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“When you love somebody you don’t take away their choice when it comes to something serious like childbirth. Hiding birth control pills is the equivalent to a woman poking holes in a condom.”

“Well damn,” Quan marveled with low eyes as he passed the blunt he’d been hogging for the past few minutes. We had four blunts in rotation, so nobody noticed. I hadn’t until he rejoined the conversation. “When you put it like that I’m on your side, bro.”

“At the end of the day none of that matters because she don’t take birth control pills. She’s on the shot.”

“Well tomorrow is Christmas, nephew. Maybe God will bless you with a miracle,” Uncle Quincy said. I doubled over in laughter. Being around my cousins that I’d grown up with was always a guaranteed good time, but the old heads in the Pierre family were the real fools that kept me laughing. It was Christmas Eve and we were back at Qaylo’s house for another holiday. This year they were throwing a Pajama Jam karaoke and game night. We were within the first hour of the get together, so people were still arriving. Us guys had snuck out to the pool house that had been converted to Qaylo’s man cave to smoke before we rejoined the party to eat the good party food that Amil had cooked.

“Man, God don’t bless no mess,” Qaylo chided.

“Damn Qay, why you hating?” Vance chuckled.

“Right? He must don’t think I’m ready to be a dad or something.”

“It don’t matter what I think,” he laughed. “The woman you want to have a baby with ain’t going for it. She’s the one who’s not ready. Don’t put that on me.”

“All that being ready shit is a myth,” Uncle Quincy waved his hand. “If I waited until I was perfect I would have never had kids.”

“That probably would’ve been for the best,” Qaylo mumbled.

“Then you wouldn’t be here, nigga! Nobody will ever be perfect and we all have our flaws, but kids are blessings.”

“I do agree that nobody is perfect. Parents are human and should be given grace as they navigate being parents for the first time, but that doesn’t give you a pass to be selfish and have kids you’re not ready for. When it comes to that I gotta disagree with you dad and agree with Qay…there is a such a thing of being ready to have kids and a lot of people don’t be ready.”

“So what does being ready look like to y’all?” He asked.

“Shit…having your finances in order and a good job is a start,” Kyree said.

“A good job?” Qaylo smacked his teeth. “I say multiple streams of income to insure stability.”

“I know we living like that, but that’s not the case for the average American. So I’ma double down on having a good and reliable career,” Kyree shrugged.

“So that’s all it takes? Having money? Cause if that’s the case everybody in this room who doesn’t have kids is ready.”

“It’s deeper than money,” I chuckled. “Cause I’ve been having money since I was 14, but I wasn’t ready for kids just because I had the money to take care of one.”

“Well technically, you been taking care of kids your whole life, Ali,” Uncle KG laughed and everybody else joined in.

I was about to protest, but I tilted my head to the side as I thought about it.

“Look, his ass can’t even disagree. He knows he been raising them children that Rahesha won’t stop popping out,” Uncle Quincy said.

“I think she's done now,” Qaylo laughed.

“Shit, I hope so,” I grumbled, intensifying the laughter. “But my situation is a unique one. I felt like my back was against the wall and that I had to step up. But I was still a kid and I wasn’t ready for that. I got ready and did what I had to do, but I shouldn’t have been put in that position. I could’ve lost my life before it even got started.”

“And your dad definitely didn’t want that,” Uncle KG sighed. He’d expressed to me in recent years that he wished I would have come to him when my mom started tripping. He checked in a lot after my dad died. Him and Auntie Nette would even get me, Aspen, Aneesah every now and then to give Rahesha a break. But they weren’t living with us to really know how things were. Rahesha was good at keeping up appearances. It didn’t matter if she was behind on the light or water bill, she kept us and herself looking fly. She skinned, grinned, and pretended like things were okay, so people had no reason not to believe her. I wasn’t going to run and report the truth because that was going against my mama. I was taught by both of my parents that what happened in our house stayed in our house. Uncle KG was far removed from the streets when I started selling drugs, so he didn’t find out until I was already in too deep. He did try to talk some sense into me, but I think he knew he was talking to a brick wall because he didn’t go too hard. Even if he did there was no way he could keep up with me 24/7 and keep me out the streets. He had his own household to provide for and he had his own children to keep in line.

“I hope you don’t have no regrets though, nephew. You stepped up and did what you had to do for your people.” Uncle Quincy was already years into his prison sentence for gun trafficking, but his ignorant ass definitely wouldn’t have encouraged me to get out the streets if he was home.

Qaylo shook his head. “You missing the point, dad. No kid should have to do or see the things we had to see to make money. At the time we thought we were grown and untouchable, but being a dad to boys changed my whole perspective. I’d whoop their asses if they even thought about being in the streets.”

“I didn’t miss the point. I just feel like everything happens for a reason. Even things that shouldn’t have to happen. Everything y’all went through made y’all into the men y’all are today. And nigga, I’ll help you whoop my grandsons asses if they want to pretend like they hard and become criminals.”

“So you ain’t have no problems with your sons doing it but your grandsons can’t?” Quinton quizzed.

“How was I gon’ have a problem with something I wasn’t around to stop? I missed y’all teenage years because I was in jail. Y’all were still in the hood and didn’t have any guidance, so y’all went for what y’all was familiar with. My grandsons ain’t familiar with the hood or any type of struggle. Them lil niggas got about twenty hobbies, they go to private school, and they live in a mansion. I wish they would try to do the shit we did.”

“Damn…you got more sense then I thought, Unc,” I chuckled.