Working Poor

Being poor, with kids, no car, , never enough money, was the most exhausting, stressful part of my entire life.
and as you say, the goal was to be self sufficient and provide for the kids.

When you don't have transportation, you have to get up very early to walk the kids to the daycare, then start hitch hiking to the classes 60 miles away, and of course the first year you have to take 8 am courses.
then reverse repeat the process, get the kids, make dinner, feed them, eat the left overs if there are any, tuck the kids into bed at 9 pm, then do the reading and writing for the classes, till midnight, often, get up at 5 am and do it allover again.

I was absolutely scrawny, always tired, constantly afraid that the littlest problem would derail the entire plan. No family support at all. Occasional weekends when the ex-husband could take the kids, I would do nothing but sleep almost the entire weekend.

all of that at a time when there WAS daycare, work-study, grants for affordable classes. But I had to make consistently high grades to be eligible for more aid to take more classes.

"the miracle is not that it was done well, but that it was done at all" ....a phrase I remember from that time, so applicable to all of us ( and there were SO many) who managed to overcome a miserable destiny.

I was the first person in 3 generations of family to get a college degree, at a time when a High school diploma was a lofty goal for my mother's generation.