Motherhood Across Borders and Histories

He wasn’t a mystery. He wasn’t brilliant. He wasn’t complicated.

He was a man who learned early that wealth is a costume and power is a shield. Epstein didn’t hide in the shadows — he hid in the open, protected by people who liked the way he made them feel important.

This is where the story begins. Not with a monster, but with a system that welcomed him.

→ Read Part I- https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/02/part-i-man-who-hid-in-plain-sight.html

They called it research. But it was trauma. Tuskegee. Willowbrook. Forced sterilizations. Children, prisoners, disabled patients used, erased, forgotten. This isn’t conspiracy. It’s documented. And it happened here.

Before the border wall, before the checkpoints, there were laws written to keep certain people out.

In the mid‑1800s, the U.S. began banning poor immigrants and targeting Chinese laborers with fear‑driven policies.

These laws weren’t about safety. They were about control. About deciding whose labor was wanted and whose presence was not.

This was the beginning of racialized immigration policy — a pattern that would repeat for generations.

Read the full piece here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/part-ii-early-laws-of-exclusion-who.html

In 1790, the United States wrote its first immigration law. And with one sentence, it decided who counted as “American.”

Citizenship was reserved for “free white persons.” Not because there were no other people here. But because the country was building itself on exclusion.

This wasn’t an accident. It was a blueprint. A boundary drawn in ink and intention.

Every law that came after grew from this beginning. Every family shaped by immigration today still feels its echo.

If you want to read the full piece — it's here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/part-i-beginning-when-citizenship-was.html

We weren’t taught the real history of colonization by accident. We were taught a softened version — a story that made violence look like bravery, theft look like destiny, and suffering look like progress. A story that protected the powerful and erased the people who paid the price.

But the truth still lives in the land. In the records. In the descendants. In the wounds that never fully healed.

This chapter is about why telling the truth matters now — not just for history’s sake, but for the future we’re building.

Because you can’t heal what you refuse to name. You can’t fix systems you pretend were built on fairness. You can’t understand America today without understanding the violence, the displacement, the forced labor, the epidemics, the broken treaties, and the global competition that shaped it.

The real history of colonization matters because it explains the inequalities we still see. It matters because it honors the people who were erased. It matters because truth is the first step toward justice — and justice is the first step toward healing.

This chapter is a reminder that learning the truth isn’t about guilt. It’s about responsibility. It’s about clarity. It’s about choosing a future that isn’t built on denial.

If you want to read the full chapter — the truth, the context, the healing, the path forward — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-9-why-american-history-was.html

We were taught that the 13 colonies were built by “hard‑working settlers” who carved a new life out of the wilderness. But the real story is not one of grit and determination — it’s one of conquest, exploitation, and violence.

The colonies didn’t rise because of freedom or opportunity. They rose because colonizers took land, extracted labor, and built an economy on systems designed to benefit a few at the expense of many.

Indigenous nations were displaced through warfare, starvation tactics, scorched‑earth campaigns, and broken treaties. Enslaved Indigenous people were forced into labor in households, farms, mines, and ports. And as populations collapsed under disease and violence, colonizers expanded the transatlantic slave trade — trafficking millions of Africans to build plantations, wealth, and political power.

The prosperity of the colonies wasn’t accidental. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t earned through “hard work.”

It was engineered through forced labor, land theft, and policies that treated human beings as resources to be exploited.

This chapter is about naming that truth — the violent foundations beneath the origin story we were taught, the systems that shaped early America, and the legacy that still echoes through the present.

If you want to read the full chapter — the records, the evidence, the myths, the reality — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-8-how-13-colonies-were-really.html

The house is spotless. The counters shine. The laundry is folded. The toys are lined up in neat rows. From the outside, it looks like control. It looks like order. It looks like peace.

But inside my mind, it’s chaos.

OCD doesn’t care that the house is clean. It whispers that something was missed. It insists that one more wipe, one more check, one more ritual will finally make the fear go away. It tells me that if I stop, something terrible will happen — even if I know it isn’t true.

So the house is clean… but my mind isn’t. My mind is exhausted. My mind is tangled in loops of doubt and repetition. My mind is fighting battles no one else can see.

Motherhood makes it harder. Because I want my children to feel safe in a home where I don’t always feel safe myself. Because I want them to see joy, not fear. Because I want them to inherit confidence, not compulsions.

This chapter is about that contradiction — the way OCD makes the external world look perfect while the internal world is unraveling. The way a clean house can hide a restless, relentless mind.

If you want to read the full piece — the rituals, the exhaustion, the truth behind the shine — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/part-2-house-is-clean-but-my-mind-isnt.html

People think OCD is about being “extra clean.” They imagine color‑coded closets and sparkling countertops. But they don’t see the truth — the way OCD rewrites your mind until nothing ever feels clean enough, safe enough, or done enough.

Motherhood complicates it even more.

It’s wiping the same counter three times because your brain whispers that the first two didn’t count. It’s washing your hands until they sting because you touched something “wrong.” It’s checking the locks again — and again — because the fear feels louder than logic.

It’s the way your mind turns everyday moments into danger. The way a simple mess becomes a threat. The way your body reacts as if something terrible will happen if you don’t fix, clean, check, repeat.

OCD doesn’t care that you’re tired. It doesn’t care that you’re doing your best. It doesn’t care that you’re trying to raise children who feel safe in a world your brain keeps warning you about.

This chapter is about that reality — the invisible rituals, the intrusive thoughts, the exhaustion, and the way OCD reshapes motherhood from the inside out.

If you want to read the full piece — the symptoms, the truth, the lived experience — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/part-1-when-clean-isnt-clean-how-ocd.html

We were taught that colonists came to America “seeking freedom.” Freedom of religion. Freedom from tyranny. Freedom to build a better life.

But that story leaves out almost everything.

The truth is that most colonists didn’t come for liberty — they came for land, wealth, and power. They came because Europe was overcrowded, resources were scarce, and the New World was advertised as a place where ordinary people could suddenly become landowners, plantation owners, or wealthy traders.

Some came voluntarily. Many came because they were forced — prisoners, debtors, kidnapped children, indentured servants, and people with no other options.

And the idea that colonists were champions of freedom falls apart the moment you look at how they lived:

• They denied freedom to Indigenous nations. • They denied freedom to enslaved Africans. • They denied freedom to women, the poor, and anyone outside their narrow definition of “citizen.” • They built systems of control, not liberation.

This chapter is about naming that truth — that the myth of “freedom seekers” was created later to justify colonization, erase violence, and build a national identity that never matched reality.

If you want to read the full chapter — the motives, the records, the propaganda, and the myths we were taught — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-7-myth-of-freedom-seekers-why.html

The story of colonization is often told as a tale of “brave settlers,” “hard work,” and “building a new world.” But the real backbone of early America wasn’t courage or innovation — it was forced labor.

Long before African slavery became the engine of the colonial economy, Indigenous enslavement was widespread. Indigenous people were captured, traded, sold, marched across regions, and forced into labor in mines, plantations, missions, and colonial households. Entire economies in the South, the Caribbean, and New England were built on their exploitation.

And when Indigenous populations collapsed under disease, warfare, and displacement, colonizers turned to the transatlantic slave trade — a system so vast and brutal that it reshaped the entire world.

African slavery didn’t just “support” the colonies. It built them.

Plantations, ports, shipping industries, textile mills, banks, insurance companies, and global trade networks all depended on enslaved labor. Wealth accumulated in Europe and the colonies because millions of people were stolen, trafficked, and forced to work without rest, rights, or recognition.

This chapter is about naming that truth. About understanding that the prosperity of early America — the farms, the cities, the industries, the fortunes — was constructed on the backs of enslaved Indigenous and African people. About acknowledging the human cost behind the myths we were taught.

If you want to read the full chapter — the systems, the records, the stories, the evidence — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-6-hidden-backbone-of.html

We were taught that colonizers “settled” America — as if the land was empty, as if the process was peaceful, as if Indigenous nations simply stepped aside. But the real history is not a story of settlement. It’s a story of seizure.

Land was taken through a system — deliberate, strategic, and brutally enforced.

Warfare was the first tool. Colonial militias burned villages, destroyed crops, and targeted communities to force surrender. Entire nations were pushed into starvation or displacement through military campaigns designed to break resistance.

When violence wasn’t enough, treaties were used — not as agreements, but as weapons. Documents written in foreign languages, signed under pressure, rewritten without consent, or ignored the moment they became inconvenient. More than 500 treaties were made with Indigenous nations. Almost every one was broken.

And when treaties no longer served colonial goals, forced removal became the policy. Families were marched from their homelands. Children were separated. Nations were pushed west again and again, each time losing more land, more culture, more lives.

This chapter is about naming that truth. About understanding that colonization wasn’t a misunderstanding or a cultural clash — it was a system built on violence, deception, and displacement. A system that shaped the foundation of the United States.

If you want to read the full chapter — the warfare, the treaties, the removals, the documented accounts — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-5-how-colonizers-took-land.html

We were taught that America’s story began with “the 13 colonies,” as if England was the only empire that mattered. But the real history is far bigger — and far more violent. North America was the center of a global power struggle long before the United States existed.

Spain, France, England, and the Dutch weren’t just exploring. They were competing. They were fighting. They were carving up a continent that did not belong to them.

Spain claimed the South and Southwest through conquest and forced labor. France pushed into the North with trade networks and military alliances. England built settlements along the East Coast, backed by land theft and warfare. The Dutch fought for control of the Atlantic coast and global trade routes.

These empires clashed with each other constantly — burning settlements, seizing forts, forming and breaking alliances, and using Indigenous nations as pawns in their battles for dominance.

This chapter is about that global fight. About how colonization wasn’t a peaceful “expansion,” but a geopolitical war fought on Indigenous land. About how four European powers reshaped the continent through violence, competition, and the relentless pursuit of empire.

If you want to read the full chapter — the conflicts, the strategies, the maps, the myths — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-4-global-battle-for-america-how.html

Before colonization turned violent, before land was stolen, before forced labor systems were built — disease arrived first. And it changed everything.

European diseases like smallpox, measles, influenza, and typhus swept through Indigenous nations with a speed and brutality the world had never seen. These weren’t ordinary outbreaks. They were catastrophic epidemics that wiped out entire communities, destabilized nations, and reshaped the continent long before most Europeans ever set foot inland.

This wasn’t because Indigenous people were “weak” or “primitive.” It was because they had no biological immunity to diseases that had circulated in Europe for centuries. The result was the largest population collapse in human history — an estimated 90% decline in some regions.

Imagine losing nine out of every ten people you love. Imagine the grief, the chaos, the cultural rupture. Imagine trying to defend your homeland while your population is collapsing around you.

This chapter is about that truth — the epidemics that softened the ground for colonization, the devastation that textbooks gloss over, and the way disease became one of the most powerful weapons of empire, even without a single shot fired.

If you want to read the full chapter — the history, the evidence, the scale of the loss — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-3-epidemics-that-shaped-america.html

We were taught that “first contact” was a moment of curiosity — explorers arriving, Indigenous people watching from the shore, two worlds meeting for the first time. But the real history is not a gentle story. It’s not a handshake. It’s not a peaceful exchange of gifts.

First contact was an invasion.

European explorers arrived with clear intentions: to claim land, extract resources, and expand empire. They planted flags on land that was already governed, already lived on, already loved. They declared ownership over nations they didn’t understand, using languages Indigenous people didn’t speak, backed by laws Indigenous people never agreed to.

And when Indigenous nations resisted — as any sovereign people would — explorers responded with force. Violence. Kidnapping. Burning villages. Taking hostages. Using fear as a weapon to force compliance.

This chapter is about stripping away the myth. It’s about naming what really happened when Europeans arrived on Indigenous land — the violence, the exploitation, the entitlement, and the systems of domination that shaped everything that followed.

If you want to read the full chapter — the documented accounts, the patterns of violence, and the truth behind the stories we were taught — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-2-truth-about-first-contact-how.html

Before Europeans arrived, North America was not an “empty wilderness.” It was a continent full of advanced Indigenous civilizations — nations with cities, governments, agriculture, astronomy, diplomacy, engineering, and trade networks that stretched thousands of miles.

But most of us were never taught this.

We were taught a version of history that made Indigenous people seem scattered, primitive, or “behind.” A version that made colonization look inevitable instead of violent. A version that erased the brilliance, complexity, and sovereignty of the people who were already here.

The truth is different. The truth is older. The truth is documented in archaeology, oral histories, and the land itself.

Civilizations like Cahokia, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Maya, the Mississippian cultures, the Pueblo nations, and so many others built societies that rivaled — and often surpassed — Europe at the same time.

This chapter is about that truth. About what existed before colonization. About the civilizations Europeans tried to erase — not just through violence, but through the stories they told afterward.

If you want to read the full chapter — the history, the evidence, the myths we were taught — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/chapter-1-before-colonization-advanced.html

Living with agoraphobia isn’t just “being afraid to go outside.” It’s a daily negotiation with your own body — a constant conversation between what you want to do and what your nervous system will allow.

It’s waking up and scanning your chest before your feet hit the floor. It’s rehearsing every possible scenario before leaving the house. It’s sitting in the car, keys in hand, trying to convince your body that the world isn’t as dangerous as it feels.

Agoraphobia shows up in ways people don’t see: • the dizziness • the racing heart • the sudden heat in your face • the feeling that the ground isn’t steady • the urge to escape even when nothing is “wrong”

Triggers can be anything — crowds, open spaces, grocery stores, long lines, unfamiliar places, or even just the thought of being too far from home. And the worst part is how unpredictable it can be. One day you’re fine. The next day your body says no.

But the emotional toll is just as heavy. The guilt. The frustration. The fear of disappointing people. The fear of being misunderstood. The fear of becoming “too much.”

Supporting someone with agoraphobia means understanding that they’re not choosing fear — they’re surviving it. It means patience. It means gentleness. It means asking what they need instead of assuming. It means celebrating the small victories — the steps outside, the short drives, the moments of courage no one else notices.

If you want to read the full piece — the symptoms, the triggers, the everyday reality, and how to truly support someone living with this — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/living-with-agoraphobia-everyday.html

Stepparenting is a love story no one prepares you for. You step into a life already in motion — a child with a history, a family with its own rhythm, a story that didn’t begin with you. And yet somehow, you’re expected to find your place in it with grace, patience, and a heart wide enough to hold what’s complicated.

This kind of love isn’t automatic. It isn’t assumed. It isn’t inherited.

It’s chosen.

You choose them in the small moments — the lunches packed, the rides given, the homework helped, the quiet check‑ins, the whispered “goodnight.” You choose them even when they’re unsure of you. You choose them even when the world doesn’t see your role clearly. You choose them even when the love you give is quiet, steady, and often invisible.

Stepparenting is brave. It’s tender. It’s a kind of love that grows in the spaces where uncertainty meets devotion.

If you want to read the full piece — the truth, the ache, the beauty of chosen love — it’s here: https://lifewithsevence7.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-truth-about-stepparenting-love.html