The destruction of not having a parent.
Annella Ebisos
My name is Annella Ebisos and I will be discussing the effects of abandonment on a child and why it affects children, a lot of parents tend to leave their children due to not being ready for a child or not being able to take care of them. It can be extremely difficult to comprehend how easy it is for a parent can abandon their child, the ones that they created. Turning your back on your child leads to long-term effects of resentment later on in life because when they develop into adults they want answers to the reasoning behind the absenties in their life.
Later on, kids who are transitioning into adults are transitioning into adults are filled with anger and many mixed emotions. In the article ‘’The effects of childhood abandonment in adulthood’’
it states ‘’without attentive, responsive caregivers, children might develop strong feelings of self-doubt, low self-confidence, and self-worth’’. With no parent this can lead up to mental illnesses later having separation anxiety, loneliness, anger, and the list goes further. .
In these scenarios, many children struggle with having self-confidence and believe that they are unloveable because of the abandonment they experienced. Not many overcome this struggle due to hiding how they feel about it and never getting closure from their parents that left them on why they chose to up and leave, this causes them to create their own conclusions on why their parents left.
Betty Morelik, 11th grade at Granger High School desires to make her family proud and takes care of everyone before herself, which also has relations with the topic I have chosen to pick. I interviewed her and asked ‘’how would you feel if you were in the shoes of a child that got abandoned and how would you cope with it’’ Betty quoted ‘’If the roles were reversed, knowing I left a child, moved on with another family, etc I would feel like I failed a part of me. How would I cope with it? I personally don’t think you could heal and break away from the type of topic that would set you as a failure, but from what I know, and because I am still experiencing child abandonment I cope with distracting myself making sure I don’t think too much of it. Because in the end, I know for sure, it wasn’t because of me.’’
In some cases there are some good effects of abandonment one being independent and doing things on your own and the negative effect of this is not wanting any help and never wanting to open up I asked Betty what she thinks are the pros and cons for kids that have no parents she stated ‘’ the pros of not having a parent is overcoming situations you’d never talk’’ the cons of this are constantly being blamed in situations you can’t control and you get bashed because of who you’ve become because of abandonment furthermore low self-esteem, trusting others, anxiety, depression, etc. abandoning a child comes with major effects that being relationships, communicating, etc. Betty stated that abandoning a child can affect the way they grow up in a lot of ways. The feeling of discomfort and feeling like you didn’t do enough to keep them in your life. It gives a child a feeling of becoming independent because they don’t rely on anyone to fix the way they are or have anyone fill the hole they developed over the years. In healthy relationships it can be hard for them too, the one who deals with abandonment ends up leaving the relationship first so the other won’t be the first to leave.’’
Esther Erakdrick, 11th grade attending Hillcrest High School. She enjoys journaling and sets herself to be a strong and independent woman. I began to ask her some interview questions, ‘’how would you feel if you were in the shoes of a child that got abandoned and how would you cope with it’’ she stated ‘’If I was in the same shoes of not having a parent I would have strong feelings of feeling betrayed how I would cope with it, I’d make the parent that is present in my life proud. The reason I choose to make them proud is that the parent that played both roles in my life should be given the opportunity to feel like they’ve done something right in my life and I know that all parents who go through raising a child alone just want their kids to fulfill the dreams they’ve never got to finish.’’
I asked Esther why she thinks abandoning a child can affect the way they grow up and she expressed herself quoting ‘’A child that grows up in a home without love and support can severely damage the kid mentally, but a child that grows up without a parent is most likely to succeed because of the way they’ve done everything on their own and the motivation they have to work hard.’’ Lastly, I asked what the pros and cons of not having a parent she stated ‘’the pros to not having a parent has to do with their future parenting as well, most kids that go through abandonment become good parents and that’s because the parents gave them an example of what not to do in life to a child’’ ‘’The cons to this is struggling to keep yourself on your feet and struggling with mental health’’.
Finally, a person I’ve been wanting to mention in my essay but continued to save the best for last, the person who gave me life and my given name Annella Nuka Ebisos, the one who soiled me into the young woman I am today, my mother, Vanity Langinbelik. My mother raised me on her own, becoming my mother and father at the same time. She filled in the spots my father couldn’t. This proves that even though I didn’t have my father present in my life, my mother was able to fill in a heart she didn’t break, and having one parent who’s able to give you love and attention takes away the hard reality of not having another parent. In other words, having one parent does not define you as a person, but it builds you to be the person you are today.
