Meeting My Mom For The First Time | KARAMO

I lost custody of my daughter at 6 months old. I had 4 kids at the time, and I had no safe place for them to go. I did not give my daughter away. The state took her. I did everything the state asked me to do. I took classes, I got a job, I got a support system, and they still would not give her back. I spent 18 years without my daughter. We finally connected on social media when she was 18. Things turned hostile right from the start. She had already connected with her biological father, and he told her a bunch of lies about me, contradicting lies to turn her away from me, to love him more, and to keep me away, 'cause he didn't want her to know the truth. The truth was he wasn't there and I was, and I didn't get no credit. He told her I gave her away. Like he had nothing to do with it, like he was innocent. He wasn't. We haven't spoken in 8 years. I haven't seen my baby since they took her from me. I want her to know the truth and not what somebody told her. I'm the horse's mouth and I wanna hear from me.

I'm her mother.

Listen, we'll talk to Patrice a little later, but first welcome her daughter Janaya to the show to hear her side of the story. Hi, Janaya.

Thank you for being here.

So please tell me, how do you feel about what was just said?

I think that she bashed my dad a lot and I'm 26 years old. I can interpret things by myself. You left me. I got adopted by another family. It's not what my dad said. It's clear, it's black and white.

Yeah. So what's going on with you and Patrice?

First of all, she didn't look for me. My aunt on my dad's side of family looked for me. She's the one who texted me at 18. And from there we just started building a bond. And then she texted me and the text message, it just wasn't, it, okay, you reached out, but it didn't feel like genuine. It felt like she was like jealous.

And we have the first messages she sent you here.

So this is your mom. I hear you have a relationship with your dad, I understand, but not a, Good idea. I'm not the best, but I'm doing better than him. I also had no help from your sperm donor. He's acting like Mr. Goody. He far from it. They said about your dad, he beat me, abused me. He stole your pamper money and good money, rent and more on drugs. Okay.

Did it bother you to hear Patrice talking so badly about your father?

Yes, it does. I tell her that. When we first talked, I told her like, I don't wanna hear about him. I don't wanna hear what's going on. I wanna hear like, how can we fix this?

Got it. So we have the Facebook, last Facebook message between the both of you from 8 years ago.

And it says, "I won't bother you and don't bother me and stop slandering me. If you want to know something, ask, don't assume." And you said, "Whatever." Yep.

Okay. So why do you want to reconnect with Patrice?

Because I just, I wanna have a daughter, a daughter-mother relationship. I just wanna heal. I wanna, you know, at least tell my children about you, at least. Because I have a mother. I don't think I'll ever call you mom, but I would like to have that, you know, well, how was I when I was a baby? How did you, you know, what was I like when you birthed me? Things like that.

Because you were adopted.

Yes.

And you had a good life?

I had an excellent life. My mom, my mom treated me. And she adopted, she adopted 6 of us.

Oh, she adopted 6 of you overall?

She adopted 6 of us and we're all from different families.

Got it, okay. Well, I think it's time for Janeya to finally come face to face with her biological mother, who she's never met. Are you ready for this?

You ready?

Yeah. Give me your hand. Give me your hand, love. Give me your hand. It's gonna be okay. Okay, it's gonna be okay.

Okay.

Look at me real quick. Just know I'm here as an asset. To be able to help you communicate, to make sure you feel safe and secure, okay? If there's at any moment that you feel as if this is not going in the direction that's making you feel safe and secure, please know that I'm here, or you also have the liberty to walk away. Okay? Good. All right, everyone, please welcome Patrice to the show. Hi, Patrice.

Hi.

Welcome to the show.

Welcome.

This is your first time seeing?

Yes.

What is this moment like for you both?

It's kind of disappointing because I expected a hug.

Oh, wow.

Sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

My producer said there's some other message that you brought that was gonna give me context that they want me to see.

Janeya, you said, "You stupid bitch, get the off my phone because if you really love me, you wouldn't," "But to beat me, fuck being on me, I would've still been with you. If my dad go to jail, I promise you, you're going to regret it. Ask him how many times he beat my ass while I was pregnant. Ask him that. Ask him to ride." Okay, and then you said equally, Patrice, "You stupid bitch, I never beat you, dummy.

Never had.

You're dead to me.

You don't even disrespect me." So you did see those things? Yes. Okay. Let me ask you this. Outside the disrespect, 'cause I can understand why you were disrespectful.

There's a lot of pain.

There's 26 years, almost 27 years of abandonment, wanting answers, feeling scared, feeling alone. I understand where your words come from. I get that. And I understand your words come from, you're hurt, you're defensive, but also as much as we wanna pretend, this is also still a stranger to you. Yes. And sometimes when a stranger disrespects you, you get defensive.

Yes, I do.

So I understand. But my question for you is, is the information about what her father did to you, I understand how hard that was for you and how much it hurt you. Why do you think in that moment it was important for her to know that information about her father?

The reason why, because I don't know what the other side was telling her about me and I was trying to prove a point to her. That I'm not this animal. I didn't care, I just wanted a relationship with you.

Hold on, hold on, you said yes you did, but she's telling you again right now, I don't care about.

But that's what you demanded. At the moment it didn't feel like you did.

Yes it did, because when we started, even when we started the conversation and you talked about my dad, I still went on and I still told you about myself. I still told you what I liked. I told you everything and that's when it got bad because 'Cause I told you not to talk about it, but you start sending me screenshots of child support.

I wanna just take a second and put herself in perspective. If 8 years I haven't talked to you and we were trying to rebuild something 8 years ago, I'm gonna even be more hurt. There's gonna be hurt compounded upon hurt. Don't you understand why a young girl could be that hurt? And maybe, yes, it seems like she's trying to bash you, but couldn't that just be her venting? And yes, it may hurt you, but can you—

It fits me.

Yeah, I'll say this to you. Yes, in that one message right there, I did see how she disrespected you. I understand that. And you've said several times, "I'm defending myself, I'm defending myself." But in those messages, there wasn't full attacking that you need to defend yourself from. You were more so defending yourself from her father in those messages, not from her. You do realize that, right?

Yeah.

Okay, good. I wanna make sure. So what do you want to clear up about why you didn't raise Janaya?

I'm clearing up that I never gave you away. I never gave you away. I can't accept that. Well, you can't accept it because that's what you got when you said so. But in my heart, when I birthed her, I had her for 6 months. I provided for her. She had Pampers, she had milk, she had a name, she had a birth certificate. I left the hospital in a car to raise her. In the process of that, my mom was dying.

You had her for 6 months, your mother passed. It was hard. And then you said the state took her away and you're saying that you did try to find her, but by then she was adopted.

Yes.

And you weren't able to have that communication.

No, I wasn't.

I wanted to be clear about that without anything else. So I know you can't accept it now, but I wanted you to hear what she, what her process was from her perspective. But now I'm gonna ask you this because now this is adult. So why haven't you tried to visit her now?

She had went on Facebook and she said, for Trece and her children.

And so you just said because of that, you said—

We wanna let it, we gonna let it come together.

But you all could've let me go before, so why? Because we got an argument.

You're not understanding the argument.

But she also has her own pain, so—

I have pain too.

I do understand that.

I ain't wanna give my child away, don't it, that pain?

I acknowledge that. Well, I think there's another piece of the story of who we need to contact and speak to, and that's Janay's father, Marty. So everyone, please welcome Marty to the show.

You wanna sit beside me?

You don't want to?

You can sit in the middle.

You can sit right here.

You can sit in the middle. You can sit in the middle.

Come over this way. Janaye, come over here.

Hey, how you doing, sir? So how do you feel about what was just said?

Lies.

What was the lies?

Everything. Lies, me beating on her. She did whatever she wanted to do. First of all, let me get this straight. When me and Janeya first got back in touch with each other, I never talked about her to her.

He never talked about her.

Never did that.

Never.

So for her to talk to me about her, this is the type of man I am. I wanna move forward with my daughter. I don't wanna keep bringing her in the past.

And when was the last time you saw Patrice?

Maybe 10, 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago.

10, 20.

I don't remember, it's been years.

It's been years since you saw each other. And how was your relationship with Trece when you were together?

Wasn't good. It sounds toxic. Wasn't good.

In what ways?

Ways that she ran the street, didn't take care of the kids. You know, it was a lot of ways. A lot of ways that, mainly about my kids. She didn't take care of my kids right.

So can I ask you something? Because I understand you're saying that she did those things, But if you laid with her and were with her for an extended period of time, there had to have been some of your decision making that was similar to hers.

Oh, I blame myself for some of the stuff I did. That's how I was raised.

But was your behavior similar to hers? Because you're saying she ran the street. I'm sure you were running the street as well.

Yeah, I was running the street as well.

I just wanna make sure there's context of that because it's easy to paint that she was bad back then, but it's clear that you were also back then not making the best decisions either.

But as far as me putting my hands on her, that's false.

Never did that.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Never did that. I witnessed something here, and this is for you, Janaya. I want you to understand, I know now why your mother brought him up so much. I'm not gonna say that it's right because I understand that as a child, you don't wanna be in the middle. But I understand now that this entire time, she's been afraid that what happened to her is going to happen to you. And so that mother's love and protection that maybe you don't see, As an outside perspective, I see. She has never healed from the relationship they have. And in her mind, it is yesterday. So the things she experienced when she hears you talking, she still believes that could possibly happen to you. And that's because she doesn't know your growth. And that's real. The same way everything you feel is real. And I'm not telling you to excuse this. I'm not telling you, but I want you to have perspective. She's telling you this because she's trying to protect you. It's misguided, but what she's trying to do is say, "This happened to me, watch out." At this point now, no more of talking about the past. If you really want a relationship, no more of saying, "I got rejected, I did this." All those I statements have to turn into you, baby. What do you need? What do you want? What do you need in this moment? She's telling you that I needed you to fight for me. I did. I know you did. You said it now, I've allowed you. So I don't know if you noticed, what I tried to do is I gave you space so your piece was heard. I've also looked at your perspective. I've looked at where you've been and what you've been through. But now that you've been validated through me, it's time for you to validate her.

Yes. What you want me to do?

What can we do now?

How can we better this relationship?

There you go.

Starting today.

There you go. There you go.

I'm gonna say this.

I won't bring you in my life to play with your feelings. It's about me and you now. We are hurt together.

Oh yeah.

So we gotta heal together. I know you're still hurt. As a mother, we gotta do better for us.

Listen, you just did a great first step of learning that. You and me. Patrice, if you can continue using that language and showing up, I believe your daughter will give you a chance. And I believe that this will take time. Now there's one last thing that I'm gonna do before I ask, we wrap this up, is I know you're not gonna accept this, but I want you to model for your daughter? 'Cause this will help them healing. I know there's discrepancies in your past from your point of view, but there was hurt. You were young, you were running the streets, you were doing the same thing. Can you say, "I'm sorry, Patrice. I wasn't the man back then that I needed to be for you, but I will try for our daughter now." Yes.

I'm sorry for how I treated you in our past.

I accept your apology.

That's a step. So now what your parents have done.

I wanna say something to Ajanea.

Okay.

Janaya.

Janaya.

Janaya. Janaya, go. I wanna apologize to you for bashing him towards you. I just felt rejection and that I didn't want you to go through the same thing.

Great. Okay, okay. That's a good step.

Listen, you all took a first step.

Thank you.

And I hope you got some answers. I hope you felt like you got to say your piece. And I hope you understand that your mother and your father now understands what they have to do.

Yes.

Okay? And if they forget, remind them, this is we. And Dad, you know what you have to do. It's about apology so she can heal, okay?

Right.

But you, you keep being strong, you keep being loving, and keep your heart open. Don't ever let it close because your heart is a beautiful thing, okay? Thank you.

All right?

I wish y'all the best of luck.

I really do. I really do.