Once upon a time in the REAL world...

When you watched Disney movies it always showed you the "perfect" world. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married (aka have the most obnoxious wedding EVER... really Cinderella was all them birds and shit necessary?), have a baby and live happily ever after. I'm now 28 and sit with Leyanah as she's watching the same said movies I used to idolise and I'm thinking well this is bollocks. First off Ariel, you live under the sea babe, SALT WATER... ain't no damn way your hair is going to be that red and fleeky 24/7. What maybe "perfect" to you, maybe not be for someone else. Does happily ever after even exists? Seriously though its mad how those movies set the most unreal expectations. 

Take Ryan for example. I am not just saying this because he's my man an I love his bones, I'm being real when I say I am in awe of him and the person he has become. Do not get me wrong and he will back me when i say this, he's been a shitty person in his past (before me), BUT I think that's all moulded him to be who he is today. His father was not present at all during his upbringing, AT ALL, it was all on his mother. She was a single mom and what an amazing human being she brought up. His mother did everything on her own; paid the bills on her own, kept food on the table, shit sometimes she would dine on a pack of bourbon biscuits so he could eat a proper meal. I mean everything she had...she had zero help from anyone. No help from family, no help from friends and she didn't have 7 dwarfs and a bunch of birds that sang into her kitchen while she cooked dumpling. When it came to providing for Ryan she did whatever it took to get shit done. They need to make a Disney movie about this REAL life shit.

Ryan is now one of the best and most devoted fathers there is. He will go above and beyond for his children. Unfortunately this isn't always the case. There are some fathers out there that were not ready to be fathers... they just haven't quite grown up yet. There are fathers out there that like to do what i call "bullshit parenting". Bullshit parenting is the "I will come pick you up Saturday" and they never show up. "I will drop some money off to your mother Wednesday" and they never drop off shit. There's Fathers out there that will blame the mother for not being in their child's life, when in actual fact the mother has never stopped them from seeing their child, they just use it as an excuse to be a wasteman. On the flip side there are mothers out there also that have left their child because they wasn't ready to step up to the parent plate. There are also mothers out there that make it fucking impossible for the father to be a father because they are so bitter and twisted. Mothers that use their child as a weapon against the father. (NO haters, this ain't no indirect, Ryan and the mother of his child actually have a good co-parenting situation). There are however a lot of single mothers and fathers out there doing the exact same as Ryan's mother; whatever it takes to provide for their child.

I have never experienced the above as my parents have been together for 40+ years and I'm in a relationship where the father of my child is the dopest. So when I speak on this I'm speaking purely from what I have been exposed to. I have family and friends around me that haven't had the 2 parent household that I had and they are some of the best people I know, role models to me. Shit I'm fucking psycho and had both parents in my life. As long as you are doing whatever it takes to create your own happily ever after for your kids that's all that matters. If you are a single mother or father attending school, working two jobs, having no social life so that you can provide for your child THAT'S happily ever after. That sacrifice now builds for your child to have the best future, so when you are at their graduation, or they tell you they have that career role, or your first grandchild is coming you can look back and be proud of yourself. When your child turns around and lets you know they appreciate everything you have done for them, THATS happily ever after. Some people will say kids are at a disadvantage if both parents aren't present, I disagree. Rather one parent busting their ass than two parents forcing a relationship for the sake of the child. That is only going to result in negative experiences for that child. As long as your child grows up healthy, happy and in the best possible position to one day venture off and create their own path then you my dear can consider yourself WALT DISNEY. You think Cinderella's life stopped just because we closed the book? 
 

For me being a bonus momma and a mother to Hendrix Freddi in my two bedroom apartment, while waxing Pum Pum is my happily ever after (for now). As long as the situation you end in is better than the one you started in...well that's happily ever after if you ask me.