DNA: Step Up For Your Son! | KARAMO

My first guest, Derisha, is here to confront her son's father, Bernard. Derisha says Bernard refuses to spend time with their son and has even gone as far as faking his home address just so he wouldn't have to spend time with him. Oof. But this co-parenting drama extends beyond Derisha and Bernard because both of their mothers are here and furious over the situation. The moms will face off later, but first, please welcome Derisha. Hey Derisha, how you doing?

Hi, I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you as well.

So Derisha, tell me the problems that you are having with Bernard.

I'm having a lot. Like he don't want to pick up the phone or co-parenting with me. Don't want to meet me halfway. He just don't want to do none of that. He just want to be sorry.

Really? What was it like at the beginning of your relationship with Bernard?

It was good. He was nice. He was happy. You know, I told him I was pregnant or whatever. He was all down for it. He wanted to be this family man that he was telling me about or whatever, then boom, come to find out I'm the fourth, my son is the fourth child.

So he told you that your son was the first son and he was excited to have his first son. Yes, yes, yes. And but you find out later he had already had 3 sons?

Yes, sir. Yes.

Wow.

Yes. Okay, so you start off with some deception in the very beginning. Mm-hmm. Wow, okay then. So has co-parenting been a struggle for you two?

Yes, it has.

In what ways?

'cause he don't wanna help out when I call, try to reach out. And I try to reach out and call and I tried to come.

What do you ask for? For like what?

I told him 'cause it was picture day coming up and I needed my son haircut 'cause he's a barber, but he did not wanna do none of that. Didn't wanna get him an outfit on picture day or none of that. It was just like—

Oh my gosh. So some of those little smaller things that you're asking for. Yes. Please welcome Bernard to the show.

Hi, y'all. I ain't no deadbeat either, don't believe him.

You lying, the lies that you tell, the lies that you tell.

How you doing, man? So you said already, you told us, came out here and told me and my audience that, you know, don't believe it.

Yeah, don't believe it.

Okay, so what are you saying? So you saying everything that she just said is a lie?

Everything.

How many children are you rumored to have?

A lot.

A lot.

A lot. It be like this sometimes. Them drunk nights.

Oh wow.

Henny get the best of me.

Don't blame it on the alcohol. Do not blame it on the alcohol.

I know, but T-Pain ain't here, so let's not blame it on the alcohol, all right? All right, so you making a choice to have unprotected sex.

It be like this whole time.

Do it be like that?

Yeah.

So you step up for your other children, but for Derisha, why are you not able to co-parent?

Right.

And like I said before, it's outta me and multiple men, so simple as that.

So how do you step up for him in your opinion?

I beat her, try to beat her anyway. 'Cause it's her money, she's spending money. She drink, wanna go smoke a little weed or whatever. Hey, that's on her. Hey, if I can't spend time with her, I even tell her to drop him off.

How when you gave me the fake address and you blocked my number?

So you don't know where my child at?

No.

Jerisha's mother Rhonda is here and she has a lot to say about the situation. So everyone please welcome Rhonda to the stage.

You are such a deadbeat father and you need to be responsible and take care of your child. You haven't done nothing what you're supposed to do as a father.

Rhonda, I wanna know, I wanna know, take a seat for me. How do you feel about how Bernard has been treating your grandchild?

He has been treating him like shit.

Yes.

That's the truth. And you need to stop doing that. He hurts his feelings and when you're not there, I have to be there for him. And that's not fair for me 'cause I have my other kids. I have to watch out.

Does he come pick up your grandson?

I haven't seen him pick him up. When he say he come, he don't show up. So that lets you know that he's a liar to his own child.

I got a question.

What's that?

Do you be around her 28?

That don't got nothing to do with that.

All right, then you don't know what you're talking about.

I'm talking about my grandson that you steady hurting his feelings when you say you gonna do something and you don't do it.

I spend time.

Oh, okay, well I never seen you do that. When you say you gonna do it, you never shows up.

Rhonda, you say that Bernard owes you $10,000 in grandma fees. She said $10,000 in grandma fees.

$10,000, yes.

This is what she said. She said, "Rhonda, grandma fees." You see that?

Yes. And I told Rhonda.

Yes.

Haircuts, clothes, toys, emotional distress. You'll see all that. He did that. This is your responsibility, not mine. Yeah, so I did all of this. The hair, the clothes, the toys. Yeah.

And the emotional distress. Okay. Yes. She charged him for emotional distress, y'all. She charged him for— Rhonda, they charged you for emotional— She charged you for emotional distress.

Yes.

Listen, listen.

That's crazy.

That is sad.

Sorry, that just got me right there.

So what? You see how people just throw a number out.

Okay. But I mean, but a lot of that stuff though, I mean the emotional distress, I understand where you're coming from. But haircuts, clothing, toys, if she's picking up the burden, that's a lot that she's been taking care of.

What, 5 years?

$10,000 worth?

$10,000 worth?

5 years.

$10,000 worth?

Yes.

That's 5 years worth of—

Yeah, that math adds up.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

So Rhonda, tell Bernard why is it important for him to be there?

Because he needs his dad. My other grandkids, when their dad come, he's left at home alone waiting on you to come get him. All the time. And that's not fair for him. It's not.

That's understandable. It really is.

Okay, well that's how you feel about it.

I get 'em sometimes.

Okay, well.

How does it make you feel hearing that her other grandchildren, their fathers pick them up and then your son is left alone?

Mm-mm, that like, it was—

Should make you wanna step up and be a father.

You right, you right. That's wrong. That's wrong to me, you know?

Okay. I know your mother's here as well, so I wanna get her into the conversation. Sandra, how are you doing?

No, I thought this was a reality show and both of them chicken heads you got on your couch is silly. Go get a DNA test. Before you holler about somebody.

Oh, you sexy.

Y'all hoes are confused. You ain't did shit for your grandchild. You wanna come up here talking shit?

You better go get a woman.

Calm down. Why I be with a clean looking woman? You ain't talking about nothing.

That's why you where you are.

That's all you is, a fucking talker. You ain't did shit for him. You ain't did nothing for him.

You are concerned about your son's safety because of other issues. You're concerned about your son's safety and your grandson's safety. And so I think let's get to the bottom of this 'cause we can't get to the conversation about safety until we have the DNA outcome. So again, I asked for a DNA outcome very early on and you all agreed and took the DNA test. Here goes the results and then we'll get to the bottom of this.

Oh my goodness.

You gonna open it? No, no, why you open it?

What?

What does it say? Read it. You are not the father.

Somebody else read it then. I told you, big player, Mike.

Big player.

I told you, big player, light-skinned and style. Don't forget that. Big player, light-skinned and style. Never forget that.

Oh my goodness.

Oh yeah, big player.

Hold on, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Okay.

Big player, man. They gotta be thick as hell now.

Okay.

No skinny.

He done had too many meat meats.

Do you know who could possibly be the father?

I do.

You know who the father is? Okay, what I wanna do is I would like for you two to step backstage really quickly and I'm gonna come back and talk to you all. I wanna talk to Bernard alone. Before I go talk to her, because she did put y'all in the middle of this and now that we know that it's not the child, that's why I asked her to remove herself. But there is something deeper for me here. And you know, when it comes to Black folks, I am very particular about pain and generational pain. You have generational pain that has not been healed. Your mother just said she went through some things. You've been through some things. And the fact that you are getting locked up for child support, the fact that other women are going through this, I don't want this for your life anymore. And we have to figure out how can you start to heal that so you don't have another woman on here that's claiming that you're the father, that where you start looking like a deadbeat. Sandra, can you talk to your son right now? Because part of this is part of what happened with you as a child and you not being there for him. I see it's emotional. And I saw your son earlier, why I asked the question, and my audience saw it too. You started getting emotional. There's pain that's going on here.

It never healed.

It's never healed.

It never healed. No matter what I go through, it never healed. Like right now, I'm emotional. I ain't gonna lie, I ain't gonna hide it. I'm a man, I can't be hard all the time. I got feelings too.

Agreed. What do we need?

But not.

Yeah, talk to your son. Sandra, talk to your son.

You gotta stop, son. You can't sleep with all these different women. You taking a risk. Then I'm dealing with these women cussing me out, disrespecting me. You having to get in they face about disrespecting me. I'm tired.

I want you to grow. Sandra, but the thing is that he can't grow yet because I'm even watching his body language here. I don't think what's happened in his childhood from his father and from you has been acknowledged. Am I telling the truth?

Yeah.

Because I'm seeing his body language. Can you acknowledge to him that you're sorry for what he went through? I know you went through some things as well. I'm sorry. What do you need?

It still, it won't fix it. I ain't like, even now I don't have no genuine love. It's me against the world.

Got it.

So you don't love your mom?

Yeah, I love you 'cause you my mother.

But you don't feel like the love.

Man, come on, man.

You don't feel unconditional love?

Man, the only thing get unconditional love these days is women, kids, and pets, man.

So that's the reason why you treat these women the way you do?

Man, and a lot of men be looking for a mother in a woman.

So your son is looking for love that he felt like he didn't get from you. He felt like he got it from his aunt, but he didn't get it from you. What steps can you start taking to show your son that?

That's what I wanna know from him. What will it take? I don't wanna die leaving here.

What steps can she take to do that?

It's too late, man.

It's never too late.

It is.

It's never too late. Do you think his father could step in and actually start to help resolve this hole in his heart?

Man, and the killer part, my father ain't never told me he was proud of me or loved me. Facts. He used to get on my ass till I finished school. Man, I shot all the way to Dallas to finish school. I'm from Little Rock, Arkansas. I went all the way to Dallas.

Your mama shot you.

Went all the way out there to finish school. Got my high school diploma.

All right, listen.

And he didn't even say he was proud of me, he loved me, no nothing. When I tell him I love him, the only thing he tell me is, "Okay." I hear you.

I don't believe you deserve to have been treated the way you've been treated. You didn't deserve it.

It's life.

It's not life. It's some choices that people who should have made better choices, they didn't do it. But that's not life. Life can be different. Life can be different and will be different for you. Believe me. I know that you have your heart right now. You've spent 29 years of this being your reality. So I know it's hard to see that the 29 years could be different. But what could be different is that though you are out here searching for this love in these women, You're actually going to do the exact opposite if you keep engaging in this behavior. You gotta be better for these next kids. You just said you don't want your daughters to feel this. We now got answers for this one, but imagine if this child was yours, he'd been growing up thinking the same thing you're thinking about your dad.

You're right.

That's right.

That's right.

So you can be better. Yeah. You can be better. And I know you can be better because I'm looking at you. You are so beautiful. You're a smart and driven man. You can be better. I see the exterior that you got us all seeing. He was giving us an exterior. That ain't the real you. We saw the real you today. You let us in through your vulnerability. Be better because I know you can be. And while you're being better, let's figure out how to heal this.

Gotcha.

You got it?

Yeah.

You gonna let me help?

Yeah.

All right. Something going on right now while you're picking men that are not actually able to be there for you. For you.

Right.

Why are you searching for love in these men that are wrong for you?

I guess 'cause I like it.

You like it. So that is possible. That is possible that sometimes when you say you grow up in a household where things are fine, we find ways to find ourselves in dysfunction when we don't need to be.

Right.

Why are you attracted to dysfunction? You feel bored with your life?

A little.

What does that make you think?

Does she need help?

It's surprising, right? I know, I'm a parent too. I had a kid that did that as well.

Yeah, I be on her as much as I can, but I can't, I have my other kids. I can't just stop doing for them and focus on her.

Where do you fall in line of the other kids?

I'm the fourth.

The fourth? Okay, the youngest?

No.

Okay.

I have 14. She's number 4 out of the 14.

Oh, you have 14. Got it. Okay, got it. Okay, so this is mimic behavior. So you had this behavior as well growing up?

I probably did. I was—

Not probably, you got 14 kids. You had this behavior. You had this behavior and I'm not judging you. Listen, you make a choice, you doing what you gotta do, but she's mimicking your behavior.

Okay.

Right? Got it.

Yeah.

So I think you need to be more transparent with her about how that affected you growing up. 'Cause even though you're a woman now and you're trying to do the best you can and you're trying to handle it, I know you were younger and hurting and in pain and crying in your rooms at times. I know there was points you felt alone. I know there was points you asked yourself, why is this my life? Am I right?

Mm-hmm.

You need to talk to her transparently about that and be honest with her so that she can see like, damn, even though mom's strong now, I don't need to go through what mom went through.

Right.

So instead of you arguing with her and saying, I'm trying to be there and do these things, Be more vulnerable with her. Tell her what you went through. Do you want her to go through the things you went through?

I don't.

She's already 5 in. Mm-hmm. Yeah? Yes. Talk to your mom, all right? You don't have to repeat the behavior, all right?

Yes, sir.

All right, listen, y'all gonna be all right. If you need help talking to the other guy, let me know, all right?

All right.

All right.

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