Being a mom is a full-time job. Ask any mom and they can tell you about the all-night shifts that stretch into the early morning hours and the never-complete to-do lists. Feed the Children, a leading nonprofit focused on alleviating childhood hunger, is inviting everyone, everywhere to honor their mothers and the women who have made a difference in their lives by supporting the nonprofit’s fundraising efforts to provide food and essentials for struggling families this year.
In addition to their household responsibilities, moms also play an important part in today’s workforce. According to the Department of Labor, 40 percent of moms are the primary source of income for their households. This comes with its own set of challenges as many times jobs require time commitments outside a 9 to 5 day.
2020 was especially difficult for moms with more than 2.3 million women leaving the labor force in the past year as schools shifted to online learning and childcare facilities closed their doors. Single moms were impacted significantly by the crisis and lost jobs at a far higher rate than other families with children. In total, the economic impact of working moms’ coronavirus-related juggling act has been estimated at $341 billion.
Single mom Mandy worries about being able to take care of Mitchell and provide for him. She worries about what could happen to them if she’s laid off. They’ve been homeless before when Mitchell was 3 years old. And while they’re securely housed now, Mandy knows how uncertain life can be, and how little it takes to lose everything.
“I have actually gotten to the point where I had one can of food in my cabinet. …I wanted to cry. I sat there and I opened the cabinet and I saw that one can. And I just wanted to cry.”
A strong family has a strong foundation, and we couldn’t be more grateful for the foundations in our lives: our mothers. Thank you to all the moms who carry the world and more on their shoulders every day, but even more so over the last year. If you would like to honor your mother by donating to help mothers and their children across the U.S. and around the world, visit feedthechildren.org/mothersday.
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Photo Credit: Yuganov Konstantin/ Shutterstock.com