#single-moms — Public Fediverse posts

Maybe I Was Successful Financially, Just Not in the Way I Thought

Maybe financial success isn’t only about what we have accumulated, but about what our money has made possible. I spent years investing in my children, supporting the people I love, surviving, and seeing the world. Now, I’m learning that it’s also okay to invest in myself.

For a long time, I thought financial success meant having assets.

A house. Investments. Savings. Something tangible that I could point to and say, “I built this.”

And if I honestly look at my life today, I sometimes wonder, Am I financially successful?

I don’t have a lot of assets to show for the years I’ve worked.

But then I stop and think about where my money went.

It went to my children’s education.

It went to our daily needs.

It went to keeping our family going through difficult seasons.

It went to helping some of the people I love when they needed support.

And yes, it also went to travel.

To places I’ve visited. Food I’ve tasted. Views I’ve stood in front of. Little adventures that gave me something to look forward to.

For some people, spending money on travel might not look like financial progress.

But for me, those experiences are part of the life I worked so hard to create.

I learned to see money as something to use, not just something to keep.

Whenever money came in, there was usually somewhere it needed to go.

There was a school expense.

A household expense.

A family member who needed help.

Something unexpected.

And sometimes, a trip.

My first question was rarely, “How can I make this money grow?”

It was more often:

“What matters right now?”

And sometimes what mattered was making sure my children had what they needed.

Sometimes it was helping family.

And sometimes it was simply giving myself a few days to breathe, explore somewhere new, and remember that life is more than responsibilities.

Maybe that’s why I don’t completely regret not having accumulated more.

Of course, I wish I had more savings and assets.

But I also have memories.

I have places.

I have stories.

I have moments that money turned into experiences.

Maybe I became too comfortable being the provider.

There is something deeply fulfilling about being able to help the people you love.

But there is also a danger in always being the person who gives.

You can become so used to putting everyone else first that taking care of yourself financially starts to feel almost selfish.

You tell yourself:

The children need this more.

My family needs help.

I’ll save later.

I’ll figure it out.

And later keeps moving further away.

I think many women, especially mothers and single parents, will understand this.

We can be incredibly responsible with money and still not become wealthy.

Because being financially responsible and building wealth are two different things.

I was responsible.

I just wasn’t always building.

But I’m starting to see my story differently.

Maybe I shouldn’t look at my life and only see what I don’t have.

Maybe I should also look at what my money accomplished.

My children received an education.

They had opportunities.

We made it through difficult seasons.

People I love were helped when they needed it.

And I got to see parts of the world that I might otherwise never have seen.

Those things may not appear on a balance sheet, but they are still part of my financial story.

I don’t regret investing in my children.

I don’t regret helping my family.

And I don’t regret traveling.

But I also realize something important:

I don’t want the rest of my life to be only about giving or simply getting by.

I want to build.

I want to accumulate.

I want to create financial security for myself.

And I want to keep traveling.

Because I don’t want to choose between building wealth and living a meaningful life.

I want to learn how to do both.

Perhaps this is my next financial chapter.

For years, my mindset was:

How do I make enough to take care of everyone?

Now I’m learning to ask:

How do I make enough, keep enough, and grow enough to take care of my future self while still enjoying the life I’m building?

That is a completely different question.

Maybe financial success isn’t something I failed to achieve.

Maybe I was simply playing a different game.

For many years, I was playing the game of survival and responsibility.

I was raising children, supporting family, working, solving problems and making things work.

And somewhere along the way, I also learned to find joy in the spaces between responsibilities.

A weekend away.

A new place.

A beautiful view.

A meal in a town I’d never been to.

A little adventure.

Those weren’t necessarily signs that I was financially irresponsible.

They were reminders that I was alive.

Now I want to learn a new game:

security, growth, freedom and still living.

I don’t need to erase the woman I was.

I just need to make room for the woman I’m becoming.

I spent years building futures for the people I love.

Now, little by little, I’m learning to build one for myself.

And maybe my biggest financial lesson is this:

Money isn’t only about what you accumulate. It’s also about what you make possible.

My money made education possible.

It made survival possible.

It made helping others possible.

And it made experiences possible.

Now I want to make something else possible:

a financially secure future for me.

And hopefully, there will be plenty of travel along the way. ✈️🌏

Because I don’t want to arrive at the end of my life with a beautiful bank account and an empty memory book.

I want both.

A little more wealth. A lot more freedom. And a life I actually get to enjoy.

💖💖💖

Neighbor notices a single mom’s fence falling down, so he builds her a new one for free

http://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/single-mom-fence-build-free-ex1-2/

#humor #laugh #birthcontrol #moms #singlemoms #blacksinglemoms #fy #funny #fyp

Gutierrez received $500 a month for three years, allowing her to leave a toxic relationship and care for her newborn. "I could buy whatever food I wanted for my kid," she reflected on the relief that financial stability brought. #SingleMoms #FinancialFreedom

#Culture #CulturalAnthropology #CulturalStudies #gender #SingleMoms #Family #PurityCulture

the situation in korea seems to be equally abysmal in terms of cultural acceptance and support of single moms.

here's a video by canadian expats living in korea, with many stats and some stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0SyJpn5Fp8

here's a video by the news channel "asian boss" about being a single mom in korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZh_eTRWCMs

korean documentary profiling a charity called "babybox": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzEvYW93MOw

al jazeera documentary about single moms in korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLktjU7P8Bw

the screenshots below are from the al jazeera documentary. the mom is talking about how jobs wouldn't want to hire her if they learned she was a single mom. she says: "since i didn't take proper steps in life, i'm considered problematic. to put it bluntly, i'm dirty. that's how it is. i am lucky to qualify for $120 a month in government aid. some single mums only receive about $70." here, she brings up similar issues about conformity that the japan youtuber brought up about japan: anything that marks you as "different" makes you a "problem", especially if you deviated from norms in an "irresponsible" way. and she also brings up purity culture when she says "to put it bluntly, i'm dirty" (in the eyes of the employer). which is huge huge huge huge and common across many cultures.

another issue that makes being a single mom in japan & korea so tough is that babies are registered with the government not as individuals, but on a family registry. that registry includes divorces with a big fat red X as well. it goes back multiple generations, and as they discuss in the babybox documentary, many babies are given up for adoption because the family doesn't want a father-less baby on the family registry. i don't know if china or other countries also have this family registry system, but it definitely seems like one of those ways that the concept of "family" is weaponized against any perceived "deviants" from the rules for what a family should be. it would be good for me to learn more about the history of the family registry system - where, when, and how it came about.

anyway, it may not surprise you that i have some strong thoughts about the concept of "family" as well. and let us remember that some of the most important critiques of "The Family" come from feminist scholarship, going way way back. because, as many women know, doing things "for the family" or "because of the family" is a major way that women get put down and kept in line. (ask me about the things i've been pressured to do "for the family"...go ahead...ask... 💀​)

anyway, if you're sensitive to these issues, please consider not watching the videos because it's a severely awful situation.

#Culture #CulturalAnthropology #CulturalStudies #gender #SingleMoms #conformity

do y'all like youtube cultural studies as much as i do? i especially like the "cross-cultural explanation" genre where people who are fluent in multiple languages help bridge the gap in understanding about what a place or people are like. a lot of them veer into the "what you should know if you're going to date a russian girl!" arena, but some are very nice.

this particular channel is run by a japanese returnee (someone who was born in japan, grew up or spent time in another country, and then returned to japan). he makes english language material about japan.

this is a video about conformity in japan (a major interest for me because i was also badgered by conformity pressures growing up, but from the old school eastern european direction. for me, conformity is one of those cultural values like gender norms or racism that i just cannot stand because of how much it has been weaponized against people and how little sense it makes to me).

https://youtu.be/GwGDM9knTcw?t=467

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my commentary:

i'm not sure how much i buy his natural determinist arguments that because japan has a higher share of natural disasters compared to its land area, it was imperative for everyone to work together and so anyone who was lazing about and not helping ("being different") was a huge detriment to the village, etc. i'm not into most forms of natural determinism, so eh.

i like his historical analysis more, where he talks about social structure in the edo period. but i'm ignorant of this history so i have no way to judge whether this makes sense or not.

from a cultural perspective, the part that was most mind-bending was the idea that a single mom is "troubling others" and so is to be shunned. i'm still wrapping my head around that one.

basically his argument is that the #1 cultural priority in japanese culture is to not trouble anyone else more than you absolutely have to. he talks about how it's the #1 thing kids are taught and it's framed as "being considerate to others."

i don't know if it really is the #1 priority, but under that frame (and with the general pressures of conformity), a single mom creates a burden on others because she can't support herself and doesn't have a husband who would support her (which is only a reality because of how strict things are in japan wrt the work culture & gender divide, right?).

in that worldview, *choosing* to become a single mom is like "ho ho, i'll just have ~other people~ solve my problems for me. here's another mouth to feed!"

i guess that's pretty similar to the "welfare queen" logic. but i guess it also applies at the family scale, not just at the societal scale.

maybe i'm just used to massive cultural diversity where some families might kick out a teen gal who comes home pregnant, but other families would be like "well, guess we're about to have another baby to welcome to the world!"

but yea, to call a woman who has a child without having a father locked-in as "selfish"....that starts sending me into pure rage.

especially when you consider all the ways that an unmarried person might become pregnant..

or the fact that even if you *do* get pregnant with a husband and do "everything right", half the time he'll leave you anyway! or be abusive and so even worse to have in the house... with some men, you can't get them to leave even if you want them to. (and that, my friends, is the premise of the 90s comedy "practical magic.")

yea, it makes my heart rate increase in the bad way...the way where i start to think about whether my daggers have been sharpened lately. (full disclosure: they are imaginary daggers.)

maybe i'm a little sensitive on this subject because i've known many single moms. and last i checked, pretty much every single one of them wanted the best for their child and in order to provide that, they do things that other people could never imagine themselves doing. which, in my mind, is about as selfless as it gets.

in conclusion, down with conformity. hate it!

A few years ago, I went viral w/this mssg. I’m posting it here, bc it bears repeating. You have NO IDEA what someone else is going through. Be kind. Always.

“Twenty-five yrs ago, when my kids were little, I was a single mom on welfare. One Christmas, their presents were Christmas Cap’n Crunch & candy, bought w food stamps, bc that’s all I had. The next time you judge the person in front of you at the grocer’s, be kind.”

#Christmas #SingleMoms #ChristmasGifts #Welfare #BeKindAlways #Groceries