A Life Changing Question

My mother worked day and night so I had to care for my sister and cousins. On some occasions I had to help my mom clean houses to earn money. At the age of thirteen up until I was sixteen I was cleaning houses for the people we longed to be. I got a glimpse of a life I have never known. For the most part my mom’s boss was nice, but her family was ignorant at times. They would ask me where I have traveled and if I’ve been to all these kinds of expensive places. When I answered no they asked why not. I guess they didn’t comprehend the fact that my mom and I were cleaning their dishes and making their beds for less than the minimum wage to be able to barely afford the rent of the small room we all

I was born very early and had teenage parents who did not really have their life together at that time. My parents were both high school dropouts. My dad dropped out because school was not for him and he just wanted to work and get money and my mom dropped out because school was not for her also and she was pregnant with me and did not want to deal with school. My dad worked everyday to keep our family moving and my mom just stayed at my grandmas house with me because obviously she had to take care of me. So we were living by paycheck to paycheck. One year later my sister was born and two years later after that my other sister was born. Since my parents really did not have that much money to get our own place we would live at my grandmas house to my papa’s house but at times we would have to camp out at the beach because we had no other choice. When we would live at the beach I would think that we were just camping for fun but I did not realize that we did not have any place to stay. My parents clothed me and my sisters, provided food for us, but we did not have a house over our head. So

My life was turned upside down when I had to learn that answering that question with a yes meant the removal of my dad from my home until further notice. I lived multiple months without my father and nothing has ever impacted me more. My father was a full time electrician so I spent most of my days with my mother. He came home tired, exhausted, and easily irritable. He came from a family who believed in disciplining their children, where my mother did not. It became the largest controversy of my childhood, my mom classifying him as a child abuser.

When I was a three week old newborn, Social Services decided that my mother and father were no longer fit to raise my sister and I. My mother was an alcoholic who would soon be in prison, my father was not yet an American citizen, and my parents were in the midst of a divorce. Instead of allowing my sister and I to be split up and sent to separate foster homes, my grandparents brought us into their home for what was intended to be a temporary length of time. This temporary length of

through a rough time when I was younger and my mother left our family for drugs.

Growing up with my father Scott, mother XXXX, and my beautiful sister Paige, I find it easy to reminisce of the happy times we shared together. However, not matter how dearly I pray of ignorance, I can’t erase what has happened from my mind. When I was rather young, my mother was deported back to the UK from which of where she is originally from, due to drug addiction issues. Experiencing the matter from first hand, watching my mother fall, grasping with all her life to find herself inside, whilst clamoring for her next high, tears me up inside to this day. The day she left us was the day I felt that my family couldn’t cope without her. I could never believe that my father could do for us what my mother was able to do. My suspicions to begin with were indeed correct, as we endured homeless shelters. Being in and out of homeless shelters ruined not only my family life, but also my social life. Having to explain to your young friends that you don’t really have a home, is a something I would never wish upon my bitterest of

Growing up, I was raised to believe I was not poor, but the reality was my mother and father could barely make ends meet. My father ended up working full time while my mother stayed at home and raised me, and eventually my four other brothers who were born later. The financial stress and my mother’s depression and apathy combined to create an incredibly toxic relationship between my parents, and although they got married for financial purposes when I was five, they both did not want to be together. Their abusive, toxic interactions towards each other and their children subjected all of us children to an incredibly unhealthy home environment.

Well to get started it was the blistering cold winter of 1861. I was an only child well I guess after 10 long years I was. My little brother Todd died when he was 7. Todd suffocated and fell down a chimney when he was cleaning it. My dad died when I was 4. He was working down in a coal mine and CRASH, the mine collapsed. If you think that's bad it gets worse. It was my mom and I left in a small house that could barely even fit us in it. My mother never told me how she felt she only cared about me, she worked 22 hours and barely made enough money to feed us. But I can tell you that all the money she got she spent on me so I had enough food and drink, to live.One day she came home crying, I knew something was up and there was. My mother had diphtheria, I tried to help I really did but there was no use. Her last words were,”Timmy make me proud and have…”She never finished.

In my high school years I faced great hardship because of the abuse inflicted by mother. She moved me to different high schools throughout my high school career to isolate me from my peers and from teachers. My mother did not want me to have a relationship with anyone outside the family because she did not want me to divulge the abuse I experienced in the past and present to any of my teachers. My freshmen year I left Dalton high after only a few months and was moved to Southeast High School. Then my sophomore year she moved me to Northwest High School. I stayed at Northwest through Junior year of high school. The summer of Junior year my mom withdrew me from attending classes in person at Northwest Whitfield and she had me take classes online and dual enrolled at Dalton State College. Once again she isolated me from my peers and put me in a in a situation where I did not have a support group or any high school teachers around to seek help from. When I trend 18 years old my mother kicked me out of the house because she did not want me anymore.

It was the summer of 2002, my father had come clean to my mother about his drug abuse and admitted to have taken me with a few times to the houses. I remember meeting children and having to hang out with them in a bedroom for a few hours. Although my father did this to our family, he was adamant to make life better for us. He worked two jobs, went to rehab, and went to college at the age of 27 to get his degree in finance and criminal justice just to make it up to my mother and I. This determination to pay back what he had taken has stuck with me ever since; I’m determined to do what I want in life because of him. My father made sure we would never have to have government assistance anymore for food etc., and he stuck true to that claim

At the age of 16 years, I remember I have always said to my friends and family I want to start my own family by the age of 21 and as fate would have it or one might say its just a cliché, I was pregnant with my first baby at the age 21 years. With no idea of what is to come during those nice months I was pregnant, and especially the anticipation of labour and what it would be like, how to go about, if any difficulties may happen and so many thoughts was running through my minds during those months of pregnancy and these thoughts gets even intense as I approached my expectant due date (EDD). I had to put my faith and trust in the professional care and advice I was offered by healthcare teams, most especially the midwives that were of assistance

A few months ago I faced a difficult time in my life. I was homeless and I had nowhere to stay with my newborn baby. To my dismay, there was no family who would have the ability to take me in. They had helped me enough in their eyes regarding sheltering me, so I was abruptly kicked out of my grandmothers house I was staying in and face the option to find shelter in a homeless shelter.

My mother had it rough growing up. Forced to be out of the house nearly by dawn and only to return by nightfall, she was ignored and turned away by her mother. All throughout her childhood, and most of her young adult life until she ran away, my mother was

It started at a young age, my mother was in a really bad state of depression when I was in 5th grade until the end of middle school. Since it was only her and I, I alone had to witness this disease tear her apart and there was nothing I could do. She didn’t want to leave the house whatsoever, so I was always homebound right there with her. I could see the guilt in her eyes every time she’d tell me no when I’d ask if we could do something, anything except be in the house. It was

I grew in poverty. My hermana, Aleah, was took away from the family when I was a niñita. Madre y Padre didn’t really pay much attention to me, but as soon as they took Aleah away, “todos los ojos estaban en mí”. They treated me as if I didn’t exist, but they made sure I was well tended to when we were out. I wasn’t abused much, but I did get highly