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I'll warn you in advance that this post probably isn't going to be funny.

I'm sitting in the dark with my computer, and I can feel the walls closing in on me.

This happens sometimes, and I've learned just to let it. I pull it together and do whatever I need to do almost all the time. I stay balanced and focused and calm. I don't freak out. I don't yell or scream even when I want to. I bite my tongue and sit on my hands when what I really want to do is capslock a throwdown with someone online who clearly doesn't understand.

But I don't.

I don't because there are so many things about me and why I am the way I am now that I won't write about. I choose not to as much for the protection of others as for the avoidance of the judgment of others. I know what enough people think that I hold back now. I don't reveal much. I don't want pity, I don't want people to tell me I'm crazy, I don't want people to make the sad eyes at me when they realize what I've actually been through. I don't. So I don't tell anyone.

People assume often that I miss my father, and that is why I struggle.

Nope.

I miss him, sure.

I can tell you it's not a good sign when the death of a parent is one of the least traumatic things you've been though recently.

I just want it to go away sometimes. And sometimes it slinks off into the background enough that I am free of it for a while. Until it's back.

Here it is, again.

Things were good. Really good. I have hope that I can get back there, but I need to shut myself off from the world for a little bit to do it.

I don't expect people to understand, particularly when I don't tell them what is going on.

I just can't always do it. I can't always be funny and witty and sarcastic. I can't always will it away. I can't. PTSD is a real asshole that way.

Sometimes I'm just a girl who wishes things were different.

Sometimes I'm just sad.

A  father has been arrested and charged with defiling his own young daughter, who told police that he would demand s*xual favors in exchange for outings with friends and participation in school activities. 
The 46-year-old Utah resident, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the alleged victim, was taken into custody last week and charged Wednesday with nine counts of r*pe and a single count of sodomy on a child.

According to the accuser, who is now 16 years old, the abuse first started when she was only 9 years old.
Over the past seven years, the teen told police that her father, who also has two other children, defiled her over 50 times.
The alleged victim explained that as she got older, her father would have s*x with her more frequently. Most recently, the teen said that they would have encounters three to four times a week.
The horrific allegations came out when the 16-year-old told a friend at a church camp about the s*xual abuse, asking her to keep it a secret.
The friend, however, shared the information with her parents, who then relayed it to their church bishop. The cleric, in turn, reported the allegations to officials at the Division of Child and Family Services, who notified police on June 19.
During her interview with investigators, the unnamed teen said that whenever she wanted something or wanted to go out, she would have to ‘pay’ her father with s*xual acts.
According to a police report, earlier this month, the 46-year-old man forced his daughter to have intercourse with him four times in exchange for allowing her out-of-town best friend to visit.
When the friend left, the father told his daughter ‘that it was time to pay up,’ the report stated.
The paper reported that after talking to police officers about the alleged abuse committed by her father, the 16-year-old made an emotional plea no to arrest him, saying that it would ‘tear her family apart’ and hurt her siblings.

Controversial Nigerian Senator and former governor of Zamfara State, Senator Ahmad Yerima, has defended his marraige to a 13 year old Egyptian girl.
Telling Arabic news channel that if Prophet Mohammed (SAW) could marry Aisha at age 9 there was nothing wrong in marrying his wife at age 13.Watch the video below
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Yesterday I wrote a guest post for the crumb diaries about my girls, both of which have ADHD. They have different types, different symptoms and are entirely different people to begin with, which means that how we cope with their conditions is also completely different.

I knew that writing it would most likely elicit some negative feedback, but I'm at this place in my parenting tenure where I really just don't care what someone else thinks about my choices. They don't know my kids or my situation, they don't understand the complexity of our issues and can never fully grasp what we contend with in this house because they don't live it.

Of course, that will never stop others from condemning the choices we make for our kids.

Which is fine. Honestly.

I just don't care.

The thing is this, though: I used to. I have a lot of friends and family members who care an awful lot about what other people think about how they are raising their kids. Society is full of new parents, nervous and unsure of their skills and decision making, being thrown to the wolves of the judgmental people out there who will proclaim that everything they are doing is wrong.

The parenting industry is huge and thriving, full of books and classes and more, all of which will tell you the one best way to do it all.

It all relies on our insecurities, and it's a billion dollar industry.

I have this theory about those who tell everyone else how to raise their kids. It's that they want so badly to believe that they are doing it all right, that they make the best decisions, that they are the most deliberate and thought out, planned parents, that their children will be just fine, that anything that deviates from how they've chosen to raise their kids is incompatible with that illusioned perfection.

That's just what it is, though.

An illusion.

No one is a perfect parent.


No one is a perfect person.

We all make mistakes. Yep. Even you.

We all adapt to our situations. We have to.

You can only ever be the best parent you can to the children you were given.

Our children are each unique creatures that bring with them their own set of challenges and talents, struggles and skills. There cannot be one proper way to parent them all for the simple fact that they are all different. And they all come with a different set of parents, in a different situation, in a different culture, in a different income bracket, in a different birth order, and so on and so forth.

You could have a dozen children and you'd end up with a dozen very different people.

It's not just the kids who vary, it's us too.

Sometimes we are just in a different place with one child than another. Sometimes life gets complicated. Sometimes tragedy strikes. Sometimes mental illnesses show up. Sometimes marriages end. Sometimes new families merge.

Being a parent requires and demands flexibility in a way unlike anything else in life will, so why labor under the false assumption that there is only one way to do it right?

There isn't.

To all the people out there who preach to others about whatever path they've chosen, stop. Take a deep breath. Look in the mirror. Accept that you are flawed just as much as any other parent out there is, that what works for your family almost certainly won't work for someone else, and that's okay. Live your life and let everyone else live theirs without feeling like you're judging them from afar. Channel that energy into your own family instead of projecting it onto others.

Be strong in the conviction that you are making the right choice for you, but don't burden other people with the choices you've made as though they are the only possible correct ones.

If there is ever a time when the phrase well, I'd never _________ with my kids starts to come out of your mouth, snatch it up before you let it out. Maybe you wouldn't do whatever it is, maybe you would. Maybe you just haven't been in that situation yet. Maybe you have no idea who or what you are judging.

Just stop.

To all the parents out there who've questioned themselves, who've doubted themselves, who've cried out of frustration at 3am, who've sat in a parking lot and sobbed, who've read every book on whatever diagnosis their child has, who've done the absolute best they could, I say this:

I support you.

To the adoptive parents, to those who let their babies live with a chosen family instead,

to those who struggled to conceive, to those who didn't,

to those who had natural births, to those who had surgical ones,

to the parents who can kiss their children goodnight, to those who said goodbye too soon,

to those who breastfed, to those who used formula,

to those who home school, to those who send their children to school,

to those who are vegan, to those who love bacon,

to those who can afford lavish vacations, to those who cannot,

to those who work, to those who stay home,

to those who volunteer, to those who don't,

to those who are single parents, to those who are married,

to those who are divorcing, to those who are widowed,

to those who are bringing their first baby home from the hospital, to those who are sending their last to college,

to all of you, I say this:

I support you.

I support you. I don't know your life. I don't know your struggles. I don't know your children the way only you possibly could, and I will never presume to. I trust that you make the choices you do for the reasons you see fit.

Imagine the world where we built each other up as parents instead of insisting that we are right at the expense of everyone else.

Imagine a world full of children raised by adults who are okay with doing the best they can, who do what they think is right, not because someone else told them to, but because they followed their heart.

Imagine a world where we lived our lives for ourselves, not out of fear for what others would say or think about us.

Imagine a world where we accept. We accept.

Major Al-Mustapha, arrived Kaduna state metropolis from Zaria where he paid a visit to the Emir of Zazzau, Dr. Shehu Idris around 2.10pm.

The Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo has appealed to those involved in vandalism to desist from such acts or face appropriate sanctions.
Mr Nebo who spoke at the ministerial platform in Abuja said the activities of vandals has served as a setback towards the provision of steady power supply to the affected areas.
While stressing that power supply in the country has improved to 16 hours per day, the minister said that the federal government will focus on the expansion of renewable energy and also fast track its plan of rural electrification.
He highlighted the growing  havoc vandals are doing to prevent a realisation of the power reforms agenda of the administration

A human rights lawyer based in Port Harcourt, Ken Atswete, has blamed the poor state of the East/West road for the death of the mother of Patience, the wife President Goodluck Jonathan.
He said des pite the strident cries that this major road that links the oil rich Niger Delta is in a deplorable condition, it is taking the Federal Government so long to fix the road.
“Governor Amaechi was publicly abused by Godsday Orubube last year for crying out that the Federal Government has neglected the road. He was vilified for speaking out,” Atswete said, adding that President Jonathan’s failure in governance has led to the death of his mother-in-law, Charity.
Reacting this morning, after news of the President’s wife’s mother went viral, Atswete noted that President Jonathan flies from Port Harcourt Airport to Yenagoa by helicopter to avoid the bad road.
He said that for over two years commuters have preferred to take the Omagwa International Airport-Elele-
Omerelu road close to the Imo State boundary dualised by Governor Amaechi’s administration, to avoid East/West road, which has become a death trap.
No official statement has been released on the death of the First Lady’s mother as the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi and Mrs Ibim Semenitari, the Commissioner for Information and Communication, are out of the country.