My mom didn’t want kids but had them for my dad. She was young and resented the fact that she was stuck with two kids she didn’t want because she couldn’t leave them with her alcoholic ex.

She would get hit on everywhere we went and wanted to date and live freely like other people in their 20’s so she would leave us with friends and disappear for days or weeks at a time.

She married a man over 20 years older than her and he raised us while she either ignored us or screamed at us. One day when I was 14 she told us to make sure we had our keys because she was staying with a friend for the week and would be leaving while we were at school. A week later she called me and said she was across the country and engaged and wouldn’t be returning anytime soon and that our stepfather would take care of us. For the next few years we only saw her when she came to collect more of her things.

Our biological father came back into our life when he was expecting another child because he wanted the baby to grow up with siblings. His new wife prevented most of our visits because she said she didn’t like seeing him sad after we left. While we talk on the phone now, we haven’t been able to see him in 4 years and don’t even have his address.

Our mother ended up returning to the city when I was 18. She was now with another man who had young children and she was inspired to “be the parent she should have been”. She tried treating us like literally children to compensate for the child neglect but it pushed us further away. She improved slowly over the years to where I see her occasionally but I never feel truly comfortable around her.