And the REALLY good news is … my third eldest son.

Some grandmas back in the day referred to the baby before the youngest child as the “nee” baby. I used to think they meant “knee baby,” but an older woman explained it to me. No, it means the baby who is born just before the last one. Of course, he wasn’t called this until his younger brother was born and it was known I would not be having any more–especially not after four Caesarean sections.

My “nee” baby was the littlest and squirmiest one of the three older, who all have the same father–and I wouldn’t refer to him as a “baby daddy,” either. He simply wasn’t a daddy at all. A weed-growing fertilizer was more like it, but we’re long done and over all of that. No need in revisiting it, or the reason why I had three children with a weed. As the old ladies used to tell me “God musta meant for ’em to be here.” But many of these women had lost children before birth, during birth, after birth, or at some point along the way or even as adults, so they figured that children who are “here” are ‘meant to be‘ here.

All single moms have something to say about their ex’s and formers, whether they were ever married to them or not. Most of it isn’t good.

But my third oldest son? He was quite a remarkable child from the moment he was born. Plus, he got hit with a quadruple dose of his maternal good genes. He’s got a couple of cousins on his mother’s side who could pass for his twins, if he were a twin. Besides, he was Mr. “Savoirfaire” from the moment he was born.

Charming and engaging and polite with a delightful sense of humor and the brightest eyes a baby could ever have been born with. As a matter of fact, when his youngest daughter was born some nearly 30 years later, she came here the same way. Forty-give minutes into her first breath on the planet, she was all *sunburst* bright-eyed blinking and grinning like she was going to jump out of her own skin if someone didn’t tell her immediately what she was supposed to do next.

Though my third oldest is the father of my oldest granddaughter and grandchild, I am proud to say that NONE of my sons were teenage fathers. It was important to me that they didn’t pass on a harmful legacy, especially since we live in a nation that is not especially “Black child friendly” by very many accounts. The truth is, I was more afraid for my sons to be born Black in America than I was of being a mother at so young an age.

There are people who believe that it isn’t the age of a person, but the mark of maturity that matters. I was a pretty sophisticated young girl at 12 years of age -though life has taught me not to be so naive. Somewhere between 18 and 21, I had become the mother of four sons. I knew how it happened, and why it happened. I just wonder from time to time what frame of mind I was in at the time, certainly not the same that I am now. My “right mind,” I suppose, would have told me not to have any children at all. But I wouldn’t give them back, not even the two who have not done so well in life, but have since recovered and started to mature.

The older women in the neighborhood used to say I had an “old folkses soul.” That likely explains why I spent so much time sitting on the stoop (steps) outside many a house with women quite a bit older than me, listening to all of the latest gossip and roundtable discussions in the ‘hood.

It was our “Cheers” without the fancy tables and fabled goodwill bartender, but some bricks, sticks, stones and a lot of sage wisdom and age-old advice from down deep in the country that still applies to this day.

My “old folkses soul” may also explain why, by the time I was 25, my best friend was 55. As a matter of fact, ALL of my friends ranged in age from nine to 50 years older than me. I didn’t get along with people my own age very well–thought they were too “immature” for my tastes.

It explains, on the converse, why I also felt like I was 80 by the time I turned 40.

But there I was, third son in my arms … a young man who grew to be quite handsome, quite a “ladies man” -though he is still with the same girlfriend he used to steal my stuffed animals for more than 18 years ago. Me and my stuffies had a relationship and every one of them had a name and a history and I knew if even the smallest one disappeared. I had to make him go get it back and give him money to buy her something else.

He’ll remember this one … I played it for him enough-some days I TURNED IT UP EVEN LOUDER JUST TO MAKE A POINT: LOL.

It’s been a long time and I no longer have any of my “stuffed babies,” or my live-born baby boys; but I have to give that young man credit for simply not being the kind of man who wants to dickle around with a lot of different ladies. I’ll hand him the crown for commitment, though I can’t speak to whether or not that commitment has always been loyal commitment.

As I said to him “I cannot teach you how to be a man. I am not a man. I am not trying to be a man. I can only tell you what good women expect of a good man.”

In spite of his father, and with not very many examples to go on, he taught himself to be a good (great actually) father and a good husband. All on his own, he made a quality decision to become a better man than his own father. Not all dads are good dads and my son simply decided his children would not grow up the way he had.

I expect that this example is no less than any grown man should do, dad living at home or no dad at all.

Stay tuned for Part III …