I grew up seeing my mother struggle and working in cleaning other people's houses. She would work Monday-Saturday cleaning houses in the morning and working an office cleaning job in the evenings. Sat and Sunday she would work in making tutus for a lady she would clean her house during the week. She would never have time to come to our school activities, parent conferences or spend time with my siblings and me. I remember I saw one of her checks and she was getting paid $50 to clean a house 3 times a week, this was back in the 90s. I grew up alone, I don't remember spending time with my siblings. I would have dinner by myself, I could remember sitting down on a table by myself and eating a frozen dinner. Seeing my mother struggle and do everything herself, made me become an independent woman. I try to go to every single school activity and parent conference for my children. When I was in middle school, the teachers would give us extra credit if our parents attended parent conferences, I never was able to get that extra credit. Every time there is a parent conference for one of my children, I have that in my mind. Maybe they will receive extra credit if I show up, which is not true. That is just something I have on the back of my head as my experience. I try to spend all my free time with my children, and taking them to new places. There were close cities by where I used to live, that I didn't know existed until I became an adult. Realizing how close other cities around me there were I never knew about. My mother is my hero. I have become a responsible adult because of seeing my mother wake up early and never miss work. I want to do things differently than my mother but at the same time show my children that responsibility is important and sometimes difficult situations may come but you have to overcome them and learn from them. Currently, my mother still works cleaning houses. I admire her strength to provide for us no matter how sick she was or how tired she was. I think that because of her I have the desire to continue my education and provide for my children as much as I can. But also showing them that nothing is easy in life.