’t breastfeed. There were several complications around it that I only learned after the fact. His father suffered from asthma when he was a child. So did my son, very early on. I later learned that had I breastfed, most likely he would not have gotten asthma. Another guilt. Bonding was another of the problems I dealt with. While I wasn’t bonding, I did keep him safe from harm. I knew I had to do that, but I did it with resentment. I resented my infant taking over so much of my time. I resented being sure he was safe and if he seemed unhappy and would cry for no reason I could see. I’m thankful at least that I was able to keep him safe. What awful events could have befallen a helpless creature by my indifference to their well-being? I was terrified of crib death or any other issue infants suffer. Let me be clear: My husband was a wonderful man. None of this was his fault. Some could say that because he was a physician, he should have known something was off. I can’t shift the blame, though. I didn’t reach out for help either. I didn’t know I needed to, and I didn’t want to admit I had problems. Who knows if my husband even recognized these symptoms? I concluded they were all character flaws of mine. I was imperfect. I wasn’t a good wife or even a good person, but I kept that to myself and tried to fool the world.

Undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder Made Me Prone to Postpartum Depression

I found many ways to be able to go out and around without my son. I put him in child care at a very early age. When he was old enough, I enrolled him in preschool and after-school care. None of this was because I was working. I wasn’t. I just didn’t want to be tied down. I didn’t delight in being a mother. Some studies say postpartum depression happens more often in those diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I didn’t know I had that either until years later. So, if that is the case, I was set up for failure from way back then. I wasn’t diagnosed until my child was in his 30s. There are so many decisions I made over the years while I was undiagnosed, such as leaving my marriage. Still today, I feel guilty when I see new mothers so thrilled and excited about their new babies. I feel terrible that I deprived my child of that love and security, and I can never get it back for him. Why did it take me so long to put a label on what I endured all those years ago? I’m not sure, but after reading about it, I recognized behaviors that were textbook postpartum depression. What baby deserves a mother who is indifferent and even resentful of it?My postpartum depression didn’t go away in a few months. It lasted for years, even as my child grew into his teen years. There are things I look back on that I would do now, such as working more with him on his education or encouraging him to explore his interests or hobbies.

I wasn’t a good wife or even a good person, but I kept that to myself and tried to fool the world.

30 Years Later, My Son and I Now Have a Healthy Relationship

What I wonder now is how my behavior may have shaped his development over the years. Did it affect his self-esteem? What could I have done differently that would have helped his feeling of well-being? Are there lingering feelings of being unloved? It’s impossible to know. What I do know is that after a couple of years, I finally found love for my son. I missed him terribly when he went away to college. I kept connected with him while he was away by sending funny greeting cards, and when I did see him, I planned events for us while he visited. I let him know I loved him and that I was there for him. I am grateful for that. I only wish I or someone was aware of my feelings and showed me that it was a chemical issue and that there was help. How that could have eliminated years of guilt and resentment that didn’t have to be that way. I’m grateful that my son grew up to be whole and happy. He survived my indifference and lack of love back then. He is now my shining star and has created a wonderful life for himself and his family. So I guess I did something right along the way, but the memories are still there. They're still painful.

My husband and I have been married for nearly four decades. The story of a marriage cannot easily be told in a few words, but I think one recent event goes a long way to capturing the essence of what has often stood between us.A few months ago, our first grandchild was born, and we are thrilled to have another go at watching a new human being bloom. During a recent visit with her, as our granddaughter munched away at the breakfast we’d prepared for her, my husband gazed at the baby’s beaming face, and then turned to me. “I just realized how important it is for her development to be seen,” he said. “It’s like if they aren’t being watched, they cease to exist.” “I’ve been trying to tell you that for years," I replied. But one new fact makes me wish I’d held my tongue.Only months ago, when he sought counseling because I threatened to leave him, my husband was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Few people know it yet because he doesn’t want it told. I suppose the people who need to know the most are beginning to understand him a little bit better. And our precious granddaughter will gain from his growing awareness of how his behavior affects his loved ones.I’m trying not to blame my husband for the years of missing eye contact, the robotic affirmations of love and understanding, and the lack of emotional/spiritual connection in a form I recognize. He can’t help it. And I can’t help having convinced myself I don’t need him in those ways as a form of self-protection. As the saying goes, “It is what it is.”

When I picture my final years, I often imagine I’d be more content without him. Even so, I would miss him.

Our Neurodiverse Marriage Has Endured Beyond What Statistics Predict

Seeing my husband smile deeply while watching our granddaughter is a reminder to me that the 20-year-old I fell in love with—the one who appeared to be in love with me, too—didn’t abandon me to his work and his special interests. He was confident enough in our union to assume it required minimal tending. And it was in his nature to think so.I was raised by a mentally ill mother and an alcoholic father and was neglected more often than not. I was rarely mirrored in a healthy way. So when I met my future husband, I was captivated by his wooing. And because I was groomed all my life to expect disconnection, I was somewhat prepared for the estrangements that were to come. This could be why our neurodiverse marriage (a marriage in which one partner is neurodiverse) has endured beyond what the statistics appear to predict: an 80 percent divorce rate, nearly double that of neurotypicals. My husband is a brilliant man, a research scientist who has contributed significantly to his field. A few years into our marriage, when I was pursuing graduate studies, I became pregnant with our first child. This pregnancy was unplanned and very difficult, and it unmoored me to the extent that it took years for my soul to find safe harbor. For years, I took on the jobs of housewife and home-based teacher of our children, two of whom are gifted and one of whom has a terminal genetic disease. My work has been rewarding but hard. It would have been treacherously lonely but for the company of good friends. While my husband provided financial security, I did nearly everything else. And now that our kids are grown, I’m gradually getting to know myself again. When I picture my final years, I often imagine I’d be more content without him. Even so, I would miss him.

We have done well in the face of enormous obstacles.

My Husband and I Have More Obstacles to Face

Looking back, many of the arguments between us have actually been exercises in me insisting on my own existence while he remained bewildered. I didn’t know it then. I thought I was arguing about incomplete chores, lack of planning and goal-setting and failure to spend time with us. I thought we spoke the same language.At some point during my difficult childhood, I learned to reframe the ordinary horrors of daily life. I wrote stories about plucky raccoons. I told myself I would one day study the origins of the universe. Extraordinary things would happen to me. I would be a special person thinking expansive thoughts. My brief, early flirtation with grandiosity and my rich imagination have carried me through illness, abuse and disappointment. But at times, they have kept me from experiencing things as they are. The fact is, I have done my best, and so has my husband. We love our family and we love one another. We can always do better. But we have done well in the face of enormous obstacles. When our granddaughter smiles, I light up inside. And when my husband smiles back at her, I feel reborn. Love is the mirror of life. Sometimes veiled. Dazzling when revealed. I’ll try to take comfort in the love we have and to remember that it has been there all along, whether or not I decide to stay.

The following is a Doe exclusive: A recollection from a former terrorist's point-of-view, as interviewed by a Kenyan journalist.In 2008, I completed my secondary education. My plan was to join one of Kenya’s security agencies to better assist my northern Kenya community in fighting insecurity and terrorism. But when I visited my rural home in a remote village in Garissa, I found the whole village in a state of mourning.Armed bandits had recently attacked, ransacked local shops and killed four people. Insecurity was a way of life here, and my visit coincided with another brutal and violent act. After staying in the village for a while, I started desperately looking for a job to sustain myself and also to care for my poor parents and young siblings.Social expectations forced me to approach all kinds of contacts who might assist me in getting a job of any kind. I remember meeting many people; however, one contact I met in 2009 was an agent of doom and the key person who lured and recruited me into the al-Shabab terror group against my wishes.

How I Was Forced to Join a Terrorist Organization

The al-Shabab recruiter passed as a very generous person—he used to offer people free tea, bottled water, food and khat, a recreational drug very popular among the youth in northern Kenya. With time, I got addicted to khat, and with social responsibilities pressuring me, I made the ultimate wrong decision.The recruiter employed me to supervise his livestock buying-and-selling business by taking care of his large cattle herd, maintaining weekly livestock sales reports, offering veterinary services and releasing sold livestock to buyers. We mostly grazed the livestock near Boni forest in Lamu County.One day, after six months of joining the livestock trade business, a group of bearded men approached me and said they needed 20 bulls. I processed their request, and they paid $10,000 in cash. One recruiter brought 30 other youths from other parts of the country to supplement his livestock business work and activities. Unbeknownst to me, the livestock business was this recruiter’s front.One day, in 2010, armed men attacked our Boni forest ranch. Immediately after the attack, we were blindfolded and led through the dense trees before we reached a makeshift camp harboring many al-Shabab fighters and Muslim imams and sheikhs. “You are now in al-Shabab territory and control, and you will join mujahideen forces and assist our brothers and sisters in liberating Somalia, which is under the invasion of the AMISOM forces,” one of the sheikhs told us.After joining al-Shabab, I was shocked by their intelligence-gathering prowess, as they knew the names of all my siblings, parents and close friends in Garissa. They also knew the secondary school I attended and the final results I obtained during my Kenyan national secondary examination. They even knew the names of my secondary school teachers and the subjects they taught me. The same happened to other captors and my fellow workmates.

I was brainwashed and committed these acts out of fear of being branded a traitor or spy.

I Quickly Became an Instructor to New Recruits

I surrendered to fate in May of 2010, when I realized that I would either die in terrorist combat or through a suicide bombing. This was the day I closed my eyes and made a silent prayer, pitying my siblings and parents, who had put all their expectations in me and were waiting for monthly subsistence from my earnings from the livestock trade. I had sent them money for a few months before we were abducted.After joining al-Shabab, we received sophisticated military training and tactics. I received map-reading and bomb-making skills and then I was deployed to Kismayo, an area of the Gedo region in Somalia. I soon joined an elite al-Shabab unit that was controlling both land and sea routes in Kismayo, Somalia’s third-largest town.In Kismayo, I learned how to undertake surveillance missions on targets, how to cover targets before and after attacks and how to protect militants while they undertook their attack missions. By the end of 2010, I was appointed the head of my al-Shabab unit, charged with the role of ferrying recruited youths from Kenya and Uganda into Somalia, while operating in the Dobley, Tabda, Bilis Qooqaani and Kolbiyo areas on the Somalia-Kenya border. I did this work until April of 2011.However, in June, my mandate changed, and I was instructed to join the al-Shabab network of cells, a secretive al-Shabab wing located in Kenya, where I was smuggled through the Kenyan village of Fino in Mandera before I was ferried to the town of El Wak. From El Wak, I traveled to Moyale before I was taken to Nairobi, where I met several al-Shabab cell members and stayed there through September. In Nairobi, I trained other al-Shabab members on surveillance and bomb-making and also personally performed numerous surveillance missions.Under the watch of al-Shabab agents, who had instructions to eliminate me if I showed any signs of betraying the Islamist group, I had no option to stop the training. Though making the bombs wasn’t difficult, I always was fearful that the ones I made for training purposes would explode and kill or injure me. All of this, combined with being smuggled to various outposts, was grueling and harrowing.

I Supplied Somalian Communities With Bombs and Weapons Out of Fear

Toward the end of September 2011, al-Shabab’s al-Aminiyat intelligence unit got information that Kenya was planning to invade Somalia and flush the militants out of Kismayo, their operational capital, with the aim of building a buffer zone there. The invasion plan was triggered by intelligence reports which linked al-Shabab to the abduction of tourists from the Kenyan coastal town of Lamu.I was ordered to leave Kenya and join my former elite al-Shabab squad in order to repel the invading Kenyan armed forces. True to al-Shabab’s intelligence report, Kenya invaded the Gedo region of Somalia bordering Kenya, leading to a fierce battle. I joined other al-Shabab fighters in planting roadside bombs, training local communities on how to make bombs and how to plant and detonate IEDs.We fought off Kenyan forces in Tabda before they killed half of our al-Shabab squad. I escaped toward the Boni forest and rejoined the al-Shabab unit that was operating near the Ras Kamboni area. Because Kenya had flushed al-Shabab out of their Kismayo base, we then decided to focus our attacks inside Kenya. I supplemented al-Shabab cells in Mandera and armed local groups with weapons and combat training. I was also charged with the responsibility of coordinating chaos and killing non-Muslims in the predominantly Muslim-populated northern Kenya region.At this point, I was brainwashed and committed these acts out of fear of being branded a traitor or spy for Western or Kenyan agencies. al-Shabab’s propaganda team also energized my efforts to support and teach skills to those fighting the invading Kenyan forces, who we were trained to believe were infidels, invaders and crusaders trying to weaken Islam and loot Somalia of its natural resources.

I Aided the Al-Shabab Terrorists in Two Deadly Attacks

I remember participating in many terror attacks, and two major incidents will remain etched in my memory forever. One is the Garissa University College attack, where al-Shabab fighters stormed the university before killing 142 students, all of them Christians. I played a key role in the attack, as I ferried the attackers, coordinated funds transfers for the attack and identified operational bases for the attack.The second attack I participated in was when al-Shabab fighters commandeered a bus driving through the Mandera-Nairobi route and ordered all the passengers out of the vehicle. They were profiled according to their religion and separated according to their faith before all the 43 non-Muslim passengers were ordered to say their last prayers and were killed. One non-Muslim passenger escaped the al-Shabab killing squad, and we tried to track him down in vain.After the bus attack, I was transferred to the Somalia-Kenya border and was responsible for smuggling contraband goods into Kenya. Apart from consumable goods like sugar, rice, electronics and other imported products that came from Somalia through the Kismayo port, I also smuggled arms destined to warring northern Kenyan nomadic communities.During my active days at al-Shabab, I felt no remorse for these things, but now I’m filled with it. I realize just how much I played a role in killing thousands of innocent people. My journey is a painful one filled with many regrets and reflections, but in my desperation—my lack of a job, the pressure to sustain my siblings and parents—I was willing to join any venture that would give me some cash.My aim wasn’t to join an Islamist group, and I never harbored any plan to attack or harm people. I became a pawn in the al-Shabab recruitment trap initiated by livestock traders who were really al-Shabab recruiters. My original aim was to join Kenyan security forces and bring peace and harmony amongst rival communities inhabiting northern Kenya, but I was turned into a monster by the recruiters.

I realize just how much I played a role in killing thousands of innocent people.

Years Later, I Live With Guilt and Hope to Publicly Apologize

In October of 2013, I was ordered to report to Sakow inside Somalia, which was a key al-Shabab operational base. Here, I witnessed the beheading of Kenyan al-Shabab fighters who were accused by al-Shabab al-Aminiyat intelligence unit of spying for Western countries. During this time, I was also questioned and detained for some days by the al-Shabab intelligence unit officials over my working relationship with my colleagues who were killed.I was released after 10 days in detention and ordered to join an al-Shabab unit operating in Kolbiyo on the Somalia-Kenya border. The unit was charged with waging attacks and abducting aid workers and local nonprofit organization staff working in the Dadaab refugee camp, located in Garissa. After six months of operations on the Somalia-Kenya border areas of Kolbiyo and Amuma, I was tasked to undertake surveillance work and operations in the Dadaab refugee camp in April of 2014. I was supposed to stay in the camp for another four days to avoid movement detection, but I took advantage of the time to plan my escape from the grip of al-Shabab militias. Today, as someone who was able to escape, I live with immense guilt. Innocent people’s blood is on my hands, and I don’t know how I can give families closure, other than seeking their forgiveness and admitting my involvement to them. I live in constant fear of being hunted by the al-Shabab intelligence unit. I also live in fear of the Kenyan security agency, which is still searching for escaped al-Shabab fighters. I knew the risks involved in escaping and abandoning the terror group, but I am no longer part of the killing machine—I don’t transfer bomb-making skills or assemble any new fighters, and I don’t offer special operations work. I move from village to village, town to town, changing my sleeping address twice a night just to be sure I am OK and safe from the hands of al-Shabab agents and Kenyan security. I’m doing my best to educate and counsel some youth in danger of joining armed groups and al-Shabab, without telling them about my former ties. I’m ready to openly apologize to the families of victims through a radio announcement or social media, but only if I get assurance that I won’t be a victim of an extrajudicial killing or a forced disappearance. I beg God for forgiveness!

I was 17 when my mom had an abortion. While I’m sure a number of women in my life had previously terminated a pregnancy, my mom was the first person who had openly expressed their experience to me. While she had always considered herself pro-choice, an abortion wasn’t something she ever thought she would experience herself.At that point in our lives, my parents already had four happy and healthy children. They also wanted a fifth—especially my mom. Eventually, she became pregnant and was due to deliver in October of 2016. You might be wondering why this much-wanted pregnancy was later terminated. Well, at 12 weeks gestation, the fetus was diagnosed with a fetal anomaly called Edwards' syndrome, limiting the life the baby would have. In fact, my parents were told that the fetus wouldn’t survive the pregnancy. They felt they had no other choice but to terminate and decided to put the lives of their four existing children before themselves by opting for an abortion. Despite learning of their fetus’s illness at 12 weeks, the process to have an abortion took a while. Due to an overwhelmed National Health Service and family delays, their baby was born asleep at 17 weeks. Their experience really shaped my life. I was 17 and old enough to understand the situation fully. From this point onward, I began researching the ins and outs of the U.K.’s abortion laws. I also began advocating for better availability of services across the U.K. and the rest of the globe.

We Lobbied the Government for Remote Abortion Services and Won

After graduating from university, I started my first full-time role at the U.K.’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS). I was working within the press and advocacy team, hoping to raise awareness for better abortion care within the U.K.I joined BPAS in the early months of 2020, but by March and April, the U.K. had gone into lockdown, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. The growing number of staff illnesses meant waiting times for abortion services were longer than ever, and while people could travel for healthcare, there simply were not enough abortion providers operating at full capacity to meet demand. As an organization, BPAS had been campaigning for better access to abortion care for decades, and this was our time to act. Our regular providers couldn’t continue with the decreasing number of staff members available, but it wasn’t right for pregnant women to risk their health to have an abortion. We decided to lobby the U.K. government for remote abortion services, which would allow pregnant people to terminate their pregnancies at home rather than in a clinic. This was something BPAS had spent years researching and had been proven to be safe and effective. When it came to decision day, we were praying the government had seen sense. Thankfully, it was put into policy. At last, our nurses, midwives and doctors could take a breath. Just knowing that it had been introduced was a huge weight off all of our shoulders.

I found it absolutely maddening that it took a pandemic for the government to finally trust pregnant people with their bodies.

Remote Services Have Ensured Faster Care for Women in Need

Still, I found it absolutely maddening that it took a pandemic for the government to finally trust pregnant people with their bodies, especially as this kind of service had been proven to work safely for many years before it was implemented in the U.K. Though it was initially introduced as a result of the pandemic, it’s now in place permanently for pregnant women to access. I can’t help but imagine how different my family’s experience would have been had this been in place in 2016. Of course, my parents were beyond the gestational limits to use the remote services, but because of the newly passed measures, waiting times have plummeted and pregnant women are now accessing abortion care at the earliest point they have ever been able to.Not to mention the impacts on those with existing children or disabilities. Have you ever considered how difficult it could be for a physically disabled individual to access abortion care? Just the thought of having to travel miles by road, train or bus is exhausting. What about those who suffer from mental illness or educational needs? All of these people can now access abortion care from the comfort of their own homes. I’m certain that in my parents’ case, if telemedical abortion care were available, it would not have taken five weeks for them to be seen.

The Abortion Act Needs to Abolish its 24-Week Gestation Limit

Unfortunately, before the pandemic, abortion access in the U.K. was restricted by the Abortion Act. Introduced in the late 1960s, the act is extremely outdated, but it did allow for legal access to abortion services in England, Scotland and Wales. The situation in Northern Ireland was a bit different. In fact, Northern Ireland did not have any legal access to abortion services until it was legalized in 2019.When remote abortion services were introduced, they were actually added into the U.K.’s coronavirus legislation, not the Abortion Act. This meant that they could only legally be in place while the impacts of the pandemic continued. As a result of this, in 2022, the U.K. government had to amend the remote abortion services legislation so it could remain permanently. Despite this, there are still some huge access barriers from the original 1967 Abortion Act. The worst regulation being that there is a 24-week gestational limit, permitting abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy. After that point, abortions can only take place beyond 24 weeks if the pregnant person’s life is at risk or if the fetus would be born with severe disabilities. As my parents had their abortion before the 24-week limit, their baby didn’t exist in the world. It was simply written up on my mother’s medical history as a termination of pregnancy. For those who either terminate, miscarry or give birth to stillborn babies after 23 weeks and six days of gestation, the government offers a birth and death certificate for their child. At that point, legally, the fetus has developed to a point of viability. This means that the fetus has a good rate of survival, if it were to be born beyond this point. But under 24 weeks of gestation—whether from miscarriage or termination—the fetus does not legally exist. Of course, to their families, they do. To parents whose pregnancy ends in a loss before 24 weeks, their baby matters. As a result of outdated abortion laws, these families do not receive any formal recognition of their child. At the time of my mom’s termination, she debated continuing her pregnancy to go beyond 24 weeks, hoping that her baby would be recognized. In her case, it was unlikely her pregnancy would have lasted that long.It’s heartbreaking, even as a sibling, to realize that something you love does not exist on paper. All my family wanted was a birth certificate, something to solidify that their loss was real. That their baby was real.

Abortion is complex, and we can’t assume that all people who have abortions feel the same way about them.

Being Pro-Choice Is About Giving Women Safe and Accessible Care

It’s easy to assume that anyone having an abortion is not connected to their pregnancy, but that is simply not true. Unfortunately, many individuals and families grieve the loss of their pregnancy after deciding to terminate. That is normal and valid, just as it’s valid for some individuals to want to move on and forget. In reality, abortion is complex, and we can’t assume that all people who have abortions feel the same way about them.We still don’t have full control or choice over our pregnancies in the U.K. It’s simply not possible until the tight regulations of the Abortion Act are removed. By completely decriminalizing abortion and removing the 24-week gestational limit, parents would receive a legal registration of their babies, should they want it. Moreover, being pro-choice, and having true choice, should not be for anyone else to dictate. I’m not pro-choice because I believe I might have an abortion in my lifetime. I’m pro-choice because my thoughts, feelings or potential decisions do not matter—what matters is ensuring that there is accessible, safe abortion care for those who need it, when they need it. Alongside that, there is plenty of compassion and care that goes into providing abortion services. During my time at BPAS, I witnessed more kindness, consideration and humanity than I think I have in my entire life. With my family’s experience and my career progression, I cannot see any valid reasons to restrict access to abortion services. Not only is it vital to life but it is important to both the individuals having abortions and to those providing them. It’s time we stop assuming that abortion providers and those who have abortions are heartless—because they’re quite the opposite.

I wish I didn’t have to come out—the first time or the innumerable times I have to do it every day. I wish I wasn’t the “queer” friend all of a sudden, no longer allowed to be the academic friend who happens to be queer. I hope that someday, I can theoretically interrogate queerness in my work, without needing to explain to people that I am queer. I remember walking into my first gender studies classroom, confused about and wanting to know what it meant to be a “woman.” I could never find a space within whatever I knew femininity to be, and I figured I was going to enter a space of knowing what my body meant in the absence of femininity. On the contrary, the space I entered seemed to make my entire existence a topic of debate. I was taught mostly by senior academics, trained in understanding the problems of cis women, claiming to comprehend the complexity of gender. And I was told that feminism equally meant an assertion of femaleness just as much as it meant androgyny. Androgyny in “female” bodies meant becoming male. I stood there, perplexed, wondering if my being was an inadequate resistance to the problems of patriarchy—were my hoodies a size too big and my jeans that slipped down even with a belt not enough as resistance, as rejection? Moreover, was I ever, in my nonbinary self, going to be allowed to exist? Would I ever be enough to no longer be seen as a “woman,” and would I be allowed a physical body that would ever be perceived outside an arbitrary category that I cannot understand?

It’s especially complicated when the actions that make you feel small and insignificant are performed under the guise of friendship.

I Came Out Over the Pandemic and Received Strange Reactions

I felt this line of debate continue into my coming out and after that, as well. In every instance that someone who knows my pronouns misgenders me or when I am told that I am “too sensitive” or when I am asked to educate the people who have the tools to do that themselves, I feel myself retreating into a corner I hope nobody finds me in. I remember coming out during the pandemic. I told a few friends, one of whom was with me. I remember her reaction: “Oh! Are lesbians averse to penises?” I do not think I will make as egregious an error as thinking this was a reaction borne from ignorance. I came out as nonbinary and was asked about something not only unrelated but simply terrible. I remember this friend, months later, trying so aggressively to support me as a queer friend, they forgot the complexity of my living an entire full and composite life. They wanted to see me as their sad queer friend, one who came to them in times of need, despite this violence and despite their “educate me” attitude. It’s especially complicated when the actions that make you feel small and insignificant are performed under the guise of friendship, of someone wanting to save you and alleviate pain caused by them—and much more, by the world.A friend recently told me about how even when their queerness is celebrated, there is something still alienating when it comes from cis people. The celebration is fetishistic, vile and makes you feel observed and policed again. You become, in these spaces, a queer body whose existence is breaking norms. But never are you simply allowed the right to exist, to breathe, to live fully. Your body, your thoughts, your “complicated” feelings, are always fascinating, a sight to study, a revolution. But you aren’t a revolution; you’re an early 20-something who wants to get drunk and dance at a party.

The onus to fight for space, for rights, for existing, should not always be placed on me.

Queer People See Me Differently Than My Other Peers

I shifted institutions recently, and now I am no longer a student. I teach some kids, and I insist they use my name, but they call me “ma’am.” When the institute wants to renovate the living space, their first suggestion is to cram me into a cis women’s space, forgetting once again who I am. I should not have to tell them. The onus to fight for space, for rights, for existing, should not always be placed on me. It’s exhausting and draining for queer people to have their entire mind, body and everything else understood as the other, the anomaly. Tokenistic and superficial fixtures do not make sense, when by design, by gaze and by “objective study,” we are sidelined and constantly made to feel like we have no right to inhabit space. We are not here to question the fragility of social codes; our existence is just outside of them. In some moments, though, you find immense care. Queer people do have a unique way of finding each other and doing for each other the difficult work of hearing painful stories, of understanding what it is like to exist within spaces that do not let you be seen or heard. We extend to each other friendship and moments of immense vulnerability; we hold on to each other. We let each other know that while we cannot fix institutions or universities, we can see each other. We can lend to each other the kindness of knowing each other in full complexity, as people who are queer, complicated and existing fully in a world that disallows it.

I’m standing at the check-out line at Costco with my teenage son. Our cart is overflowing with household supplies for an entire family. I am watching the total go up until it reaches the final number: $437. I quickly scan the contents of my wallet, and then, without thinking, I pull out five $100 bills. My son looks momentarily surprised. “Mom,” he says, “Where did you get all that cash?”I tell him the first thing that comes to mind, the first thing I think of that seems plausible: “I sold something on Craigslist.” Sometimes, we lie to protect our children. Sometimes, our children also pretend to believe our lies to protect us. He doesn’t ask any more questions. In reality, the cash is whore money, a sum equal to one hour with one client. This fact silently fills the space between us. We both pretend not to feel it.

I Hope Sex Work Is Normalized in Future Generations

My older kids—including the one with me at Costco—know that I’m a sex worker. I told them years ago when my public persona as a writer on a sex work beat grew too big to hide. My husband and I took them out to dinner, where we explained that I write about the online sex work that I do (camming, independent porn production, phone sex). They asked a few questions but didn’t react strongly; they were expecting me to tell them I was pregnant again, and news about what I did to pay for the dinner they were enjoying was less exciting. That night, when I “came out” to my kids, I told them the truth about my work. A few years later, I transitioned to seeing clients in person, but I didn’t mention my switch to criminalized labor. To an extent, the nature of my contact and relationship with clients is not their business. But more importantly, I didn’t want to burden them with information that would scare them or would make them feel like they had to carry my secrets. While I have raised my kids in an accepting environment where they have had exposure to all kinds of people, including those in the sex trades, I cannot create an entire world for them. Despite my best efforts, they still exist in a culture where “your mother is a whore” is one of the most biting insults. The idealist in me works hard to normalize sex work to such an extent that my children’s children won’t be able to understand why this is an insult. Perhaps this is a bit optimistic, but maybe their children’s children or their children’s children’s children? The realist in me recognizes that right now, my occupation puts the very thing that I care most about—my kids—at risk for shaming, harassment or worse.

The cash is whore money, a sum equal to one hour with one client.

Online Sex Work Allowed Me to Be a Better Mother

Anyone who has spent much time around sex workers recognizes that we are a diverse group of people who come from all walks of life. Despite the cultural insistence that no one would enter the industry for reasons other than force or desperation—a narrative shaped by second-wave feminists’ anti-sex work rhetoric—the reasons for entering sex work are as varied as the people who occupy the profession. What is also clear to anyone familiar with the industry is that it is overrepresented by people who suffer from other forms of marginalization: those who are disabled, neurodivergent, trans, queer, working class, poor, non-white, mothers or other forms of caretakers, etc. While this fact is often interpreted to mean that only those with few options would do sex work, this interpretation fails to recognize that the sex industry serves as a safety net for those who are excluded from conventional forms of employment. It offers flexible work with a low barrier to entry to folks who have been failed by the state, suffered systemic discrimination and/or have responsibilities or disabilities that preclude them from working full-time. I came into sex work in my mid-30s, after leaving my first marriage and the career I spent my entire adulthood up until that point trying to build. My world had turned upside down, and I was in a financial crisis that was only amplified by the fact that one of my children started to have serious mental health issues—so serious, in fact, that taking care of her became a full-time job. At the time, I had a boss who tried to be supportive but who couldn’t count on me to follow through with the tasks he assigned. I would spend hours at work on the phone with doctors, social workers and the school district, trying to stitch together enough resources to keep her safe. I also missed days of work after sleepless nights in the emergency department of the psychiatric hospital, and I often left early to pick her up when she was having psychotic episodes at school. Keeping her alive was my priority, and when my boss let me go, I understood why. Online sex work, the form of sex work I turned to first, became a way for me to make money on my own terms. I didn’t have a boss; no one complained if I took a day off; and I could work between crises. I would sit in the waiting room or on the phone with doctors while posting advertisements for my services on Twitter, sexting for pay with my clients or updating my OnlyFans account. In other words, I could keep my family afloat when my time was limited and most of my emotional resources went to parenting. What’s more, hourly rates were higher than in any other job I’d had (despite having two graduate degrees), allowing me to work fewer hours and be home when I needed to be.

The Threat of Violence and State Intervention Looms Over Me

My career in sex work has been complicated, but it’s absolutely intertwined with motherhood. I did what I needed to do so that I could be the mom I needed to be. I don’t regret it. I was able to hold my daughter’s hand when she needed it, and years later, I was able to be home for her younger brother who has special needs when school after school told us that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they didn’t have the resources to help him. I’m not the only mother with this story, but I can only speak for myself. While I know I made the right choice for myself and my family, I also know that the world, by and large, doesn’t agree. The United States, where I live, is in the midst of an intense moral panic that conflates all sex work with sex trafficking and is actively working to criminalize all aspects of the sex trades under the guise of an anti-trafficking agenda. We also still live under the cultural weight of Christianity’s Madonna/whore complex, which sees motherhood and sexuality as diametrically opposed. I know that should someone want to use sex work against me, they could attack my fitness to be a mother: What respectable mother engages in prostitution? And they would probably be supported in doing so. State intervention and violence vis-a-vis my kids loom large over my head, despite the fact that motherhood is my most important role. I live under the threat of losing my kids should the wrong person find out what I do to pay for their needs. Perhaps only other sex working mothers would understand the sheer panic that came over me when I found a sign that one of my teenagers had made as a joke that read, “Nudes for sale.” That night, I woke my kid up in a panic to stress that if anyone saw the sign, my husband and I could be under suspicion for trafficking, and given my profession, we’d likely be jailed. Perhaps only sex working parents would also understand why having our son’s preschool complain about his shoes, clothes and lunch—nitpicky things that all schools send home notes about—feels extra weighty when you know that any investigation into how you live your life could, given a particular judge’s biases, be used as evidence that you are unfit to parent. While it is generally believed that adults can both work and have sex without it negatively impacting their children, sex working mothers are not offered the same benefit of the doubt, which is ironic because sex workers are experts in maintaining healthy sexual boundaries (if job descriptions for sex workers existed, it would be near the top).

I did what I needed to do so that I could be the mom I needed to be. I don’t regret it.

I Hope All Sex Working Mothers Will Feel Safe One Day

The criminalization and stigmatization of sex work makes it less safe for everyone who trades sex for money or resources. It makes us loath to call the police when we have been mistreated or assaulted by a client, driving our advertising further and further underground and making it harder to screen clients and offer each other resources that keep us safe. It also isolates us from society when we could use resources and support. All of this is amplified for mothers, who fear that their work may jeopardize their ability to care for their kids, which is ironic given that many of us, myself included, became sex workers in large part because it afforded us the resources to take care of our kids in a world that offers little support to working mothers, particularly working mothers with kids who have disabilities, special needs or health issues. I don’t hide the full truth of my work because I am not ashamed of the work that I have done. In fact, I have found a lot of meaning in it. When my kids are old enough to understand the choices I made, I will share the full extent of my work history with them, should they want to know. But until we move into a world in which all mothers, especially sex working mothers, are trusted to make the best decisions that they can for themselves and their children, most of us will continue to keep it hidden for fear of unthinkable consequences.

Ever since I was a kid, being in a sitcom has always been my dream. Making people laugh is my forte, and to do it for the masses, well, what a gift that would be. It wasn't until I was in my mid-30s that I decided to move to Los Angeles and pursue my ambition for acting.L.A. isn't a cakewalk, and it sure as hell isn't cheap to reside there. I held numerous jobs while auditioning for roles, and I very quickly learned I didn't know a lot about show business at all. What I did know was I needed to be on sets to see how everything worked, and there were two easy ways to get on them: being a production assistant or an extra.When you're a production assistant, you work closely with all aspects of the crew and behind the scenes while being treated like garbage and getting paid pennies. It's very common that production assistants are actors as well, trying to make it in La La Land. Being an extra is a pubic hair better than working as a production assistant, but it’s still clown work. Throughout my time working on sets, however, there’s been one common refrain: “You need to be in SAG-AFTRA.” Well, you hear numerous things:“You have to be in SAG!”“Are you in SAG?”“Are you part of the actor’s union, SAG?”“You'll never make it anywhere in this business if you aren't in SAG.”A workers union, historically, is meant for people to work as one, united to make the job better. It promotes superior benefits, proper raises and safer work environments. It's for the people, by the people—and I do know a handful of folks who have benefited extremely from a union. So when I heard these questions, I thought, well hell, let's join the union! What are the benefits?Well, you get invited to movie screenings with the stars of the movies. You get health benefits. SAG-AFTRA sends you movies to watch that aren't out yet on DVD (who has a DVD player?).You receive higher wages for work. There’s better food on set. You get taken seriously in auditions. And you get to take free acting classes through SAG. As I had only been working as a non-union actor, this was all very appealing to me.

James Corden was a supreme douche lord that carried a huge chocolate chip on his shoulder and always had a bag of Cheetos in his hand.

The Difference Between Union and Non-Union Members Is Stark

If you're a union member, you get treated a lot better than if you're non-union. Here are some examples: Non-union actors get fed food that's almost inedible. Non-union actors sit in the sun, while union actors hang in the shade. Non-union actors change in the middle of parking lots, while union actors have designated areas to change their costumes. The production staff will scold non-union actors for needing to use the restroom, while union actors actually have easy access to them. I was booked as a non-union background actor on Ryan Murphy's The Prom, starring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and James Corden. It was three weeks before Christmas, and I had booked two weeks of filming, which was going to give me enough money to travel home to see my family for the holiday. On the first day, I worked with Meryl and James. Meryl was so lovely! She reminded me of my crazy theater teacher, Miss Palmer, back in my freshman year of high school. But James Corden was a supreme douche lord that carried a huge chocolate chip on his shoulder and always had a bag of Cheetos in his hand.Usually, non-union actors don't get picked to do intimate scenes, but I was chosen by production and got to act with both of them. I had been eating non-union food, so when I was shuffled into the union area, the options for union actors were blindly different: lobster, crepes, sparkling water—and plenty of it. Not chips, Twinkies and doughnuts.I filmed my scene and left feeling euphoric having worked with such a legend as Meryl. Then, I got a text from my agency that said they had cut the rest of my days on the show because they saw me too much and couldn't have me anywhere else in scenes. If I had been a SAG member, the production wouldn't have been able to do that—or, at least, they would have had to pay me for the missed work.I wasn't able to go home to see family that year, and that still pisses me off to this day.

It Took Me Two Years in Hollywood to Finally Sign Up for SAG-AFTRA

So yes, how the hell do I sign up for SAG?Oh, well, you can't just sign up. You have to land a regular speaking part on a show or movie and production will assist you in signing up. If you're a background actor, you have to work and beg for a union voucher that's almost next to impossible to get, the equivalent to a Willy Wonka golden ticket. You need three of them in order to be eligible to join.On sets, they only have a specific number of SAG actors versus non-union actors. And only SAG members get the union vouchers since, duh, they’re in the union. If you end up getting one, it's an act of Zeus because someone got sick and you were standing in the right place at the right time. Even that day on The Prom, I was treated like a union member with The Iron Lady and James dumb-shit, and I still didn't get a union voucher for that work. After two years in Hollywood, I finally received my first voucher on an anthology titled Into the Dark. The day I worked on a SAG voucher, I made a little above minimum wage. It wasn't until another year that I received my next two vouchers and became eligible to join. Oh yeah, one other requirement to join is $3,100 paid on the spot, through a loan with a bank or in six installments. If you choose the installments, you pay monthly, and the first payment is $1,026.79. The rest are $415.94. I chose the installment route because I didn't want to do a loan and I didn't have $3,100 lying around in an offshore account.At that time, I had been working on Impeachment: American Crime Story consistently as a regular background actor, all the while doing hair in a blow-dry bar, so I thought I could manage with the payments. But Impeachment stopped booking a month after I made my first payment to SAG, and I started to struggle. My hair job was also struggling because we were in the middle of a pandemic where clients, to save money, started doing their hair themselves. Can you blame them?

If SAG-AFTRA had a Yelp page, I'd give it one star.

Joining SAG Was a Mistake, but I’m Not Giving Up

I reached out to SAG to let them know my predicament, and it took days for them to get back to me. The response was what I feared. There was nothing they could do; I had already signed up.I had some money in savings, but after a couple more months of payments, cocktailed with L.A. rent, bills and gas, I was broke. What in the actual fuck was I thinking? If SAG-AFTRA had a Yelp page, I'd give it one star. I'm sure you're like, "Well, why did you sign up?" I ask myself this a lot. I'm not usually a hopeful person, but I had hope that if I signed up and joined the union, my acting career would take off. Casting would take me more seriously and, to be honest, I thought SAG itself would be more helpful. My $3,100 balance was paid off, only to be met with annual dues that had to be paid. So I wasn't officially a member for another five months because I just simply didn't have the money. I haven't given up on my dreams of being an actor, but I have put them on pause due to not being able to pay rent and being forced to vacate my L.A. apartment. I now reside in my mom's guest bedroom in central Texas. Yeehaw! Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

On this year’s Mother’s Day in the U.K., I told my boyfriend to leave and go visit home. I told him to see his mom, give her a hug and spend some time with her. He was set on staying with me and making sure I wasn’t alone, but I insisted. I said that it was important to me; it was important for him to show appreciation for her and hold her close. That opportunity was taken away from me almost two years ago, in July of 2020. I was 20 years old. This is my second Mother’s Day without her, my second Mother’s Day when all I see in town are signs, advertisements, window displays. Every day is Mother’s Day. Show your appreciation for the most important woman in your life. It is a reminder of the absence. Well, a bigger reminder. The small ones come in the form of a new job or a funny story or their favorite color on a mug in the supermarket. Things that make you think of them, things that you want to share with them. It reminds me of the reality of my situation. That I have to become someone new, someone who she will never know.

There isn’t a right or wrong way to combat this difficult day, but it is important to remember that you are not alone.

I Wish Mother’s Day Marketing Understood the Demographic It’s Missing

The day itself is strange. I feel like I have awakened with something pulling me back down. My best advice to anyone experiencing this and grieving on these days is to stay distracted. But it’s a shame when we don’t have the option to go out for a coffee or a meal, in case the visual reminder is too much. We can’t check social media. For me, this has been a big problem—Facebook posts pasted across my timeline. Other people are celebrating their mothers. They’re out for brunch and drinks and Mother’s Day dinners. I’m jealous. I’m a bit angry. It doesn’t help me. There isn’t a right or wrong way to combat this difficult day, but it is important to remember that you are not alone. Losing someone so close to you can be a truly isolating experience. You end up feeling like the only person on the planet who is suffering. But we are not alone. Mother’s Day marketing misses out on a huge group of people: people who have lost mothers, people with absent mothers, people who have no contact with their mothers. It is a broadly experienced pain, and you will never be alone. After this year, which I found to be a struggle, I am going to try and redefine Mother’s Day for myself. This is easier said than done, and trying to be positive about something such as this will be near impossible. But I want to. For her. I should think of her and remember the moments that make me smile and laugh. I should think about her leaving chocolate bars on the kitchen counter for me and my brothers. I should think about us dyeing each other’s hair and listening to Madonna. The good things. I want to be able to celebrate her as others do. Beyond all of the pain is the woman who raised me. She impacted me more than anyone else ever has or ever will.

I want to think about her and smile as much as I can.

The Path to Healing Has Many Setbacks

I need to remember her. Everyone who is grieving at this time of year should try this. Redefine. Light a candle, pour libations and talk out loud to them. Talk to friends, to family. I’m lucky enough to have siblings who are experiencing the same struggles as me. But if, like me, you still struggle and cry, that’s OK. The grief we feel is the unspoken love that we didn’t have time to share.Grieving is not a straight line. I find myself facing new challenges every single day. I hear her funeral song being played in shops and, sometimes, it destroys me. Recently—and I mean very recently—this began to change. I caught myself singing it absentmindedly. I stopped myself, but then I just carried on. It was in my head for a good few hours. It was a breakthrough I did not expect to have but a welcome one. It has less of a negative connotation in my mind now. Sometimes, it even makes me smile. And I want to think about her and smile as much as I can. Losing a mother is one long goodbye. A goodbye that I was experiencing even before she passed away. It is one goodbye that I will never stop experiencing. But I’m going to try and see the hellos, not just the goodbyes. For her. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

To my biological dad, who walked out when I was 3 years old,Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I’m not sure why I’m even saying that, because you’ve never once wished me a happy birthday, congratulated me on getting a first-class degree or sent me a Christmas card. But with my heart, I hope you have a happy day. Because thanks to you, I have happy days, every day and, truly, I’m doing great.Most people use Father’s Day as an opportunity to give thanks to their fathers for everything they’ve done throughout their lives, but instead of thanking you for being Dad, I’m thanking you for not being one. Dads usually teach their kids how to ride bikes, take them to the cinema on a Saturday, drive them to and from school and surprise them with gig tickets to their favorite band. But the only thing that you have ever taught me is how to live without a father figure in my life and, honestly, that’s the best thing you could have taught me. I’m an independent, successful young woman and had you been a part of my life, I doubt I’d be where I am right now. Maybe you might have wrecked my life later down the line when I was a teenager, causing me mental health problems and trust issues. Or maybe things might have been OK on the surface, but really, I’d be comfortable and entitled, thinking things would get handed to me on a plate and not needing to work as hard—therefore meaning I wouldn’t be where I am today.

The only thing that you have ever taught me is how to live without a father figure in my life and, honestly, that’s the best thing you could have taught me.

My Mom and I Struggled, but I’m Stronger Because of It

Instead of you doing all the things that a dad should, my mum had to step up to the plate and take on the roles of both my mum and my dad—a superwoman if you will. Standing by my side and never leaving me as you did, my mum taught me everything about life and molded me into the woman I am today. My mum was the one I called up on my lonesome lunch breaks at high school when I had no friends and felt abandonment yet again; she was the one who took me school shoe shopping and scraped together the money for uniforms; she would travel to school with me every single day without fail—getting on buses and trudging through muddy fields. My mum did everything for me and would still do anything for me, while you continue on with your life, forgetting about your one and only daughter.When you left me and my mum, when I was just 3 years of age, for the woman that you shacked up with and welcomed a son with, you knew we’d struggle—and you were right. But off you went to set up a bright and beautiful new life with the woman who you had an affair with while my mum was pregnant with me, your child. With no support from you since the age of 3, my mum and I often struggled for money, and then you made me go for a DNA test at age 13 for you to start paying child maintenance—which was a pitiful £36 per week. Imagine that, a 13-year-old schoolgirl having to go into a hospital to get a DNA test because her dad wanted to make it as hard as possible for her to get the money that she was entitled to. You didn’t want to provide for me and you made it as difficult as you possibly could. You made a vow to my mum and told her that you’d open a bank account in my name that I could have access to when I was 16, full of money so I could fund my education and live a full life, but that was a total lie.I guess your new son was far more important though, the son you fathered a matter of months after you discarded me, your firstborn. Not only did my half-brother grow up with a father who would take him to football matches and the cinema on the weekends or on bike rides and lavish holidays, but he was and still is provided for by you. He’ll probably have his university fees covered by you; you’ll probably pay for his accommodation; and he won’t ever know the struggles I’ve had to face in my life.

It doesn’t matter, because I survived—I made it.

I Am Doing Much Better Without You

But it doesn’t matter, because I survived—I made it. My mum and I might have struggled for several years, but we made things work, and now we’re living a life that we never thought would be possible. You gave me the worst start in life, but thanks to you, it’s turned out pretty golden. I am so relieved you’re not part of my life. I’m a successful writer. I have a degree, and I don’t need you, because I never have. If you ever decide that you want to know me because you need something or have finally realized that you have a daughter, I’ll demand you do a DNA test and then I’ll call you a taxi because I don’t know you. You told my mum after you left that one day, I’d be 16 and able to make my own decisions and, well, this is my own decision.Anyway, have a great Father’s Day, from your firstborn child and only daughter, who is honestly better off without you.

This is the second and final narrative in a two-part series. Here is the first.As I found myself emerging from the haze of general anesthesia, I was pinched on the cheek, asked if I knew where I was, who I was and why I came to be in an operating theater that looked like a Star Trek set. Kidney cancer had put me on my back, and the pain that started kicking in pretty soon after I reemerged into consciousness confirmed that the offending kidney had indeed been removed. The surgical staff seemed pleased with how things turned out. The main man said it had been a textbook procedure and that I should take my time to recover and speak to the pain management team. I was assigned a nurse who would take care of me during this admission into a private clinic in the U.K.

Seeking Private Care Was a Choice I Didn’t Want to Make

Because of pressure points caused directly by funding cuts and staff shortages, I had made, for me, a bit of a sell-out decision. Poor salaries, brutal hours and the patronizing, seal-like clapping of right-wing politicians and their antimatter alternatives on the left make the NHS an unattractive career option for many and again engenders the contrived drift toward privatization. I remain a lifelong supporter and defender of the NHS and all public services. I would have much preferred to have had all my treatment within the NHS, an organization I’ve paid into throughout my entire working life. Sadly—and I mean that sincerely—I acted in fear, particularly after seeing a speech by Boris Johnson, who stated that cancer treatments were expected to be delayed because of COVID. An article in the British Medical Journal highlighted the data that demonstrates a few weeks can be life or death in cancer treatment. I wasn’t looking down the barrel of Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum, but, well, you get the idea. I couldn’t leave it to luck.I spent my first night in private care in something like an urgent care ward. I was monitored very closely by the nursing staff and can only rate the experience as five-star—if indeed one can rate a medical procedure in such a way.On day two, I was moved to a less intensive and, as my wits were starting to kick back in, a less expensive recovery suite. I was worried about the cost going into the hospital, and the day after surgery, I was starting to worry a whole lot more. I felt debilitated, was catheterized and could not move too well without a whole lot of pain and some physical assistance. To cap that off, my blood and urine results on my surviving kidney were below par. However, the financial pressure of the situation forced me to pretend I was doing better than I truly felt. I’d budgeted for four days in hospital. For every day beyond the fourth, I was going to be a grand in the hole. And for me, in my humble estimation, that is precisely why I firmly still believe in free medical care at the point of access funded by a communal fund raised through tax and/or national insurance (as is usually the case in the U.K.).

The financial pressure of the situation forced me to pretend I was doing better than I truly felt.

Aftercare Is One of Private Medicine’s Weaknesses

Had my surgery been undertaken within an NHS ward, a discharge plan would have been a big part of the process of preparing me to go home safely. Having worked with NHS teams in the past, I knew, more or less, how to go about creating my own discharge plan. Without this a priori understanding of what was needed—like follow-up care via a GP and contacting social services for some measure of support with my home and day-to-day well-being for a couple of follow-up weeks—I could well have run out of money and simply had to go home broke, in pain, in danger of contracting a wound infection and perhaps housebound until I was well enough to walk unaided. This is the danger of the U.K.’s drift toward an enforced private healthcare marketplace: Patients who are far from well enough to be discharged completely from health service provision, including during the crucial period after discharge from an inpatient setting, have proven to be at serious risk.In 2021, several hundred private patients had to be transferred from acute private wards into NHS care. I was fortunate that my private care was undertaken within an NHS hospital. For starters, I could never have afforded the prices the purely private clinics quoted me when I inquired—as much as £30k at some places. I paid a third of that, and this was because under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, NHS hospitals are now allowed to generate up to 49 percent of their income from private patients. While I’m personally lucky that this is the case, I fundamentally disagree with the necessity for the NHS to source their finances from individual patients.Of course, as the issue was debated at the time, between 2010 and 2011, the neoliberal hawks, like Jeremy Hunt and George Osborne, were keen to prize open the NHS by the back door, so to speak, to allow for a private insurance system to emerge and eventually come to dominate the healthcare sector throughout the U.K. The devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland may have control of local health budgets, but if Westminster wishes to, it can withhold funds.

I firmly believe the privatization of significant social institutions is a recipe for disaster.

Private Hospitals Are Only the Tip of the Iceberg

I hold my hands up to participating in the game but still believe that if the neoliberal elite within Westminster continues its relentless race to the bottom—where medicine, surgery and other forms of healthcare are marketized and opened up for profiteering—the outcomes will be neither equitable nor just.I firmly believe the privatization of significant social institutions is a recipe for disaster. Private hospitals, private prisons, and—with Blackstone and company—private armies? Is this the world we wish to leave to our children and grandchildren? Even at the risk of being called naive, I argue for a resounding no!

In “To Zion,” the fourth track from Lauryn Hill's 1998 debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the acclaimed artist sings to her infant son, Zion David. A love song about her devotion to her baby, it shares her overwhelming gratitude for being chosen by God to be his mother and her determination at the height of her career to foster the life that was growing inside of her, even while everyone around her advised her not to.My earliest memory is of my mom singing "To Zion" to me as a toddler. It’s what she had chosen as her song to me, her youngest child and only son. When my mom got pregnant with me and then gave birth, she had very little in common with Lauryn Hill. I wasn’t her first child, and she also wasn’t at the height of her career or in her early 20s. No one had even told her to terminate her pregnancy. But my mom had suffered a heavy trauma a year before giving birth to me, when she miscarried a son late into her pregnancy. I imagine that the lyrics, “See life for you, my prince, has just begun / And I thank you for choosing me / To come through unto life to be,” were something of a mantra and that the song served as a kind of testimony for her. By the time I was 4 years old, she raised my two sisters and me as a single mom. My parents had separated, and while my dad largely remained the financial provider of our family, my mom was our emotional and physical caretaker and primary parent. She wanted more for us; she wanted us to be different from the rest of our family and from most of the people she had grown up with in her tight-knit working-class Italian American community, where family was first and everything else came second. My mom also believed in treating my sisters and me like autonomous human beings, which to this day is still a radical concept for many people raising children. But from a young age, it was clear to my family that I was queer. We didn’t have the right language, so the word that was often used about me was “gay.” The two eldest grandchildren in my family—both boys—had come out as gay within a year of each other before I was 5 years old. While my family wasn’t as accepting of my cousins as they are today, when I began showing signs of being different, they saw, accepted and loved me. The thing is, I never saw myself as gay as a child. I knew that I liked boys but, importantly, I also knew that I was a girl. How do you verbalize that to your family as a young child with no concept of what being trans is?

How do you verbalize that to your family as a young child with no concept of what being trans is?

My Mother’s Advice Has Stayed With Me Forever

Like all queer and trans kids, I grew up in a world of mixed signals and confusion and, from an early age, I learned to live in my own secretive and guarded world as a defense mechanism. Most of the experiences at my Catholic elementary school were brutal—I struggled to express myself and came home crying every day, always about the same thing. I had been called a slur or been made fun of for being flamboyant and feminine. Often, I would cry into my mom's lap about not being treated like one of the girls, confused by the fact that no one saw me as the girl I saw in myself. I was unable to communicate that to anyone, even my mom. But during one of these crying spells, she told me something that has stayed with me throughout my life. I had two options: I could either change and try to act like the rest of the boys, or I could continue to be who I was and deal with the fact that some people would make fun of me. She showed me that I had a choice to make, and she didn’t shy away from the fact that both choices would be equally difficult, full of sacrifices on both ends. Through my tears, I told her that I would choose the second option, that I would continue to be myself and learn to deal with the torment that I was encountering outside of my home. Most Italian American homes have strict gender roles that are imposed upon children from a young age, but I was raised with a different set of values and customs. Italian American daughters are raised to carry the emotional burden of their families, whereas Italian American sons are raised to be little princes who rule their mothers’ hearts and, in return, act as their mothers’ protector for the rest of their life. My mom grew up the youngest of five children with three older brothers, and throughout her childhood, she had grown to hate what she perceived as their misogynistic masculinity and laziness. She vowed as a mother that regardless of her children's genders, she would raise them equally rather than imparting a different set of rules to her daughters and her sons. But as the common phrase goes, “We make plans, and God laughs,” and my mom faltered in her fortitude, trying her hardest to be true to that promise she had made to herself many years ago. For the most part, my sisters and I were raised with the same values and rules. My mom imparted the same wisdom to all three of us, encouraging us to be true to ourselves, to have integrity and to protect one another and those we loved. But I still was my mom's little prince, babied as both the youngest and her only son. In return for being treated like royalty, I held up my end of the centuries-old contract and protected my mom throughout my childhood and teen years. Whenever there was a fight or any bit of criticism wielded toward my mom, I found myself going to battle for her. Where my sisters fought with my mom tooth and nail, I only saw the good in her and canonized her a saint in my heart. And when I fought with my dad tooth and nail, my sisters canonized him a saint in their hearts.

After my mother tried twice to have the son she wanted so badly, was I robbing her of her divine right to have this experience?

My Mother’s Love Overwhelmed Me When I Came Out

When I was 20 years old and living in Brazil, I decided that I could no longer run away from my womanhood and started coming to grips with the fact that I had to transition. I felt ready to do it, but I hesitated over a very specific question: After my mother tried twice to have the son she wanted so badly, was I robbing her of her divine right to have this experience? A week later, one of my sisters called and told me that if I ever decided to transition, our mom had told her that she would be ready because of the way the culture had shifted. I remember yelling at my sister, telling her to tell my mom that I wasn’t trans and that I was offended by that line of thinking. When I finally calmed down, I found myself overwhelmed by my mom's love, acceptance and ability to see me once again so clearly. Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve of 2015, I FaceTimed my mom from my apartment in Brazil and came out to her as her daughter. She accepted me, with a sense of calm and grace that she has always carried with her in the most intense moments, and simply told me that she loved me. Soon after, she was posting on Facebook about her three daughters.

Our Family Has an Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood

It’s now been six years since I came out as trans, and my relationship with my mom has evolved into something that isn’t exactly quantifiable or definable. I know that I am her daughter and that she sees me as such, but I also know that in many ways, I am still her son, something we both acknowledge and laugh about often. To this day, I don’t look to my mom as someone who I have built my womanhood from; instead, I look to other trans women with whom I have a similar shared experience of womanhood.Of course, I am still in many ways my mom's protector, the way that all Italian American sons are. But as her daughter, I see her vulnerability and humanity in ways I didn’t understand until I became a woman. We will never be able to fully relate to one another's experience as women because we have come to our womanhood differently, but we share an unbreakable bond of sisterhood as mother and daughter, and we share an unbreakable bond of love and understanding as mother and son. The older I get and the more my relationship with my mom evolves and grows deeper, I relate heavily to the lyrics in “To Zion”: “And I thank you for choosing me.” I thank God and the universe for choosing me to be my mom's child and to have the only unconditional love I’ve ever known in my entire life.

There has never been a point in my life I haven’t felt close to my mom. When I was 3 and my sister 1, my parents divorced. We lived with my mom, who did everything she could to make our lives full and meaningful, even though her income was small. Our unit of three moved several times—friends, houses and schools coming and going. But our friendship with each other never wavered. I remember spending evenings reading or talking in her bed before we went to sleep, and mornings were spent getting ready in front of her bathroom mirror. I never wanted to be away from her. I never went through the teenage phase of being too cool for her company. She was my safe haven.

I remember the tears, all the tears.

I Moved to Another Country and Away From My Mom

During the middle of college, I met a British man who I fell in love with. Even though my mom was excited for me and loved my future husband, she knew if the relationship lasted, she would lose the closeness of her daughter. And that time eventually came. After finishing college, I packed two large suitcases and moved to Wales to marry my husband. I remember the tears, all the tears. Life was changing with an eight-hour plane ride, and neither of us was quite prepared for how our mother-daughter relationship would look with an ocean between us. The first few years I lived in the U.K. were a bit of a blur. I found the transition harder than I imagined. I couldn’t drive straight away, had few friends, didn’t like my job, learned how to live with a man and questioned my decision to leave everything I had known behind. My mom was no longer a drive or even a phone call away to process everything with. With a five-hour time difference, it was incredibly tedious to align our two schedules to talk, except on the weekends when we weren’t at work. It forced me to grow up and not depend on her as I always had. Two years after I moved over, I had my first baby boy. Mom wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of her visiting. She came over two weeks after his birth and held him every second she was awake. She knew it would be months before she saw him again. And that is when the guilt set in. I had not only stolen a daughter from Mom. I had taken away the joy of seeing her grandchildren regularly.

I had not only stolen a daughter from Mom. I had taken away the joy of seeing her grandchildren regularly.

We May Not See Each Other as Frequently, but Our Relationship Is Deeper Than Ever

My mom loves kids. She is an educator by trade and one of those people in whom kids find total delight. She enjoys treats, crafts, movies, books—any way to make a memory. If I had lived near her, there is no doubt in my mind she would have been at my house whenever I let her play with the kids. But that was no longer the type of grandmother she could be. Her experience would be reduced to once-, maybe twice-a-year visits and lots of phone and video calls. I went on to have two more boys. They all adore my mom and can’t wait for her visits. We talk to her every weekend, often spending hours FaceTiming her. The boys show her their latest artwork, let her read to them, talk about what they’ve done in school and give her a tour around their rooms. It’s really sweet. But I know what she must be thinking—this is nothing in comparison to what it would be like to be there in the flesh, to smell their blonde hair, feel their smooth skin and cuddle their pudgy tummies.I’ve taken that away from her. And I don’t think I can ever feel OK about it. But there’s more guilt. My mom is aging, 60 this year. For the better part of 21 years, she made sure I was fed, housed and happy. I would have loved to be able to repay her by doing the same when she no longer can take care of herself: to drive her to hospital appointments, clean her house and hold her hand when she was unwell. I’m coming to grips with the fact that those future intentions need to be laid to rest. I still plan to take care of her; it will just have to look unique. I’m already saving money for emergency plane trips and working remotely so that I don’t ever need to be glued to a desk chair to earn money. Even though I often feel like a poor excuse for a daughter, I’m doing what I can to foster our friendship. In fact, in some ways, I feel closer to her than ever, not in terms of distance but in love and adoration. I pour out my heart to her and she fills it each and every time we talk, whether it’s during a yearly visit or weekly phone call. She is still my best friend, my go-to confidant, just from afar rather than nearby. And I’ll live with the repercussions of that—the guilt and missed memories—until I die.

A week ago, I was speaking to my grandmother and happened to mention that I was on my period. She immediately looked sad. It took me a minute to realize that it was because getting my period meant I had not yet gotten pregnant. I got married a few months ago and, since then, my sister constantly keeps talking about how cute my babies will be and how desperately she wants a new baby in the family. It’s not like anyone’s pressuring me in particular, but there is a very open expectation that sooner or later, I will embrace the joys of motherhood. I mean, after all, is it not the natural next step in my life? In every brown girl’s life? From the time Pakistani girls are teenagers, they are prepped to be married, and their lives are supposed to revolve around their husbands, in-laws and children. And while some of these more conservative mindsets are slowly easing up as women are pressured less to marry earlier and pursue independent careers, one thing has remained: The idea that a woman can only truly have achieved her purpose when she has become a mother.

It feels scary that such a big decision, one that comes with a lot of responsibility, is being imposed on me simply because of my gender.

I Don’t Want to Sacrifice My Independence for My Family

I remember talking to a friend of mine about how for almost all women in the generations above us, the idea of using contraception before having their first child was unheard of. It wasn’t because they weren’t familiar with the idea of contraception—it was very common to use it after their first child—but rather the idea that they should have a baby as soon as possible. Both of us have often heard the phrase, “At least have one first, then you can plan,” because that would allow women to enter the realm of motherhood and tick off that much-needed box. Women’s role as caregivers isn’t just limited to Pakistan or Islam. In fact, globally, women amount to a majority of unpaid or underpaid care workers. However, associating that labor with the emotions of having a child or keeping the family together makes it that much harder to talk about how motherhood and its very life-changing realities can impact women. I think that’s one of the major reasons that I feel so scared of having children—the fact that it's not really posed as a choice at all. It feels scary that such a big decision, one that comes with a lot of responsibility, is being imposed on me simply because of my gender. What makes it even worse is that for most of the women I see around me, it hardly ever seems like a willing choice. Most of them seem to be drowning under the weight of motherhood. Where my fear really stems from is the idea of losing myself in favor of making a choice I’m not even sure I want. As selfish as this sounds, I don’t know if I want to give up my body, my sleep, my career and my independence simply to be constantly burdened by the mom-guilt of not doing right by my child. That’s not to say every woman finds it a burden—far from it, in fact. But child care can be hard even for those who desperately want to be parents, and isn’t that all the more reason why it should be an unburdened choice? When I was getting married, people kept asking me if I planned on continuing my journalism career. When I said yes, they would nod politely and more often than not add, “Yes, it’s good to have a hobby and keep busy while you’re free. Once you have kids, you won’t have time for all this anymore.” One of my fears is that they might be right and that I will have to sacrifice a lot to become a mother. I just don’t know if I’m ready to do that yet or if I ever will be.

Being around them is only a reminder that I enjoy being an aunt far more than the idea of being a mother right now.

Do I Even Want to Be a Mother?

The loneliest part of all this is that the first time I’ve managed allow myself to feel these thoughts without feeling guilty fully has been in the process of writing this article. Whenever I’ve mentioned my fears and apprehensions to the people around me, I’ve been told to shut up because I’m being ungrateful, because I’m young and will probably change my mind and, most of all, because I risk jinxing my future and never having children. The last one is usually said with a look of pure horror. My family members have been going gaga over the idea of a new baby in the family, despite me telling them multiple times I’m not having one any time soon. In fact, even when they used to gush over other people’s babies, I would always be the awkward one in the room, nodding along but not really understanding what the hype was. Sure, I think babies look cute, but looking at someone else's baby never made me feel an urge to hold them or care for them or really feel like I wanted one too. I love my cousins’ children and feel very close to them, but being around them is only a reminder that I enjoy being an aunt far more than the idea of being a mother right now. As a young girl, I always thought the pressures of marriage and fears of not being able to pursue my ambitions led to these feelings. Now that I’m married and expected to make this very important decision in my life, those feelings seem stronger than ever. Having been on a journey to love and appreciate myself more after years of self-doubt, now more than ever, I am sure that losing myself again—for any reason—is not the way I want to build my life. I want to focus on my own identity as an individual before I make any decisions that will make it harder for me to hold on to that independence. I think, for now, the first step would be to stop shutting out my own thoughts from myself and actually delve into what motherhood means to me—and whether it’s right for me at all.

My grandparents raised seven children, six of whom started families of their own. As a kid with more cousins than I could count, some of the fondest memories I have from my childhood were spent with extended family. The road trips up north during school breaks; the 15-passenger van rides filled with childish giggles on the way to the state fairs; or just a regular weekend cookout. From what I can remember, there was never a need for a special occasion before we got together as a family. And for the most part, to this day, it’s about the same. For everyone except me. Some years ago, in my early to mid-20s, we were all gathered at my grandparents’ house. The aunts were cooking; the younger cousins were running in and out from playing in the backyard; and spades were being played. There was so much love and joy filling every inch of that house. It was like a quintessential movie scene. While standing in the back bedroom, I heard one of my male cousins laugh. Immediately, it felt like the room was spinning. All of a sudden, I was hot and in a state of panic. Quickly excusing myself, I went to grab some air, but I was not prepared for the wickedness that followed. That laugh, the one laugh, brought every repressed memory to the forefront, and my mind began to vividly play a dreadful montage of every single time my cousin and his siblings violated me as a child.I recalled their evil faces, their hushed voices, their meticulous actions, their elaborate lengths to hide what they were doing, almost as if it was happening all over again in that exact moment. I don’t know whose idea it was. I can’t even imagine how one could think of a scheme so traumatic that they’d coerce their siblings to be as tainted, heartless and corrupt enough to participate and carry a vow of silence. It was unnerving to relive. From that day, everything changed.

My mind went on a fox hunt trying to fathom how two beautiful people could have given life to three worthless pieces of shit.

I Couldn’t Tell My Mother and Give Her That Pain

I struggled with coming to terms with this restored reality and what it meant not only for me but the relationship with my family. Was I the only one? Should I say something? Did I need to protect my younger cousins? Who would even believe me?He was the party starter. He was your favorite cousin’s favorite cousin. She was a hard worker. They were parents. And everyone loved them. Everyone including my mother. That’s where I struggled the most. Even though I was wronged, I didn’t want to inflict any pain on her or for her to feel at fault or like a failure as a mother. I didn’t want her relationship with her brother and sister-in-law to be tarnished. I had no doubt that even as a 20ish-year-old woman, my mother would always be my protector. And I know that she was not aware of the abuse I suffered when she trusted her brother to look after her baby girl. As a matter of fact, I wholeheartedly believe that my cousins were so meticulous that my uncle and aunt were also unaware of what went on in their home. My uncle, their father, was one of the smartest men that I ever met. He was an esteemed man and devout Christian, a straightforward and no-nonsense kind of person. Their mother had a smile that would light up any room instantly. She spoke to everyone with such kindness and had the most infectious laugh that would calm even the most troubled of minds—all except mine. Because instead of being able to reflect on the good times, seeing their faces or even hearing their names, my mind went on a fox hunt trying to fathom how two beautiful people could have given life to three worthless pieces of shit.

I know that I am not to blame.

I Can’t Attend Family Functions Anymore, but I’m Reclaiming My Power

My cousins robbed me of so much. They took my innocence. They took my trust. They took away my precious family memories. For a while, I tried to move past it because it was decades ago. I still attended family events, but each one left me emotionally more shattered than I was when I arrived. My cousins would speak to me, hug me and ask me about my life as if they had never done a single fucking thing to me. As if they never violated me. Like they weren’t afraid of being held accountable for their transgressions. It was this gross, lingering secret that only the four of us knew about. They moved with such arrogance, and I hated it. So I become distant to protect myself. And in doing so, I’ve missed so much. “I can’t make it” has been my response for years now when I’m asked if I’m coming to an event.It’s one sentence that holds both truth and trauma. It’s one sentence that I wish I could avoid. It’s one sentence that has changed my relationship with my extended family.I’ve watched my other cousins grow, graduate, become parents, get married, etc., all from behind a computer screen because I don’t attend family events anymore. When my aunt, their mother, died, I didn’t go to her funeral. “I can’t make it.” The reality was, I couldn’t bear watching them being consoled while they were in pain or while they were grieving. I didn’t think they deserved the compassion. I didn’t think they deserved empathy from anyone, even under the circumstances of losing their mother. And it pains me that for every forthcoming death, I’ll never be able to grieve with my family. I’ll never be able to attend another wedding, graduation, baby shower or family reunion because three cowardly individuals decided that their sexual satisfaction was worth more than the sanctity of family. Most days, I’m fine. I’ve learned to give myself the protection as an adult that I should have had as that 5-year-old little girl at my aunt and uncle’s house. I know that I am not to blame. And even while I’m on this healing journey and the residual effects of sexual abuse seem to be lifelong, those monsters will never have the satisfaction of dimming my light or keeping me silent ever again. I’ve reclaimed my power.

One of my earliest memories as a young child was sitting in front of an open fire in my pajamas after a bath, my hair wrapped in a warm towel to ensure the henna conditioning treatment would take. I was maybe 6 years old, and I remember feeling so completely cosseted as my mother went through this Friday night routine that gave her (and my older sister and me) such pleasure. It’s just one of the many warm memories I have of my mother but, as an adult, I began to reflect and ask myself: Did my mother love us too much? Is that even possible?

Nothing came close to how much she loved her children.

My Mother's Love for Her Children Estranged My Father

I know everyone says it, but my mother was special. She honestly enjoyed helping people and went out of her way to do just that whenever she could. As a physician, her patients and colleagues alike adored her, but nothing came close to how much she loved her children.From a very early age, we knew that we were her world. Her love was palpable. We were her everything and we basked in her affection while somehow avoiding being completely spoiled. Becoming a mother later in life (for that time) had finally fulfilled her, and her love for us was evident to all. Especially my father.My parents had married later in life than was the norm in the ’70s. Mum was 38 when she walked down the aisle, and Dad was 35. Both physicians at a renowned hospital, their future looked bright as they said their vows and celebrated with family and friends over a five-star banquet. Within three years, they had bought a home and were parents to two daughters, and life looked sweet.While my mother was outgoing and personable, my father was quite the opposite. He was something of a lone wolf and never really had friends, only colleagues. He was set in his ways, having been a bachelor until his mid-30s, and I often thought that he considered his wife and children to be minor inconveniences. Perhaps as a couple, they had rushed too quickly from being newlyweds to being parents. Or perhaps he felt pushed out, unable to compete with us for my mother’s attention and love. When the hospital that they both worked at closed down, my dad made the decision to accept a position in Australia, the plan being that we would follow once he was settled. It never happened and, after a year, he returned home, but something had shifted. A year as a single parent had made my mother focus even more on us, and it was as if my dad barely existed. During his absence, my mother had acquired a rotund Labrador named Tara that we adored, but my father was severely allergic; and having only one lung due to a childhood illness, breathing difficulties were not something he could afford. But we loved the dog, so the dog stayed. Shortly after his return from Australia, he accepted another position in a hospital a few hours away from home, buying a second house closer to the hospital to reside in midweek. He came home every second weekend, and we spent weekends visiting him, too, but his absence made him even more estranged from us, and when he did come home, the atmosphere felt alien. The groove that my mother had established with her two girls was well and truly formed, and my dad, it would seem, existed on the periphery.

My dad, it would seem, existed on the periphery.

Empty Nest Syndrome Hit My Mother Hard

Of course, the inevitable eventually happened: We grew up. It seems that my mother hadn’t thought far enough ahead to factor that in and, by the time we were young adults, her desperation to keep us close was apparent. When my sister moved out, my mother got her a new dog to try and entice her back. It didn’t work. She was ready to strike out on her own, something most parents would be proud of. But my mother was lonely. By this time, my parents were pretty much living separate lives, and when they finally made the decision to end their marriage officially, the situation hit my mother with full force. She had always instilled strong moral values in us, but she had spent so much time loving us unconditionally that she had neglected to encourage us to establish life goals and prepare us for the day that we would become adults. This resulted in us being unprepared for making decisions about college courses or careers. We both ended up marrying young and having families at a young age without ever fully realizing our potential. She also failed to see the damage it did to her marriage, and while my father certainly had some blame in the decline of their relationship, I always felt sorry for how much of an outsider he must have felt within his own family. After their separation was finalized, we rarely saw or heard from Dad. He had put us firmly in the “Team Mom” category without ever once even trying to speak to us about the situation.It was some years later, after both my parents had passed, that I began to question my mom’s unwavering commitment to her daughters at the expense of her marriage. After her death, I found some paperwork that led me to discover that before she had met my father, she had been engaged to another man who had broken her heart and called off their wedding just a few weeks before it was due to take place. Not long after this heartbreak, she had discovered she was pregnant and felt unable to keep the baby, given her circumstances. It was the 1960s, after all. The baby was put up for adoption, and she never told a single person at the time. She was devastated by the entire ordeal and, when we found out, her unwavering love for us suddenly made sense: She had obviously been grieving the loss of her firstborn for so many years. It was heartbreaking to me that she never felt she could confide in our dad, her husband. I’m sure he would have understood and supported her, but obviously, that was a gamble she was not willing to take.

As with many Canadian immigrants, I realized that education was expensive in Canada and definitely needed to get an above minimum wage-paying job. With that end in mind, I joined the Canadian army to get it for free. Even prior to coming to Canada, I had heard that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) were primarily a peacekeeper force, inclusive and diverse, following Canadian values. Little did I know those values and images promoted by the CAF were propaganda for abroad to cover what their military, and ultimately Canada, is really about. During my time in the CAF, sexual harassment, racism and corruption were everyday occurrences.

During my time in the CAF, sexual harassment, racism and corruption were everyday occurrences.

Despite the Army Having a Zero-Tolerance Policy, Drug Use Is Common

I will have to admit: The red flags were everywhere in boot camp. In boot camp, you are just confused all the time. Because you are new, the instructors will yell at you for everything, no matter if you did it wrong or right. This is done to cause stress and see how you perform. So in the beginning, you never know what is right or wrong. It was when I arrived at my trade qualification training in Borden, Ontario, that I understood the type of military I was in. Apart from understanding how an underground prostitution ring worked (run by female recruits earning an extra buck or two), living in barracks (“shacks,” as called here) opened my eyes to drugs like cocaine, LSD and ecstasy. As a Catholic, I felt uncomfortable participating in those activities but could not ignore them. I mean, some of my roommates had to get rid of their Tuesday morning hangover prior to work, so a line of cocaine usually did the trick. Everyone knows about it, and it is tolerated.And as an army cook who has been deployed on ship and major field exercises, I can say with confidence that it does not end in barracks; soldiers and sailors constantly use cocaine to keep awake during long watches on ship and major field exercises. The military has a zero-tolerance policy for drugs, but since so many people do hard drugs in the military, including officers, the military can't enforce this policy or they would lose half the people they have. So the loophole is to do anonymous drug tests to at least have an idea of how many people do drugs and try to fix it. But they really can't fix it or try at all. If they were to do normal drug tests, by law, they would have to act, which they try to avoid.In CFB Wainwright, some untrained privates were stationed at that base for so long waiting for their occupation course (done after basic training) that they started using an empty building to cook meth. A janitor caught them. In all honesty, the CAF is so undermanned that drug usage is not even a minor concern, for all the military cares. As long as the member can do their job, it’s all good.

As an Immigrant, I Experienced Racism Behind Closed Doors

An issue that the CAF is actually a bit more concerned about is white supremacy, not only because it directly affects people like me—who are told at least once a week “fresh off the boats” like me have no business in the military, as we are all probably not loyal or simply criminals—but also because white supremacist groups keep sending recruits to get trained for the upcoming "racial war." When Trump was around, I would get told by a couple of my superiors that immigration should be illegal, Canada was for the whites, and First Nations were conquered so they should just shut the fuck up. I also went to boot camp with a guy who got white supremacist tattoos. It’s hard to tell who is a white supremacist or just a racist at work.Something that did not quite make it to the media was our experience in Ukraine. Operation UNIFIER was the Canada training mission in Ukraine. These missions trained regular army units and some not-so-regular, like the infamous far-right Azov Battalion. I know some colleagues who returned from Operation UNIFIER with some funky ideas about people who did not look the same as they did. Some Canadian soldiers have even posed in pictures with Nazi symbology in Ukraine. The CAF is right to be worried about these guys; I mean, some have even attempted attacks, like Patrik Jordan Mathews and Corey Hurren. And it’s not only far-right individuals; a significant percentage of Canadians are very racist (and hypocritical about it), especially toward First Nations, African Americans and anyone with an accent. Sgt. Marc-André Lévesque is a great example. He went around tour calling locals "monkeys" and "slaves." As for me, I was called a bit of everything but always in private, as it is in true Canadian fashion.

It takes you a year to figure out that one guy who works next to you is a cokehead Nazi who actually hates your ass for speaking funny.

The Military Police Force Is Corrupt

And wait until you hear about sexual harassment. For ages, the military had the same technique. Every time sexual harassment spiked, the military would claim it was a good thing since "more people were coming forward." Mandatory training would be taught, some juniors would get court-martialed, some would be released and some would get sent to Club Ed (Canada's military prison located in Edmonton). That way, the military could show the public were doing their very best, and if anybody asked, they had the numbers to prove training imparted, people charged and members released.It all worked great until 2021 when Canada's top general (literally the highest-ranking general in the country) was involved in a sexual scandal. That same year, six top generals and admirals (including the replacement for the top general and the admiral in charge of HR) were under investigation. Those were the high profiles, but many more officers started to fall under allegations too. Of course, the incidents that don't make it to the news are more sensitive because they could compromise national security, but the ones I have experienced range from everything from a colonel having child porn on his work computer, a soldier on tour raping locals or, the most common, a member drugging a female junior member and then raping her. I worked with a girl who got raped and pregnant. When I accompanied her to talk to the military police (MP), they refused to investigate because she could not remember who raped her after being drugged. In reality, even if she had known, the investigation would have probably led to nothing since the military police are infamous for not doing their job. Men get harassed as well, but in the military, it only counts if you are a woman. The only time I have ever heard of a woman was the case of Sub-Lt. Aidan Brownlee, who went around grabbing guys' genitals and got a simple fine and a slap on the wrist.Talking about the MP, what a fun bunch. Not a shock that so few people report sexual harassment, considering how crooked and unprofessional MPs are. They are infamous for protecting their own, losing evidence and not doing their job by protecting higher-ups by dismissing cases or just refusing to investigate. I would rather ask a mall cop for help with an actual crime than go to see an MP.MPs are supposed to be the incorruptible force in a military, made exclusively to maintain order and protect the law. In Canada, they only seem to exist for the government to show that we have "all the needed institutions" on paper to properly run a military. This reinforces the CAF’s mentality of "let's show the public we are trying, but let's just not actually do anything." It's truly frustrating because every time I’ve been to a civilian police officer, they redirect you to an MP since you are out of their jurisdiction. It's really infuriating you can't even rely on a police force.

I would rather ask a mall cop for help with an actual crime than go to see an MP.

There’s Nothing Progressive About Canada’s Military

And it’s not only the personnel who are rotten; it is also the equipment and installations. While senior officers get private chauffeurs and live in hotels while in training (the CAF leadership always leads from the front, on paper), the rest live in WWII-era accommodations. I have signed multiple medical forms for asbestos exposure while living in shacks. On my last course in Ontario, I was in a building with AC that started in November (due to lack of AC funding), so in October, we froze. The CAF can't even buy proper equipment either. I shot WW2-era pistols and .50 cals that I think were used in Korea. And it's not just the army; the air force uses fighter jets that are almost 40 years old and navy submarines that literally sink or catch fire every time they sail. U.S. Marines always complain about their old equipment, and then they come to train in Canada. We have been actually described by them as a low-budget USMC.Some of these stories make it to the media, but there is much more happening behind the curtains. I have not even mentioned what soldiers do on deployment. Since the ’90s, Canada has decreased the number of deployed peacekeepers, mainly because they keep committing atrocities. Even in Afghanistan, several Canadian soldiers committed all kinds of crimes. And I am not saying other militaries do not have the same issues, but only Canada uses the military as a propaganda tool to show the world how progressive they are. In reality, Canadians are just as nasty, racist, rotten and hypocritical as the people they publicly criticize, like their obsession to criticize Americans and Australians. And I don't know why; I have worked with Marines and National Guardsmen, and they cared less about my accent and skin color than my platoon. Sure, some were racist, but they were honest about it, so I avoided them. Canadians, in contrast, pretend to be polite and be NATO's standard, when in reality, it takes you a year to figure out that one guy who works next to you is a cokehead Nazi who actually hates your ass for speaking funny.From an immigrant's point of view, I chose Canada over the U.S. and Australia because I believed the government propaganda. I thought that racism and corruption were not an issue in Canada and that the people had values and principles. In a way, Canada's international news on its military did help me build that narrative that drove me here, only to find out it’s just as bad but way colder.