"At 21 years old I walked into Tammy Adele Law's daycare—other than registering my son for September’s group, I really had no idea what I was doing—not there and not in any area my life really. I was a stay-at- home mom who was just going through the motions and found herself spending money that I didn’t have on child care all because I had this nagging feeling that wouldn’t let up—one that had me convinced that if I had some time to be on my own during the day, I’d be better able to figure out how to make this life of ours work. 

I unequivocally loved my son so deeply—I wanted to be the mother that he deserved, and I wanted more for us. I was utterly broken and conflicted—trapped by a belief system that governed what I felt that I, as a woman could do, could be and could amount to now that motherhood had unexpectedly sprung itself on me. According to everything I had seen and heard, I was now part of a sad, clichéd statistic—I was just another teen mother destined for destitution and hardship.  I believed at a core level that my opportunity to live the life I had once envisioned and planned for myself was no longer and I was obviously bound to spend the rest of my life clawing my way along and struggling through my journey to provide a good life for my child. As that young woman, I believed I’d inevitably end up a mother who would be left single, empty, and lonely—overworked at a thankless job, underpaid for it and forever trying to make ends meet just to be able to keep food in the fridge and clothes on our backs.

As I stood at Tammy’s desk signing the paperwork, we were chatting about my son; she had asked how old I was when I had him. Upon my response, without skipping a beat she shared with me that she too had her first child at the same age. Before I could even shake off the coincidence, she spoke the very words I needed to hear the most at that time in my life and yet, I didn’t even know enough to know I was so desperate to hear them...