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Tara Wallace says if you get into a relationship with a man who has multiple children, don’t be shocked if you have a child with him and he can’t and won’t be as present as you’d like. The brunt of the work necessary to raise them will be on you.
The 38-year-old former Love and Hip Hop New York star talked about this while doing an Instagram Live chat with former Bad Girls Club star Tanisha Thomas. The women were talking about how “overwhelming” raising children is. Wallace can speak in depth to the topic because she has three sons, Jamison, Kaz and Gunner, by ex-boyfriend and fellow TV personality Peter Gunz. Things are especially intense for her because presently, she’s doing the day-to-day alone.
“I don’t have any help,” she said. “It’s just me.”
As far as contributions from their father, she said that he attempts to be of help, but he can only do so much considering he has seven other children of a range of ages.
“Peter’s stretched thin, “she said. “He has multiple children so Peter’s stretched thin.”
“I think that’s the part of going into a relationship in the beginning, when you go into it and people have multiple children. You don’t understand what that means as a young woman dating a man with kids, you don’t know what that means until you have children. And then when you know it, it’s like you almost have to make peace with there’s only one of this person,” she added. “You know, my huge thing with women is like, women don’t like to accept responsibility for anything. It’s like, ‘Oh my God I’m always the damsel in distress! This happened to me, that happened to me!’ But when you go into situations, obviously there are things that sometimes you don’t know, but when you decide to have children with a man who has multiple children, that means that there’s going to be more responsibility on you and you’ve got to make peace with that from the beginning.”
And while there are some women out there who want special treatment for their children, especially if they’re the one in a relationship with said man with multiple kids, not Wallace. When she dated Gunz for more than a decade, she was never okay with such behavior. She respects all of the the mothers of his kids, as well as their requests when it comes to their children.
“I’m the kind of person that if someone’s doing bad in front of me, and that means, when I was with Peter, if I thought or questioned something, then I’m going to speak up,” she said. “‘Well, that’s not right.’ I would never say do this for our kids but don’t do that for your other kids. That’s just the kind of woman I am.”
“And even when we first got in the situation, whatever, if there’s someone that doesn’t want me around their child, you can’t bring that child around me,” she said. “I don’t play kid games. Don’t bring that child around me. I don’t care. Do not do that. I don’t play kid games at all. If that mother doesn’t want that child around me for whatever reasons, that child can not be around me and I’m okay with that.”
Wallace and Gunz were together from 2000 to about 2013, and before she had his sons, he already had five children. In 2013, she and Gunz first appeared on LHHNY, and she found out, with the rest of the world, that he was not only cheating but married to Amina Buddafly. Nevertheless, Wallace did get pregnant with their third son while he was still married to Buddafly.
Wallace did say earlier this year that she forgave him and moved forward so that their sons could have their father.
“We’re lucky in the fact that they get to spend a lot of time with him,” she said at the time. “I’m not going to rob my kids of time because of whatever I could have went through.”
And though the former couple are on good terms so that they can somewhat co-parent, Gunz did admit that he greatly regretted the way he treated her, especially on national television. He was sorry for hurting her, but more so ashamed of having to explain his behavior to his kids at some point.
“There’s a million things I could point out with Amina that I feel bad about too, but I think Tara got the worst of it because I brought her on national TV and let a woman tell her that we were married. And that’s something that I will always regret for the rest of my life,” he said in 2019.
“When I see clips of the show it makes me cringe and more than that, part of my fear is having to explain this to my sons and daughters when they get older,” he added.
