Finding ‘the mom I never had’ at Douglas Mennonite

By going back to school single mother of three hopes to ‘become a somebody, and not a nobody’

July 24, 2013 | Young Voices
Rebecca Kuhn |

Every morning in Jessica Burridge’s house begins with dancing. Accompanied by her children, Dakota, six, Danika, four, and Dawson, three, the family begins each day with joy to the music of Justin Bieber.

However, life hasn’t always been joyful for this 21-year-old single mother, who says she and her five siblings grew up in an alcoholic and abusive household. Her parents eventually split, leaving Burridge’s mother alone to raise six children.

At 14, Burridge began using street drugs. She became addicted to cocaine, and stopped caring about school or taking care of herself. A year later, she became pregnant.

A year after that, she joined the teen moms group at Douglas Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. This group provided mentors to support her, but even so, things got more difficult.

“I was in a bad relationship,” Burridge says of the abusive partnership. “I still did drugs every now and then.”

Sherri Miller, director of the teen moms program, steered her towards I Corinthians 13:4-7, and told her that when she considered returning to her abusive partner, she should first read the verses about love being patient and kind.

“Those verses are what kept me strong enough to stay away,” she says.

But it was difficult on her own. At one point, Burridge says she told her mother she couldn’t do it anymore, but no help was forthcoming. “She would always say, ‘I raised six of you by myself. You only have half of what I had.”

“I felt like I was useless,” Burridge says. “I mean I’m nothing in society, right? I was just scum, and I knew I had to do something better with myself.”

Burridge was accepted into a young mothers program to complete high school and perhaps go on to post-secondary studies, but when mysterious bumps appeared on her youngest son’s head, her plans changed quickly.

At a hospital emergency room, doctors told her Dawson’s skull was fractured and authorities would take her children on suspicion of abuse. The next day, two detectives took her to a police station for interrogation. At the station, she got a phone call from her sister, saying Burridge’s children were being removed from her care.

For three months, she lived in her house alone, childless. She says she considered suicide. “It was the worst time of my life. It was either I die and I don’t have my kids anyways, or I fight to get them home, and prove to everybody that I am innocent.”

From the first allegations of child abuse, Burridge asked for a lie detector test to prove her innocence, even though her lawyer advised against it. She took the test and passed. She also completed court-ordered programs and, finally, a judge allowed the return of her children.

In September, Burridge will begin studying an electrical program at a Winnipeg technical school. Her goal, she says, is to “become a somebody, and not a nobody.”

Burridge is grateful for support from her mentors at Douglas Mennonite, saying it’s like they have adopted her and her children. She refers to one of her mentors as “the mom I never had.”

The Voice of the Voiceless articles were written for Canadian Mennonite University’s Journalism: Practices and Principles course during the Winter 2013 semester. Teacher Carl DeGurse is vice-chair of Canadian Mennonite’s board of directors and assistant city editor of the Winnipeg Free Press.

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