I’m seventeen. Still in school. Still a kid, really — even if my mom says otherwise.
Last week, she sat us down and said she wasn’t buying food anymore.
Her words exactly: “You’re all grown. Everyone needs to buy their own.”
We rely on SNAP, and since it got shut down, things have been rough. But when she asked my older brother — the one with the job, the car, the freedom — for $100 to buy groceries, he said no.
So now, no one eats.
I just stared at her, trying to understand how a mother could look at her kids and say that.
And then I snapped.
“Why did you even have kids?” I said.
“Why have kids if you’re poor, if you regret us, if you hate your life this much?”
She’s always saying how we ruined her life, how she could’ve been happy if it wasn’t for us.
And I’m just… tired.
So I said the thing I’d been holding back for years:
“If you really didn’t want us, you should’ve just aborted us.”
Silence.
Then she looked right at me — her voice calm, like she’d rehearsed it.
“I should have.”
That’s all she said.
Then she added, “You’re grown now. I already raised you.”
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to tell her I’m not grown — I’m still a teenager, still her daughter, still trying to survive under her roof.
But I just stood there.
Because how do you argue with someone who’s already decided she’s done being your mother?
