I rarely scroll through reels online, but when I do, I can easily become consumed. The algorithm, like magic, serves reels with similar content and themes and I can get lost in a time warp.
Recently, one reel caught my attention. It featured a soulful song expressing deep pain and resilience. The lyrics echo what my clients have shared with me for over three decades: mothers—mostly single mothers—who survived child abuse and are now mothering their own children, striving to give them what they did not get as children while fiercely attempting to protect them from the trauma they once endured.
Single motherhood is often synonymous with financial insecurity. Researcher Norman Garmezy found that among all the potential risk factors that mothers with abuse histories encounter, economic burden poses the severest risk because it impacts so many other facets of her life. Particularly, poverty impacts her ability to secure basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter.
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, food, clothing, and shelter are the foundations of the pyramid. These must be stable before an individual can accomplish the higher-level needs of safety, security, love and belonging, self-esteem, and, ultimately, the achievement of self-actualization. If a mother struggles with food insecurity or inadequate housing or clothing, it makes it difficult to experience safety, belonging, and self-esteem. The higher-level needs are resources that can only grow in conditions of safety and acceptance.
To escape abuse, many survivors may leave home early and not finish high school, putting them at risk of unemployment or low-wage jobs. If they have children, they frequently end up struggling financially.
Poverty and a history of child abuse increase the stress of parenting, particularly for mothers who carry the economic burdens and responsibilities of raising children alone. My clients expressed feeling stressed and overwhelmed by limited resources. Financial difficulties caused anxiety and forced them to choose between paying utility bills and rent. Mothers also expressed feelings of inadequacy and regret that their economic situation made it difficult to provide a better life for their children.
One client, Lara, was a single mother of a six-year-old boy. She worked full-time as a nurse’s aide and part-time cleaning houses on weekends. She still could not make ends meet. The inflated cost of rent, groceries, and car payments created extra pressure. Despite this, Lara was determined to provide her son with a good education, a safe neighborhood, and positive and caring people in his life.
In one session, on a cold and snowy night, Lara said she was concerned about driving home on slippery roads. The brake pads in her car had worn down and she did not have money in her budget to replace them. As a result, she was braking on the rotors, which made a loud screeching sound when she tried to come to a stop. She was terrified that she would run a red light and cause a crash.
In a session, another client, Elaine, recounted an experience she had when getting her re-certification for food stamps. While taking her photo ID, instead of telling her to “smile” before taking the picture, the worker told her to “smile and say sex”. Elaine complied. As she told me what happened she started to cry. She could not articulate what the tears were about, or the feelings of despair associated with them. However, as we processed the event, the parallel became clear: what occurred in the food-stamp office mirrored her childhood abuse experiences. Once again, she was being treated as an object by those in power, was the brunt of a joke for another’s entertainment, and was forced to smile and do what she was told to survive.
Throughout my career, I have researched, written on, and lectured about the connection between adverse childhood experiences, poverty, and trauma. In my clinical practice, I saw the palpable impact on mothers who went back to school to lift themselves out of poverty. I watched them balance two jobs, work overtime, raise children, provide their children with food and shelter, and make impossible financial tradeoffs—all the while carrying the lasting consequences of childhood abuse and neglect.
They did it tired. They mothered, pursued higher education, and sacrificed to give their children more than they had growing up, while trying to protect their children from the harmful childhood experiences they suffered. The song “I Did It Tired” captures their lived reality and echoes my own memories of being a witness to their pain and struggles as they journeyed from survival to resilience and triumph.
Resilience Essential Reads
They did it tired, they did it sacred, they did it broke. They fed the mouths, dried the tears, and held their breaths for years and years. They obeyed the voice inside that said don’t quit. They gave too much and gave some more. They bent so far, they almost broke. They swallowed words they should have spoke.
These words speak to their dual journeys as survivors and mothers. Therapy and survivor groups offered these women a safe place to be tired, to cry, to breathe, and to voice their pain. It gave them space to be held with compassion by someone who saw their resilience and courage. It offered a place where they could be seen, heard, and applauded for their strength and honored for their extraordinary perseverance and resilience.
