My early 20s seem close enough for me to know that was the foundation of my adulthood, but far away enough to feel like a person I don’t know, I just know a lot about. I thought I had it figured out. Thought that love was a simple thing that involved kisses and forgiveness and struggle—and the struggle part was more committed to the relationship than he was. Essentially, my early twenties were smeared by a toxic relationship that frequently asked how small I could make myself before I eventually disappeared. While I was about six months younger than he was, it felt like five years, and a young, naïve, sexually insecure and inexperienced young woman put her all into a relationship that gave her nothing and with that said, I cannot be any harsher of a critic to another woman in her early 20s who survived similar things, but just so happened to make a baby in the process—let me tell you, there were babies made in the years we were together—just not by me.
Morgan Fluellen, or MorganBaiiley as she is known on TikTok, made the egregious mistake of showing the world the mistakes she made, and Twitter users forgot that they were not perfect and couldn’t wait for the opportunity to forget their miseries and harp on those of a stranger who is not only still supporting herself after her ordeal but also her child.
@morganbaiiley Replying to @leauxlondon storytime of how I met the random man in atlanta 🤨 #fyp #storytime #randommaninatlanta #geegerweegerfeeger #momsoftiktok #babiesoftiktok #yikes ♬ original sound – morgan
From her now-viral TikTok, she revealed how she became a single mother at the age of 22, when the random man from Atlanta (her words, not mine) she had been living with left her a month postpartum after pleading with him to stay, and moved from Michigan to Atlanta, back to his ex-girlfriend/another baby mama. In a series of posts, she tells the story of how she and the older shiftless man met. While staying nearby, he pursued her relentlessly until she finally acquiesced. She mentions how he essentially love-bombed her for the first few months of their courtship but how things turned sour once she was pregnant and couldn’t work, as she was basically supporting them.
In all fairness, she also mentioned that he was a drug dealer (again, for personal reasons that I cannot disclose, I can’t judge her for that, but all the lovers of trap music surely did). What really sent Twitter into a firestorm was her confession that he had six other children that she did not know about (I do not know the number of baby mamas, but I imagine there were multiple, not including her), and all of a sudden everyone is confused at how a man could be deceptive.
@morganbaiiley Replying to @Chasitty Gomez741 wish it was that easy #fyp #geegerweegerfeeger #randommaninatlanta #babiesoftiktok #momsoftiktok ♬ original sound – morgan
They were not even mad when she revealed this same person had videotaped her having sex with him and showed it to another baby mama who knew about her.
They were piping mad with incredulousness as to how she didn’t know about people she didn’t know existed, and I am now left utterly confused. In a world where secret children are always coming out of the woodwork, even for upstanding gentlemen, say like a Herschel Walker—ok maybe that’s a good and bad example, but I digress—it is a bit disingenuous to say someone should have known about something that was purposely kept from them. I know enough people in my real everyday life who’ve experienced this to know that hiding children does, in fact, happen. Hell, I know someone who not only found out they had siblings but that their children had one, too, in the same six-month period.
@morganbaiiley Replying to @miya kenise 🇧🇧 did that answer your question miya ?? #fyp #randommaninatlanta #singlemom #storytime #momsoftiktok ♬ original sound – morgan
Secret families exist. Multiple baby mamas exist and there are so many people who are quick to judge how she did not know he had multiple children that were living hours away by plane but are in their 30s, just meeting their siblings for the first time. PEOPLE BE HIDING KIDS, and I’ve seen enough men introduce their five-year-old on social media to know that if he wants to hide a kid, it will be hidden. So little blame has been placed on the random man from Atlanta’s lack of discernment, but someone about eight years his junior should be more discerning than he was. I am not saying she probably missed some red flags. Hell, I’m not even saying she should not be accountable. What I am saying is that she already is and it’s really easy for us to predict an outcome and judge the red flags when we already know the ending.
The softness of a young love can often make it that much easier to be crushed. Society feeds young girls these images of struggling and fighting for love or that they are not lovable if they are single, which sometimes makes it easy to fall into the trap of being with the wrong person. I know this from firsthand experience.
As Morgan stands there making some random man from Atlanta’s baby a bottle in a kitchen much nicer than the one in my house, I cannot help but applaud her.
I have been lied to. I have been deceived. I’ve been hurt by people I really cared about, even in my 30s, I just didn’t have a baby to show for it, but I guarantee there is no right way to be deceived.
My scars from when I was 22 don’t have a birth certificate but they very much are real.
We live in a society that places blame on the parent that stayed. The parent that should’ve known better, the parent who stepped up way more than we place blame on the parent who left, the parent who lied and the parent who failed. The bulk of discernment I have learned in my life has been from experience, and some lessons have been harder to learn than others, but I, again, applaud Morgan for her bravery and honesty in a world that seeks to shine a light on other people’s struggles in order to dim some of the darkness of their own.
@morganbaiiley free birth control. #fyp #geegerweegerfeeger #babiesoftiktok #momsoftiktok #randommaninatlanta #ootd ♬ original sound – morgan
Why place the blame on the person who was responsible when you can just place an order for her shirts that she is selling using some random man from Atlanta’s printing press that he accidentally left…along with a baby?