Dear Ellen DeGeneres

May 21, 2013

Dear Ellen,

            My name is Tiana (like Diana) Smith and I am a 29 year old single mother of an amazing 9 (on July 29^th) year old son. My son is my rock and my world. If it wasn’t for my son I probably would have lost all sense of myself years ago. Anyways, the reason I am writing is I want to find a way to help my dad. For the past two years, almost two and a half, my dad has been letting me and my son live with him. I haven’t been able to work pretty much the entire time that we have been living here and I am going to school full time. So my dad is letting us live here rent free. As long as I keep the apartment clean, which is rare, and I do as well as I can in school he doesn’t mind letting us live here.

Before my dad let us move in my son and I were stranded in Arizona. I had originally moved out there August 2009 to get away from an abusive ex-boyfriend and went to live with an aunt. My mom and son drove out 4 months later when my mom lost the house. What we didn’t expect was for my aunt to be so much worse than my ex-boyfriend. My aunt would call the cops on me every time she got mad at me. She threatened to kick me to the curb 4 times before my mom and so moved in. She would tell my son that everything bad that happened was my fault. She tried to talk my mom into changing her will so that when my mom died my aunt would get custody because I would “destroy every chance my son had at living a healthy and happy life.” She would bully me, get in my face (like noses touching) and yell at me over everything, she would tell me it was my sons fault every time her dogs almost bit him, and she would tell me that I was worthless and would never amount to anything.

  On the one year anniversary of me living with my aunt she was arrested for knocking my mom flat on her behind and put my mom in the hospital. The next day we moved into a homeless shelter. I got kicked out of the shelter a week and a half later and lived on a friends couch for almost 2 weeks. My mom and son got kicked out of the shelter a few days after me and found a second shelter. About 3 days after I found another DV shelter to go to my mom calls me, panicked, because her and my son got kicked out of their shelter and they had nowhere to go. My shelter allowed me to have my son with me (my mom had custody of my son at this time) so he wasn’t on the street and my mom found a shelter for herself. Two and a half months later my son and I were told that someone found us at the shelter and threatened my life, so we had to find another shelter again. My mom was at a new shelter by this point and talked them into making room for me and my son. So we spent three months at the same shelter as my mom. By this point we were no longer considered victims, our time was running out, and we would have had to find a homeless shelter with room (there were none) or sleep on the streets. My dad found out and told us to come home. That was March 21, 2011 and we have been with my dad since. My mom found a way home a few months later.

            It originally was supposed to be a temporary thing, until I got my on my feet, then about 9 months after moving in he said we could live with him until he was no longer around to live with. If I have my way then my dad will live until my son has lived a full life. My dad is more than willing to financially support me and my son as much as he can, and I do my best not to ask for money. I try living off of my food stamps, refund checks from college, and child support (when I get it) from my ex-husband. I hate asking my dad for money. On top of that he is still trying to help my mom out financially even though they have been legally separated for 7 years and he tries to help his girlfriend as much as he can.

 Since living here my dad has missed work due to a hernia repair surgery (last year) and being diagnosed with viral meningitis-encephalitis (this year). His job is working him to the bone as well. He works every single day, only getting every other Sunday, major holidays, and his few vacation days off from work. His boss runs him ragged and refuses to hire another person that knows how to do what my dad does. There are supposed to be, at minimum, two people in my dad’s department, and his boss refuses to hire anyone else.

It hurts my dad just to walk. He has had around 3 back surgeries, screws in his back, gallbladder surgery, a back surgery that went through his neck, arthritis surgery and if the doctors get their way they want to remove the entire bone in his thumb since his arthritis came back so bad, and a hernia repair surgery. There might be more, I just don’t remember them all. When I was younger and possible before I was born, the job he had at the time was fixing/repairing pinball machines, cigarette machines, pool tables, etc. and during one of the jobs, when he was in his 20s, he actually fell down a flight of stairs and had the pinball machine fall on top of him. A few years ago he slipped on the ice falling off the stoop at his girlfriends and snapped the screws in his back (resulting in one of the surgeries). I hate seeing my dad in this much pain and its 24/7. He wakes up in pain and stays in pain even while sleeping. When he does get more than a day or two off work in a row he gets sick. His body finally has time to relax and he gets sick because he is no longer pushing his body to make it through work.

We can’t afford a bigger apartment, without me being able to work, so my son and I are sharing a bunk bed in one room. He doesn’t want to own a house because of the yard work and financial responsibility for upkeep either. His van is close to dying on us. It needs a new transmission, we haven’t had a working A/C in three years, the driver’s seat has springs sticking out that rip and shred our pants, and the gas gauge no longer works either. We won’t fix anything on the car because just fixing either the transmission or A/C would end up costing more than buying a decent used car. My dad doesn’t complain about it though. It gets us from point A to point B still and that is what counts.

The only time my dad really buys anything for himself is when he gets his Christmas bonus or his tax return. I would love to see my dad be able to take more time off work, get his health under control, or even take a vacation. It kills me that I can’t find work because I don’t drive or have my own car. Plus going to school and not being able to afford a babysitter makes it very hard to help out financially. I know people out there have it much worse than us and deserve help more than us but I just want to help my dad. My dad has been so amazing to me and my son and I pray that one day he can retire. He needs it not only mentally but physically as well. I am a major daddy’s girl and it kills me to see him like this. Every time he gets sick I take care of him. Taking care of him when he is sick is easy, make him lay down as much as I can, keep fluids in him, and make him soup when he is hungry. Taking care of him when he is in so much physical pain is harder. I can’t do anything except make sure he goes to the doctor when it gets so bad he can’t take it.

I just want to help and I don’t know how to help so I am reaching out to you. God Bless you and keep up the amazing work.

Much love,

Tiana Smith

https://www.facebook.com/tianasmith1984

What age is the right age

This may or may not be the start of a series where I ask "what age is the right age"

One of the harder questions for me, currently, as a parent is figuring out when my son is old enough to be home alone for a certain amount of time. He is just a couple months away from being 9 and when I was his age (1993) my parents would let me and my younger brother, he was 8, stay home alone while they went to the grocery store. The store was only 10 minutes from our apartment, we were never alone more than 2 hours, and even though we didn't know it every single adult in the building was keeping a secret eye on us. To me and my brother, though, we thought we were hot stuff because we were home alone for up to 2 hours.
Then there were the times where we would go home after school, have about an hour or so until our mom got home from work, and our dad wouldn't be home until around 6 or 7 depending on the jobs he had to do. So we got a little more home alone time after school on the days our mom had to work. We never knew we were not truly alone, our parents very rarely told us that our neighbors were keeping an eye out for us. It meant a lot to us that our parents trusted us. The older we got the more alone time we got in the apartment. For the most part nothing every happened. I mean, there would be a few sibling squabbles, but we were only 19mo apart so they happened more than if there was a drastic age difference. If our parents knew they were going to be gone longer than the normal 2 hours we would normally have a neighbor knock on our door after 2 hours to make sure were hadn't killed each other or trashed the apartment.

This was the early 90s for crying out loud. It was a hell of a lot safer than it is now. The only time our parents really regretted leaving us home alone was when my brother decided he was pissed at me, we were 11 and 12is this time, and he locked me out of the apartment. He not only locked the door knob, but he locked the dead bolt too. He refused to answer the door no matter how much I yelled or pounded on the door. Then my genius ass remember the whole 3 weeks of karate I took before I got kicked out for Chuck Norris-ing some kid in the gut. So I stepped back, took my stance, and side kicked the door as hard as I could. Lo and behold the door opened! The door was also broke. I did not break the wood of the door, nor did I do any damage to the door frame. I am still amazed at that. What I did however, was kick the door so hard it completely jammed the dead bolt in a locked position. Thus resulting in the landlord having to be called, along with our parents, to explain what happened to the door to get it fixed. Needless to say, it took my parents a while to trust us alone for more than 30 minutes for a while.
So this brings me back to my original question. In 2013, knowing how much the world has changed in 20 years, when is the right age for your child to be trusted with an hour or two of being home alone? I have had people ask me why I don't allow my son to be home alone while I go to the store or go to the end of the block to the pony keg and I just tell them that mentally and emotionally I do not think my son can handle it. There are, however, times during the weekend where I will run to the store, leaving my son there, but my dad is asleep in his room. So my son is not alone alone. There is a grown adult just feet away that he can wake up if anything happens. I know my son won't answer the door when someone knocks on it, and we don't have a home phone so I don't have to worry about that, but if my dad was not there I don't think he could handle it. If he is on the computer and I tell him I am stepping outside, but he doesn't register I said it, he freaks the hell out when he finally notices that I am not in the apartment. I won't even let him walk the .5 mile to school by himself. He is too easily distracted and even though its practically a straight line to his school, he will still somehow manage to get his ass lost.
So for me, personally, my son may not be able to stay home alone until he is 10, or 11, or even 12. It all depends on the maturity level of the child, how well they listen to what their parents teach them, and whether or not there is enough trust within the child themselves to handle not having an adult around 24/7. Some kids may be able to handle that now, but my son can not. So I ask you, when did your start leaving your kids home alone or when do you plan on it, for those with younger kids? How old were you when your parents started leaving you home alone?

Hurry up and get married already!

For a while now my son has been telling me that he wants a brother or sister that lives with him. He is technically an only child since he is my only child, but he is also biologically an older brother to 4 little sisters and a little brother. He only gets to see one of his sisters every other weekend. The rest of his siblings he has no relationship with at all and I don't see it happening anytime in the foreseeable future either. He wants me to hurry up, meet someone, get remarried, and have another kid. I would love to be able to have another child, but school comes first. I have come nowhere near meeting the right guy to have another child with. Probably because I am really not putting any effort into meeting guys right now. School takes up the morning and I have no transportation in the evening. Yeah I could probably meet a guy at school, but I am not interested in any of the ones in my classes and I don't go where most of the students hang out (the cafeteria).
I also do not go to bars anymore. Even if I did my Mr. Right would not be sitting in the bar at night getting plastered. There are PLENTY of bars where I live. Hell I can walk out my building and see one at the end of the parking lot and there are two more within 4 blocks. I think there are around 8-10 bars just within 1 mile of my apartment. I am also not the type of person to flirt with a complete stranger in the grocery store. Although, I have had my eye on this guy that works at the deli for almost a year now, but other than telling him what I want I don't say anything to him.
Living in this town I get a daily reminder that I am divorced and single as well. I have mentioned this before in a past blog, I live in Bridal Central. people travel from all around the country to wedding shop here. This brings me to the reason I started writing this blog. Every time I get stopped at a light and look at the wedding dresses I point out the ones in the window that I like and my son tells me what he thinks about it too. Then, about a few months ago, he makes me promise that he and I both agree on the dress I will wear. If I like it but he doesn't then I can't wear it. If he likes it but I don't I can't wear it. It just so happens that the other day we both found one that be both liked. So two days later when I passed the store again I pulled out my phone to take a picture of it, but it was no longer in the window. My son was crushed. He wants me to take pictures of all the ones we like so when I am finally ready to get married again we have pictures of the types of dresses to look for.
I think it is amazing that my son wants me to get remarried and have another kid. I also think it is amazing that he wants to take part in the planning part of it. However, I feel like I am letting him down because I am still single. When the times comes the time comes, but I am not going to go out of my way to make it happen.

No food for you!

My son knows that when I start the 30 minute countdown for bed time to tell me if he wants any last minute things to eat. Yet, he feels the need to wait until I say "It's bedtime go get ready" to tell me he wants food, or he will wait until he is in bed to tell me he wants food. He knows that there is no food after I say the words "bedtime" or when he is in his bed. I let him know when there is 30 minutes until bed, 20 minutes until bed, 15 minutes until bed, then 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 minutes until bed. So tell me why when I say its time to go to bed he tells me he had no idea it was that close to bedtime.
Tonight I decided, since all he wanted was a toaster waffle, that I would allow him to eat it even though he waited until I said it was bedtime to ask for it. I was in a, somewhat, nice mood so why not? I pop the waffle in the toaster, warm up the syrup, and tell him to sit at the table. He proceeds to bitch that the chair is gross and he wants a cover for it. I tell him to get a paper towel and wipe it off so he does. Then I put the waffle on the table and put the syrup on the waffle and he is still refusing to sit at the table.
Apparently this chair had some pretty nasty invisible gunk on it because he is screaming like a banshee that the chair is nasty and he is not sitting on it without a cover. I am already loud by this point so I pull the chair out and tell him to stand there and eat his waffle then. He wasn't having that either. So I push the chair back in and say sit and eat or go to bed. My son starts screaming and getting pissed about the invisible gunk on this chair, he is starving, he doesn't want to sit, but he wants to eat. So I tell him he has 5 seconds to make up his mind or I will make it up for him. He continues to act like the world is over because of this chair so I tell him to go to bed. I know he is acting like an asshat because he is just tired and that he will never admit he is tired. So he decides to stab his waffle as hard as he can with his fork, storms off to the bedroom, slams the door shut, and throws himself into his bed. I calmly walked in, turned out the light, told him I loved him, and closed the door. Then I walked into the kitchen, sat in the contaminated chair, and ate his damn waffle.
I know he had to have been exhausted because I have not heard a peep out of his room since I closed the door. If he was really as hungry as he was acting he would have been carrying on until he cried/screamed himself to sleep. There are rules and if you don't want to follow them then you can tell your hungry tummy you will see it in the morning.