Why I Work So Hard: A Single Mom’s Promise
People see me working two jobs and always on the move, and they wonder how I do it. How I stay motivated. How I keep going. The truth is simple—my son is the reason I refuse to give up. He’s the reason I choose strength, even on the days when it feels impossible. But the deeper truth comes from a story I don’t always tell.
I wasn’t raised with stability. I spent a year in foster care as a little girl, and even after I left the system, life didn’t suddenly get easy. My brother—just 18 years old—stepped up and took custody of my sister and me. I was only 4, she was 12. He did the best he could, and we stayed with him until I was 9.
Then my mom got out of prison. She stayed clean for nine short months, and for a moment, I thought life might finally settle. But the cycle came back. The moving. The instability. The constant changes. We bounced from home to home, family member to family member, never staying long enough to feel planted. I switched schools so many times I lost track. I never knew what “normal” felt like.
By 17, I had been through enough chaos to last a lifetime. I decided to get my GED instead of starting senior year. I chose to step into college early, trying to build a future for myself—something stable, something steady, something mine.
Then life hit me harder than it ever had before.
My mom and stepdad died—twelve hours apart, in the same hospital, on Mother’s Day. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant with my son.
In that moment, my world broke. But something inside me also shifted. I realized that everything I had lived through—the instability, the grief, the homes, the losses—was now fuel. It wasn’t just pain anymore. It was purpose.
I looked at my growing belly and made a promise:
My son will not live the life I had to navigate.
He will not be shuffled around.
He will not be unsure of where home is.
He will not question who is showing up for him.
He will never feel unwanted, unstable, or unrooted.
So yes, I work two jobs. I wake up early, stay late, and push through exhaustion with love as my engine. Not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary. Because breaking generational cycles takes everything you have. Because my son deserves a childhood full of consistency, love, and a home that doesn’t move with the wind.
Every shift I take.
Every hour I work.
Every sacrifice I make.
It all comes back to him—the little boy who saved me as much as I saved him.
I didn’t come from stability.
But I’m building it.
Brick by brick.
Day by day.
For him.
And that, more than anything, is my greatest accomplishment.
