NASHVILLE, TN – AUGUST 18: Singer-songwriter Vivian Green arrives at the 2017 Black Music Honors at Tennessee Performing Arts Center on August 18, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee (Photo by Moses Robinson/WireImage)
During Vivian Green’s rise to stardom, her career hit a major road block. Not because of poor sales or promotion, though. After she gave birth to her son, Jordan, she was told he wouldn’t live a normal life. In fact there was concern about whether he would live at all.
“When he was born, I was told he would die in seven days and that [if] he [lived he] might be mentally challenged,” she told Black Doctor. “He was late to walk and talk and he wouldn’t eat for a year and a half.”
Receiving such terrible news about her first born led the Philly native to contemplate suicide.
“At that point I definitely didn’t want to be here. I didn’t think it could
get any lower than that.”
Contrary to what she was told, her son did live, but he did face many challenges, which affected the “Emotional Rollercoaster” singer’s career. The duties of parenting of child with a serious unknown illness snatched her from the studio a lot, but she still managed to release six albums, with her last release being in 2017, VGVI.
“We weren’t slaving over the record all this time,” she said. “I’m a mom, so I’ve really been doing that. My son was born with an unknown syndrome so I’ve really been taking time off to be a mom and to deal with with Jordan. For the first few years it was really hard because he was in and out of hospital, a lot of surgery, all sorts of things that you can go through in a children’s hospital. One year he refused to eat at all and had to be fed through a tube.”
Jordan is now eight-years-old and is continuing thrive at his own pace. He recently took his first standardized test and Green gushed about his performance saying he “tested off the charts!”
Green said that during those dark moments, her faith in God got her through.
“God allows us to be so low, that we have no choice but to look up to Him. “My spiritual growth skyrocketed. Sometimes you have no choice but to believe that God knows what he’s doing. I realized that He chose me to be this child’s mother, so He thinks I’m strong enough to handle it.”
