When I was in high school in Los Angeles, my mother, who was a speech therapist, agreed to stay over the weekend with one of her clients and his little sister while the parents went away on vacation. She brought me along.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When my father left us, my mother went back to school immediately. She went to school in the day while we were at school, and she worked at night. She worked very hard to never let someone define her as a victim or a failure.
Just before my final year of high school, my brother, sister and I moved with my mother to San Francisco.
My parents were divorced when I was three, and both my father and mother moved back into the homes of their parents. I spent the school year with my mother, and the summers with my dad.
When my mother had four girls, and she could tell her marriage was falling apart, she went back to college and got her degree in music and education.
My mom has gone out of her way in her personal life. She's been with me on the road. She's had to deal with people giving her the 'that's the mom' and arguing. Just little things as a businesswoman.
My mother raised me in the church. I was not allowed to stay home on Sunday; there was no option. I sang in the choir all the way up until I went to college.
My mother moved abroad when I was 11, my dad wasn't around from the time that I was a baby, so I was not the product of a family, but a product of observation - of watching what went on around me, of watching who I liked, what I didn't like, what I thought was good behavior and what I thought was bad behavior and tailoring myself accordingly.
My mother was predominately a stay-at-home mom.
My mother felt it was time that I had some parental control, so I went off to America and went to New York.
After my father died when I was seven and my mother entered into an abusive relationship, I shuffled between houses - staying with friends, families from church, and relying on the kindness of teachers and people throughout my community to help me grow up essentially without parents.