I wasn’t “punished” with a single parent household. I wasn’t “deprived” of a complete and loving family. I had (and still have) a very wonderful family who taught me nothing if not self-sacrifice. I learned what was really important in life, how to get by without material things, what it meant to stick together, and so many other very important things. I saw my mom work hard and give everything she had for us. She inspired me to want to do the same.
The idea that it would have been better for me to be given to a two-parent household that had more money is so utterly insane. My mom was wonderful, but she didn’t do anything extraordinary that no one else could. If a single mom is willing to do what it takes to love and protect their child, and make the necessary sacrifices, then there is no reason to think that the child would automatically be better off elsewhere.
As for not wanting children to grow up in poverty, here’s a little known secret: If a parent is a good parent, the kid doesn’t realize the family is poor until they look back as an adult. I had more dress up costumes, books, and dolls than any of my friends. My mom went to auctions and bought boxes of random stuff for a dollar each to keep me entertained and to make sure that I had stuff to read. She bought a chalk board and taught me numbers, arithmetic, and shapes before kindergarten because we couldn’t afford preschool. She also had me reading at a 4th grade level before I started school because she felt so bad that I might fall behind without preschool she worked to compensate, and did a very good job. It never occurred to me that everyone else had lights on all the time, or that they ate differently than we did. We always made sure to donate our change whenever the opportunity came up, and we volunteered all the time. No matter what my mom always made it clear that we were fortunate for everything that we had and that there were people out there with even less. Honestly, I am so thankful that I grew up poor. I know what it means to have it rough, I know how to scrimp and save, I know how to get by, and I appreciate even the little things so much more.