💔 Surviving the System: Childhood to Parenthood
They always watch you. From your earliest trauma to your hardest decisions, the system waits for weakness. Not to help — but to control.
👶 Childhood Trauma
I was 11 years old when my father died by suicide. 💔 My mother — devastated and alone — went on social assistance to keep us alive: me, my brother, and sister, ages 11, 13, and 16.
“Get a job or we’ll take your kids.”
That fear bonded itself to my bones — proof that help always comes with a threat.
🔧 A Working Life, Cut Short
I worked 11 years in a hard, physical job. 💪 Until chronic tendonitis forced me to stop.
I returned to school as a mature student, paying for everything myself. I had a $15,000 credit rating, built on years of hard work. 💳
The program was supposed to be one year, but the college canceled programs repeatedly, turning it into four years. I had to keep reapplying for student loans — a trap designed to put students further in debt.
Then came the dot‑com crash and 9/11. 💥 I lost it all — my savings, my credit — because student loans defaulted.
And then… I found out I was pregnant at 40. 👶 A joy I have never regretted — but the trauma surrounding it was relentless.
🍼 Pregnancy Under Surveillance
I returned to Canada pregnant. No one would hire me — visibly pregnant women were seen as a “burden.”
So the same system that once threatened my childhood now demanded compliance:
- “Prove over and over again that you’re poor.”
- “Give us your private information or you don’t eat.”
- “Comply or we will punish you.”
Every appointment felt like an interrogation. Every form felt like a confession. Every month felt like a test of worthiness to survive.
💔 Forced On, Forced Off
They cut me off when my child was only 3. ❌ I scrambled to survive.
Then my mother — my mentor and protector — passed away. 💔 Grief forced me back into that system at 4.5 years old for my child, facing the same harassment my mother had endured.
Caseworkers didn’t see a parent doing everything for their child. They saw a file number, not a person.
Hospitals, offices, forms, checkboxes — all eyes on us. 👀 Even when I was doing everything right, they looked for reasons to punish.
🧸 Covid, Childcare & Career Barriers
During Covid, no one would hire me as a nanny — even though I had just finished a 2-year contract in 2019. 🕰️ I was in my late fifties, and because of the age difference, I was seen as “too old” to be near a child.
💔 How many relationships, families, and careers were destroyed during this time? We are all living with this trauma, yet the system quietly brings in newcomers, finding them homes and jobs, while long-time residents are blocked at every turn.
One of the reasons I was so late having a child was no affordable childcare, leaving me trapped and waiting.
And because of all this, I had to change my career again. Now I have no tickets, no elder care, no ECE, no first aid, no food safe — all of the certifications and qualifications required to work, even though I laboured and educated myself for years.
Stay tuned for next post
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