[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

When my dad walked out on us (a mother with 3 teenagers & one small child), my mother worked two jobs. We also received some help from my grandparents. We ate a lot of tuna casseroles, spaghetti, and mac and cheese. She shopped at the day old bread store and would make a fifty/fifty mixture of powdered milk with regular milk.

During my high school years I babysat to pay for my own clothes, yearbook and any spending money for activities. I never asked my mother for a dime, because I knew that she didn't have it to give to me. It was a special treat to go to McDonald's, which was a very rare event.

[ga medic]

My experience was pretty much the same thing. My mother cleaned houses 7 days a week to support 5 children. She used to offer to clean their refrigerators, so that she could bring us left overs to eat. We drank powdered milk too, and strangely enough, I still like the taste of it. We never ate at McDonalds until we were old enough to pay for it ourselves.

It wasn’t easy for her I am sure, but we all did what we could to help. She raised 5 children on a housekeepers wages, without a dime of federal assistance or child support. I think as kids were are better off having learned from her how to stretch a dollar. But it cost us all in the long term. She couldn’t afford to take time off to see a doctor, for headaches she had until it was too late. She died of brain cancer a month after I (the youngest) graduated from high school.