Day in the life of a formerly incarcerated mother.

My name is Selena Lopez and I am formerly incarcerated. I am also a mother to a wonderful seven year old boy named Nathan. I am also currently 37 weeks pregnant expecting my second child. This article will be highlighting the mama section voicing my experience as a mother then and now

To begin I want to write about my experience I had as a young brown mother but first here is some back story of myself as a child. Growing up was very difficult because not only was I a part of the foster care system throughout my childhood, but I was also exposed to drugs and alcohol since I was a young child.

 Being a part of a system that was meant to tear families apart made it very challenging for not only myself but also for my parents. I witnessed so many things happen and sadly it started to become normal for me .

 I was moved around to several foster homes ,  and group homes throughout my childhood and never really was giving the care and help I needed. So when I became pregnant as a runaway teenager I felt like finally I would have someone in my life that nobody can take from me. 

But as always the system was put in place to tear black a brown families apart no matter the age or reason. 

I had my son at seven-teen and was considered a run-away foster child so children services not only came to take me back to a group home but also take my son away.

So as you could imagine this broke me into pieces which made me struggle with everything I was going through.

I had to fight the system in order to regain custody of my beautiful baby boy which was not easy at all especially being a young brown mother . But luckily I was able to regain custody of him even though it was very difficult. 

Now I am raising my son the best way I can showing him the ins and outs of a system that was put in place to make sure us brown people fail. He is now years old and he means the world to me. Currently our struggle is virtual learning . 

As a mother who experienced some much growing just wants the best for her child no matter the situation. WIth everything going it’s be challenging ensuring that my son is learning to the best of his ability. Which is very frustrating for me. 

I have noticed that lack of support from the district in regards to providing everything a student needs to succeed in this new era of learning. I have had numerous complaints to the school that I feel they aren’t doing their best. In fact, I just recently got my son’s report card only to find out he is failing all his course material. Which is something that has never happened before. I have mentioned before to the school and district that students should not be getting tests during these times. 

The focus should be on the teachers and students and the way they are adapting to this nre virtual learning. As a mother who only wants to see her child succeed this is very saddening to see not just my son fail but every other student in his class as well. I know that I am not alone when I say this is not the end for this fight . It’s only the beginning . 

The picture below is my son and I doing homework at night together .

Selena Lopez | Wayfinder Fellow