Here's why you should pay attention to your children.

At the age ripe of eight, I was finding the attention my parents weren't giving me online.

It started with a simple Roblox game, where a group of people convinced younger me to get discord. Which turned into 5 years of meeting randoms between the ages 8-23, getting groomed a few times. I didn't know I was getting groomed at the time. In all honesty, if I did know, I probably wouldn't stop it from happening.

My parents never paid much attention to me growing up, my two older siblings being so irresponsible that they needed all of my parents attention. I was the third born. Even as my older siblings are in adulthood now, they still live at home with use and take a significant amount of my parents attention. But they moved out at one point.

I still didn't get any attention while they were living with our father.

I chose to stay with my mom, but with that came my three younger siblings (half, but they're full siblings to me) and my two step siblings. All much younger than me, and they were, and still are, a lot to handle. So I didn't mind it as much as when they were too busy with my older siblings. 

But god, did I envy all of my siblings for getting the attention I never got. I did choir, took piano lessons and played basketball at one point. My parents showed up to 2 out of the 8 choir performances I had, only attended 2 of my home basketball games, and never came to a piano lesson. I usually carpooled home, and if no one could take me, my mom called me an Uber or got my neighbor to come pick me up.

My parents have yet to miss one of my half brothers basketball practice and games, my half sisters soccer practices and games, my other half sisters choir performances and my two step siblings sports aswell.