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My Child Is In Prison, Now What? with Tiffany Nicole
Mothers with incarcerated children face unique and challenging circumstances that require immense strength, resilience, and compassion. These mothers find themselves navigating a complex and emotionally charged journey that often goes unnoticed by society. Us mothers with incarcerated children also face practical challenges in their daily lives. We are stronger together, standing for each other and learning from one another.
My Child Is In Prison, Now What? with Tiffany Nicole
Ditching Mom Guilt
Being a mother is a challenging role in itself, but when your child is incarcerated, the weight of mom guilt can be overwhelming. In this video, we delve into the complex emotions and struggles that mothers face when their child is behind bars, and provide guidance on how to move forward.
Join us as we explore the impact of having a child in prison on a mother's mental health, relationships, and daily life. We'll discuss strategies for coping with the guilt, shame, and stigma that often accompany this situation, and offer practical tips for self-care and emotional healing.
I'm here to tell y'all honey, baby, fuck being perfect. Yes, I said it, my child is in prison, my daughter's in prison. Now what? Who cares about what people think? Let's talk about this topic of guilt that mothers face as having child incarcerated. Yes, so grab some tea. Or, if you're like me, grab first miracle some wine. Come on, let's dive into this episode. First, welcome to Tiffany Nicole's channel. Welcome, please subscribe to my channel. Hit the link below to subscribe. Truly appreciate it it. Leave a comment about this episode. I want to hear back from others. Yes, I myself have a child that's incarcerated, my son, who is 25 years old, who's been incarcerated for four years now.
Speaker 1:I've struggled with guilt so much On this platform. This is a community for mothers with incarcerated children. I'm here to tell the world that us mothers, we matter guilty or not guilty. That's still someone's child. We did the best that we could to raise that child. And you know what? It's not our fault that they're in there. That's right. I said it, mothers, it is not your fault that Timmy's in prison. It is not your fault that Samantha's in prison. I need you to pick yourself up, look yourself in the mirror and say it is not my fault, the word guilt.
Speaker 1:When you hear the word guilt, how do you feel as a, as a mother? Listen, when I first found out that my son was in prison, guilt just fell on me. When I say it fell, it's just heavy. So the question is when you heard your son or your daughter call you from a collect call and say mom, I'm in prison, what's the first thing that came to mind? Your heart shattered, your emotions just dropped. Guilt came upon you, asking yourself what could I have done better, should have, could have, would have. Every parent does that, every parent, especially us mamas. You know what? Because we carry these babies, stretch marks and all that's still our child. Guilt is common for us mothers with children behind bars. We ask ourselves so many questions. You know what, the what if I should have? Why didn't I do this? Why didn't I check? Why wasn't I paying attention? We ask ourselves so many questions.
Speaker 1:But let me tell you a story about my guilt. I have one child, one and done. You know, and don't forget this one too. She's my other child, but you know, you know how she is. So went to school, great kid, very respectful, played sports, football, basketball, track, all these things this great kid didn't get in trouble until I realized that he needed his father. Where was his father? I'll wait. Yeah, his father wasn't in the picture.
Speaker 1:So this is where I cannot be able to express to us mothers we do not know how to be men, and I'm not born to be a man, I'm a woman. I know how to be a nurturer and be a mother. So at that shift he needed his father, but his father wasn't around. So I did everything I could possibly to fill that void Sneakers, extra stuff, shoes, go shopping, everything to fill that void. But at the end of the day, I could not fill that void of what he needed and what he needed his father. And that's where it started to shift.
Speaker 1:And then here we are, we fast forward, to where we are, all these emotions of me saying I wish I could have, what if I didn't buy those many sneakers? What if I didn't work two jobs? What if I would have done this, all these things? So you know what? Here are some things to keep in mind. One you are not responsible for your child's choices. You are not responsible mothers. So many times I go back, I think about the journey of Nazir and I, single mom raising him and it shifted when he was on the track team and I saw him shift during the track season because he hung around nothing but older kids, right. So sometimes as parents, we see the shift, but we put it to the back burner, right. And that's where you feel guilty because you're like well, I saw some of the changes, I should have grabbed hold of it, but your boss, thomas, is asking you to come into work overtime and it's the holiday season, so you just let it pass. You let it pass. You know what All these things. We sit back and we rehearse so much of what we done or what we didn't do or what we should have done. But I'm here to say snap out of it, snap out of your guilt, get out of that place of I wish I could have, would have, or what if it was all planned, it was all ordained. I need y'all to sip your tea right now. Sip, I'm going to sip my glass of wine. Okay, okay now inhale, exhale, let it go. You did everything you could. You worked overtime for a reason it was Christmas. You wanted extra Christmas presents under the tree.
Speaker 1:If you have multiple children, the burden on you is even heavier. The pressure of life is heavy because you have multiple children and you have one that's headed down the path of going to jail or going to prison. And then you have all these things that go through your head, like I should have came home early. Or if you're dating, you're wondering I shouldn't have had a dating life, all these things and emotions that we have as parents. And I'm here to say to let the guilt go. Yes, so much guilt came through me, so many thoughts. But thank God, for therapy, y'all Therapy, jesus. You know doing the best thing together. I don't know how people function without God. For therapy, y'all Therapy, jesus, you know doing the best thing together. I don't know how people function without God. And therapy I don't know how people do it. I really don't, because therapy is what got me through, feeling that it's not my fault, the guilt lifted, the burden of guilt lifted.
Speaker 1:I just want y'all to know your child made their own decisions that led them to be incarcerated. Not you, mama, not you. It was the child, not you. I need y'all to sit in that your child made their own decision that led them to be incarcerated. Not you, lisa, led them to be incarcerated. Not you, lisa, not you Stacey, not you Liz. Not you Amanda, not you Lisa. Your child made that decision to lead them into that direction. Take a sip of your tea For y'all that's drinking wine. Take a sip. I need y'all to pause on that to know that it was not your fault.
Speaker 1:Here's another one that we struggle with Control Mamas. We want to control everything and you know some of y'all who got deep personality types. If you don't know what deep personality types, google it, find it. I don't know if you know your personality traits. I believe in doing a personality test. Do it, it's the best thing ever.
Speaker 1:I am a Capricorn, so I'm semi-controlling, semi, I am controlling. Yeah, I'm controlling Y'all. Pray for me, okay. So focus on what you can control. You can't control everything. This was the most hardest. Can't control everything. This was the most hardest, toughest, toughest situation that I had to do is control myself. I can't control my son actions. I can't control the judge. I can't control the attorneys. I can't control nobody. But Tiffany, focus on what you can control, and that is you and how you think and your behavior and your emotions. That is what you can control.
Speaker 1:I had to learn that the hard way Because I got in a lot of arguments with my family, but hey, that's another subject, but anyway, okay, while you can't change the past, we can never change the past. We can't Because the past is the past. This is what I've learned and I love this quote by Nelson Mandela I never lose. I either I win or I learn. Mothers, you never lose, you don't. Just because you've lost your child to the justice system, to the system itself, does not mean you lost. That means you're learning in the season. That means you're learning and you're going to win at some point. Now I don't know when you're going to win, but you're going to win when you get to the other side. But you never lose mothers. That's my favorite quote by Nelson Mandela. Like that's a powerful statement I never lose. Either I win or I learn in the situation.
Speaker 1:I want y'all to sit on that, like, seriously sit on that. Like. You know. You can't focus on like oh, if I should have, I should have did this thing, I should have did that, or he shouldn't went over there, he shouldn't have hung out with them. The past is the past. Wash your hands, look, face the guilt in the mirror and say I forgive myself and I'm going to move forward. Don't dwell on the what ifs or the I should have, could have, would have.
Speaker 1:Stop the overthinking. It's hard. Trust me, I'm a Capricorn. I overthink everything, I overanalyze, I overdo everything. If my friends was sitting in this episode, they'd be like Tiffany you overanalyze everything I do and I'm overthinker. Mamas, stop overthinking. I've been there before. It will have you tossing and turning, pacing back and forth. Stop overthinking the situation because it's not going to change nothing. My son's still incarcerated. It's not going to. It's not.
Speaker 1:You know it's tough, but I strongly believe when it comes to mom guilt of having a child incarcerated, you need to address some things in therapy. I'm not a therapist, so find your local therapist Now. Betterhelp, want to sponsor this episode? Betterhelp, please, because I'm not a therapist. Betterhelp, if you want to sponsor this episode, please, betterhelp, let's sponsor, let's work together. But anyway, therapy when you go into a therapy session, you got to be real, you got to be honest. You got to be open about your feelings, even if it hurts.
Speaker 1:Because I had to do a lot of digging. I realized that when I was with my son, like growing up, I did a lot of yelling. You know, in black families we did a lot of hollering. We didn't say yelling, we did hollering. That's what I was doing. I didn't hear him out. Some days, I didn't listen to him, like there's things that I had to go back and I had apologized to him while he was incarcerated. Let him know that I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I was a young mom, I didn't know any better, and you have to forgive yourself. Forgive yourself who's perfect? Again, fuck being perfect. Nobody is Hell when you think about it. Jesus, almost, you know, became unperfect. He shook the table, like. You know what I'm saying. Remember when he shook the table and turned the table over because he wasn't happy, he was mad at the temple. Come on y'all, we are not perfect.
Speaker 1:You have to battle the struggle of feeling guilty. You literally have to dive in deep and I'm talking about do some hard soul searching. When I was in therapy, I had to go all the way back to childhood, to where I am today. You have to dig deep. And when I say dig deep, baby, I'm talking about dig deep. And where it may even hurt, when you just slobbing, crying, you know, snot falling, but it's okay, it's your obsession and that's what you're paying them for. But to figure out those feelings and those emotions that we have when I tell you guys, you have to dig deep and figure out how to let it go.
Speaker 1:Here's another one that I think sometimes people forget about. It's set healthy boundaries with people. People have hurt you, people have made you feel guilty about because your child is in prison. Trust me, I have had so many relatives that made me feel guilty because I provided for my child because they called it. You spoiled him. He had almost every sneaker in the closet. They made me feel guilty. I'm learning now. I have to set boundaries healthy boundaries with people, and it's okay to set boundaries with people. You don't have to be angry. We don't have to go into no argument. We can agree to disagree, but I'm going to set healthy boundaries with people where, if I feel like I'm being attacked, you know what I think I'm going to get off the phone Hell lie and say you know what? Somebody's at the bottom of the door. I got to call you back.
Speaker 1:Set boundaries with people because sometimes family members and friends especially family members will make you feel guilty while your child is in prison. I mean guilty. They'll have you overthinking a situation and, the most important thing, forgive yourself. Y'all. That is one of the most important things about this journey of getting over guilt is to forgive yourself. It took me a long time to forgive myself on how my son ended up in prison. It all happened during the pandemic.
Speaker 1:I had to do some true soul searching, baby. When I tell you some soul searching, but I had to forgive myself, I would write in my journal and say to myself so many times it's not my fault, I did all I could do to save him, but he chose to go another path. Like I tried to protect him from that super you know the crowd that they shouldn't be around, the one group of teenagers that you know is a bad influence. There was nothing that I could do because he had to go to school. I couldn't keep him trapped in a closet, you know, couldn't be like R Kelly trapped in a closet. I couldn't do that. I just couldn't do that. I had to let him go to school. Y'all, forgive yourself.
Speaker 1:Like, feel every emotion that is tied, that is attached to you because you can, because you're human. That is tied that is attached to you because you can, because you're human. You're okay to feel everything, to scream, but just don't stay there, let it go. Feel that pain of guilt, feel it all, and it's not going to. You're not going to wake up the next morning and be like, oh yeah, I'm guilt free. No, it took me a process. It took a while for me to forgive myself and for me to lift this guilt off of me. It took a while, so this is not gonna happen in 24 hours now. Maybe y'all could do it sooner than me. It took me about a year and a half a couple years, when you think about it that I was feeling no longer guilty of the choices that he made.
Speaker 1:Because family members will make you feel it's your fault or your spouse's or don't forget them baby daddies, girl, the baby daddies will definitely be like it's your fault why he's in prison, but they don't want to hold responsibility for what they did, for being an absent father, but they don't want to talk about that. But I ain't going to talk about that because we ain't talking about men today, but I'm just saying some of us baby daddies that's out there in the world Y'all know y'all was absent and y'all know y'all could have played a better part in your child's life. So, mamas, when I say don't be guilty. Don't be guilty, especially if you raised that boy or that girl by yourself, because that's a struggle, struggle, even if there was a father in a household. Don't feel guilty.
Speaker 1:You know, getting rid of your feelings of guilt requires so many different combinations of things, like when I say again self-reflection, self-compassion, don't beat yourself up. Compassion, don't beat yourself up, love yourself Seriously, don't be like, don't do all that, don't beat yourself up, do not do the negative things to yourself, do not say negative things, have compassion, have room to grow in the space of your healing in this place that we call guilt. Literally, when I say self-reflect, self-reflect on man, maybe I should have done it this way, but since I didn't, I'm going to forgive myself and love myself and move forward. And then, when the situation occurs again, I know how to maneuver or operate better than what I did before, 10 years ago, you know. And then, taking responsibilities of your action, take responsibility of what you did.
Speaker 1:I had to take responsibility that you know what. I shouldn't have yelled at him as much as I did. I should have listened to him more. I'm emotional, so my emotions go from zero to 100 and like less than like you know, less than the Fast and Furious cars, like my emotions can go all over the place and my son will tell you that. But I have to take responsibility of me not listening to him, me reacting so fast, me not like perfect example, like in school, when he would get in trouble. At school, I will always be like what the hell is you doing? But I didn't understand that he couldn't learn at a fast pace than the other kids. But at that time I didn't know that. Later down the road I know that. So I have to take responsibilities for what I did and what I said to him and then forgive myself Again.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to beat myself up. I'm going to show compassion for myself. Ok, tiffany, this is what we're going to do moving forward, now that he's adult child, we're not going to do this anymore. We're not going to continue doing this. We're going to stop right now, and I'm telling y'all, when I say stop, that's what I mean. Stop beating up on yourself. Choose to let go, and I mean let it go. Choose to let go and I mean let it go. This will probably be the most difficult thing to do. It's to let it go. That will be the most challenging thing to do, it's to let go of guilt and fear, and I wish I could have.
Speaker 1:And our favorite word, what if? What if I didn't work overtime that night? And my situation? What if the pandemic didn't happen? What if I would have put my son on that flight to LA, versus him staying back home in Chicago, because unfortunately, the incident took place on Mother's Day? What if I were to put on that flight, because that was the original plan is for him to come see me on Mother's Day. But that's when the world was scary. That's when everything was shutting down and they were saying don't get on airplanes. My parents were older. I was scared that he can come back and breathe on them and my family can pass out. What if? Or what if he would have got on that plane and didn't get in trouble? And he would have went back to Chicago and had COVID and gave my parents the disease, the virus, and instead of me talking about incarceration, I can be talking about my father passed away.
Speaker 1:So many things Again, overthinking, we overthink the situation. So many things come to mind what if? Let it go, let it go. I know it's hard, baby, when I say I know it's hard, it's hard, but you choose the way you think about the situation. Have a different perspective of your child being incarcerated. I know that sound crazy, but you have to Again y'all my quote, nelson Mandela I never lose. I either I win or I learn. And y'all we have to learn from the situation of having a child incarcerated and thinking that we put them there because of our mistakes or we didn't do things right. And I'm here to say we did everything right Because you win or you learn. In the words of Nelson Mandela seriously, I made so many mistakes, baby.
Speaker 1:I can talk about a lot of things with y'all. We can do a Q&A. One day, y'all can ask me questions. What did I do? Ask Damiani, Was he at a bar or not? I don't know. Let's do a Q&A, y'all can find out.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying no one can tell me that I wasn't the best mother in the world. I was the best mother. I don't care. I didn't bake cookies. I wasn't on no PTO meeting, pta, I didn't do any of that. Nah, I wasn't doing that, I wasn't meeting. Let's do what. Is it called Playdates? I wasn't that type of mama. But you can't tell me that I wasn't the best mama for him. I am and I will always be.
Speaker 1:I need y'all to tell yourself that that you're the best mother. Remember what you pushed out. You pushed out greatness. I don't care if they're guilty or not guilty, I don't care what the crime is, you still pushed out greatness. Yeah, I said it. It, even if they're guilty cause God can turn anything around even if they're serving a life sentence and you're never gonna see them, you don't know what God's gonna do for them in that prison, so we will never know, but God knows.
Speaker 1:Alright, y'all, I need y'all to subscribe to my channel. Hit the link below. I love y'all. Please leave a comment. Let me know if you guys are down for a Q&A. I would love to do a Q&A, a live YouTube channel event. Let me know. Drop it in the comment section. Event let me know. Drop it in the comment section. Mothers know who you are and know that you never lose. Either you win or you learn from the situation. It's your girl, tiffany, nicole, all Nicole. Alright, y'all, remember, my child is in prison now. What now? What are you gonna do now? Tell me what you're gonna do now. What? Start the dream, start the book, start walking more. What are you gonna do leave it in the comments below, let me know. Alright, y'all be good.
