I Was Offended By My Own Children

I can still hear his voice. Jamir was maybe a year and a half, two years old tops, and I was on the phone with his biological father having one of those arguments that starts about something small and ends up ripping open every wound you've been trying to keep covered.

He was comparing Jamir to his other son (we'll call him Michael) whose family was very involved, who lived in a nice home, who went to private school and had every advantage lined up like dominoes ready to fall perfectly into place. Meanwhile, I was in the projects with Jamir, on welfare, doing my absolute best with what felt like absolutely nothing. No family support. No backup plan. Just me and this beautiful boy and a fierce determination to make it work.

That's when he said it. "Michael is always gonna be better off than Jamir." And then he added a word about my son that I won't repeat here, but trust me, it landed.

I was furious. But underneath the anger was something sharper, something that dug in deep and stayed there. In that moment, I made myself a promise. I was going to prove him wrong. I was going to prove all of them wrong. I would do whatever it took to make sure Jamir grew up to be the best person he could possibly be.

And just like that, I created an expectation. A blueprint. A vision of who Jamir needed to become in order for me to feel like I hadn't failed. And I held onto that thing for dear life.

Here's what I didn't account for, Jamir is his own person. Always has been. And he has spent his entire life going against every expectation I ever put on him, not out of rebellion, not to hurt me, but because he operates by one simple principle: I'm not living my life to meet your expectations.

And honestly? That's not a bad thing. It's actually a healthy thing. But for me, it felt like rejection. It felt like failure. It felt like everything I had sacrificed, everything I had worked so hard to give him, was being thrown back in my face.

So when it became clear that Jamir wasn't going to fulfill the vision I'd written for him, I did what any desperate parent does. I transferred all that hope, all that pressure, all those dreams onto my daughter.

Janai was going to be different. She was going to be my redemption story. She would go to college, go to prom, travel the world, build a beautiful life, do everything I didn't get to do. She was going to prove that I had done something right, that I was a good mother, that my life hadn't been a waste.

And for a while, it looked like she was on track. She was doing well in school. She had goals. The future I'd imagined for her seemed within reach.

And then Jamir's car accident happened.

I won't say it derailed our family, though if you asked some people, they might disagree. What I will say is that it shattered us in ways I didn't see coming and couldn't control.

The accident didn't just take Jamir's best friend. It didn't just leave Jamir with a traumatic brain injury and months of surgeries and a long, painful recovery. It cracked something open in all of us.

Janai's mental health, which had been quietly struggling beneath the surface, suddenly exploded. Deep depression. A suicide attempt. Behaviors we'd never seen from her before. She became someone we didn't recognize, and we were terrified.

When Jamir finally came home from the hospital, I went into fix-it mode. I thought the answer was forward motion. Keep him busy. Don't let him sit in his grief. Push past the pain as fast as possible. So I did. I helped him fill out job applications. I encouraged him to get out of the house. I told myself I was protecting him.

Looking back now, I can see that I was doing the exact opposite. I was trying to rush him through something that required time, space, and permission to fall apart.

He got a job. He showed up. But he was struggling in ways I didn't fully understand. The TBI was invisible (no cast, no crutches, nothing you could point to and say, "That's what's wrong"). But it was there. In his aggression. In his quick frustration. In the things he forgot. In the foods he used to love but suddenly couldn't stand. In the way he stopped laughing.

And all the while, he was mourning his best friend. The one who had been driving. The one who didn't make it home.

I was trying to hold Janai together while pushing Jamir forward while keeping myself from completely falling apart, and honestly, I did a terrible job at all three. I thought I was doing the best I could with an impossible hand. But what I was really doing was trying to control an outcome I had no business controlling in the first place.

And then Janai got pregnant.

Ya'll. I was devastated. I'm not gonna pretty this up. I wanted her to have an abortion. I was angry, not at her, really, though it felt like anger at her, but at what this meant for me. For my dreams. For the story I had been writing in my head where she was the one who made it all make sense.

All those plans I had for her? Gone. The college degree, the career, the life I never got to live but she was supposed to have? Out the window. And I was furious about it.

Here's the thing I didn't realize at the time....

I wasn't just disappointed. I was offended.

I'm reading this book right now with my church called The Bait of Satan, and it talks about how we get offended most easily by the people closest to us. When I read that, something clicked. In that season of my life (actually, in most seasons of my parenting life) I was living in deep offense. And the offense was directed squarely at my children.

Not because they were doing anything wrong. Not because they were bad kids or making terrible choices or trying to hurt me. But because they weren't living the lives I had written for them. Their stories were unfolding the way God intended, but they didn't look like what I intended. And that felt like a personal betrayal.

I was offended by my own children.

Let me say that again because it's hard to admit, I was offended by my own children. Not because of who they were, but because of who they weren't. Not because of what they were doing, but because of what they weren't becoming. I had built these expectations out of my own pain, my own need to prove something, my own desire to redeem my story through theirs. And when they didn't meet those expectations, I took it personally.

I carried that offense like a weight. And it kept me angry. It kept me disappointed. It kept me from actually seeing them.

But here's where the story shifts.

It's January 2026 now. A year has passed since Janai gave birth to our granddaughter, A'Rayla. And I'm starting to see something I couldn't see before.

That pregnancy (the one I was so devastated about) was exactly what our family needed. We had just

lost my husband's brother as well as my grandmother, two months before we found out Janai was expecting. We didn't realize how much we needed new life, how much we needed hope, how much we needed something to pull us out of the grief we'd been drowning in. A'Rayla was that something.

But even more than that, I've watched what this baby has done for Janai. Becoming a mother grounded her in a way I never could have orchestrated. She started setting goals. She worked harder than I've ever seen her work. She held down a part-time job for a year and a half at the same place (which if you know teenagers, you know that's a feat). She pushed herself to get enough credits to graduate early from high school. And she did it. Today, we got the news: she's officially done. She'll walk the stage in June, but she already has her credits. She's already looking at postsecondary programs in health care. She's already planning her next steps.

And she's been an incredible mother. She rarely asks for help. She shows up for her daughter every single day. And A'Rayla adores her.

This is not the story I wrote for Janai. But it's a good story. It's her story. And it's unfolding exactly the way it's supposed to.

And then there's Jamir.

After that first job, he got another one. And then he lost that one too. And for a while, he was just... stuck. Grieving his best friend. Dealing with the effects of the TBI. Watching his friend group drift apart as life took everyone in different directions. Struggling to figure out what his life looked like now that everything had changed. Carrying the weight of being the one who survived.

And what I finally realized (later than I should have) was that he didn't need me to push him. He needed permission to rest.

So for the last two years, that's what we gave him. My husband and I, along with my in-laws, made sure he had what he needed (not always what he wanted, but what he needed). A safe place. Time. Space to heal. He did some therapy for a few months and then decided he was done with it. (I still think he needs it, but that's beside the point.) What he needed most was just time to sit with everything that had happened and figure out who he was on the other side of it.

And in December, he got a job. A job he actually likes. He's working again. He's setting goals for himself and his son. He's excited about the future in a way I haven't seen in years.

And I'm so proud of him.

Sitting here today, reflecting on all of this, I can see the enemy's strategy so clearly now. The devil will use our expectations for our children to trap us. He'll use them to keep us stuck in grief, stuck in fear, stuck in anger. He'll use them to keep us from being in real, healthy, life-giving relationship with the people we love most. Because if he can stagnate mothers (the ones who carry life, the ones who nurture and protect and shape the next generation) he can devour entire families.

And the easiest way to stagnate us? Unachievable expectations.

So here's what I want to say to the parents reading this, the ones who might be exactly where I was.

Let go.

I know that's easier said than done. I know you've sacrificed. I know you've worked hard. I know you've given everything you have to give your children a better life than you had. I know you're terrified that if you release your grip, everything will fall apart.

But here's the truth: your children have their own story. Their own journey. Their own relationship with God. And His plan for their lives might look nothing like the plan you wrote. In fact, it probably won't. And that's okay. That's more than okay. That's exactly how it's supposed to be.

Your children don't owe you a redemption story. They don't owe you proof that you were a good parent. They don't owe you the life you dreamed for them but never got to live yourself.

They just owe themselves the grace to become who they're meant to be. And you owe them the grace to let them.

I spent years offended because my children's lives didn't match my script. And all that offense did was keep me trapped. It kept me angry. It kept me disappointed. It kept me from celebrating them for who they actually are instead of mourning who I thought they should be.

Jamir and I

Today, I'm choosing something different. I'm choosing to see Janai for the strong, capable, loving mother she's becoming. I'm choosing to see Jamir for the thoughtful, resilient young man he is, even when his path looks nothing like what I imagined. I'm choosing to trust that God knows what He's doing with their lives, even when I don't understand it.

And I'm choosing to release the offense I've been carrying like a badge of honor, like proof that I cared enough to have high standards. Because the truth is, that offense wasn't helping anyone. It was just keeping me stuck.

If you're reading this and you recognize yourself in my story (if you've been secretly disappointed, secretly angry, secretly offended because your child isn't who you thought they'd be) I want you to know you're not alone. I've been there. I am there. And I'm learning, one day at a time, to lay it down.

The enemy wants to use those expectations to trap you. But God wants to use your children's real stories (not the ones you wrote, but the ones He's writing) to set you free.

So let them go. Let them be. Let God do what only He can do.

And watch what happens when you release your grip and trust that He's been holding them all along.

Ya'll be encouraged in these Unashamed streets. - Sana