It takes a village: Support is key to single parenthood
Toni Eubanks doesn’t get a lot of time to herself. You can usually find her organizing events through The Bridge, volunteering in her neighborhood’s community garden, working in the nursery at her church or going to class at PVCC. Oh, and did we mention raising her preschool-aged son on her own? When she does get the occasional hour or two away from work, school and parenthood, rather than vegging in front of Netflix, her first choice is to lace up her sneakers and go for a run, sometimes up to 15 miles at a time.
Despite the long hours and lack of sleep, though, Eubanks is a mother first and foremost.
“I’m trying to balance work and get my homework done and still make sure he gets the attention he needs,” Eubanks says. “He’ll always have mommy time.”
People have been asking her for years how she does it all, but in her mind, not doing it all is simply not an option.
“A lot of people make excuses,” says Eubanks, a 23-year-old Friendship Court resident and single mother. “It is not easy and sometimes I get frustrated. But whenever I think about giving up I just have to stay positive.”
She’s the first person to admit that she hasn’t always been this way. Her life couldn’t be more different from five years ago, and she credits it all to having Kaiden at such a young age. A self-described “hot head” as a teenager, Eubanks says she wasn’t planning on having kids. In fact, she didn’t give much thought to her future beyond breaking curfew and rebelling wherever she could. She’s always been headstrong and independent, but it wasn’t until after Kaiden arrived on the scene that she found ways to channel those qualities in a more constructive way.
“I was never peer pressured,” she says, adding that she used to surround herself with friends who, for one reason or another, lacked direction and motivation. “But I felt like I had no purpose to do better until I had him.”
Surrounding herself with “positive people” has made all the difference in the world, she says. Even when she’s running on four hours of sleep, can’t find a babysitter during class time and still needs to finish a pile of homework and send a dozen e-mails after tucking Kaiden in, Eubanks says the prospect of going to bed and doing it all again the next day is distinctly more manageable because of the support system she’s built around herself.
What doesn’t help, though, is the constant struggle to find and maintain reliable child-care. She’s anxiously awaiting an answer from the state about financial assistance for Kaiden’s care while she finishes at PVCC and, hopefully, transfers to UVA for a bachelor’s degree in political science. She’s been in awe since joining the team at The Bridge as a community organizer in 2014 that she can get paid for what she loves to do, but she’s aching for a full-time job in the field. She wants the degree so she can market herself with more credibility and better provide for her son, but she can’t finish school if unreliable child care prevents her from going to class. It’s a catch-22 that so many low-income single parents have to battle. Her story started out like a lot of others—teenage pregnancy, subsidized housing, limited access to child care. But when asked if she’s worried that her son will turn into a statistic, she thought for a moment, then shook her head “no.” He’s the reason she’s doing all this, and she hopes he’ll grow up understanding and appreciating the value of hard work.
“I hope he sees how hard his mom works,” she says. “I don’t want him to have to struggle as much as I have.”—L.I.
The write way: When adversity creeps in, art provides an outlet
UVA humanities graduate and single mom Liz Mayer’s writing style is dark. In a published vignette about a family fighting its dysfunction, “Unrelated,” she tells the story of a girl and her two brothers watching in terror as their mother comes undone.
“Cigarette smoke seeped from under the bedroom door and other dirty smells I couldn’t name,” Mayer writes. “Sometimes they came out and sat on the couch. My mother talked with her eyes closed and fell asleep in the middle of sentences. James rubbed her back and her legs.”
At the end of the passage, the family is in shambles. The girl and her brothers are driven away from their home. Is this Mayer’s story? Is it autobiographical? Does it matter?
Regardless, Mayer herself has seen some hard times.
“Liz is super dynamic and hardworking,” close friend Anne Cheatham says. “She’s dealt with and made it through a lot of adversity with her daughter’s father and been one of the best friends I still have.”
Mayer came to Charlottesville from her home in Northern Virginia to attend UVA, her sights at least in a vague way set on an artistic career. She wanted to be a writer, she figured, but she suffered from self doubt.
Things didn’t go all that smoothly at the university. She took time off school. She met a man she fell in love with. They had a child together. For two years, Mayer thought she and Ruby and this man had a chance to make it as a family unit. She was wrong. In 2012, the family split for good.
Along the way and despite the obstacles, Mayer managed to go back to school and complete her degree. She’s stuck with her writing, publishing a few works of poetry and prose in minor lit journals, and is now working on her first novel.
The adversity has only pushed Mayer closer to her daughter. The two are almost always together. When she and some of her college friends went to Miami on vacation last year, she brought Ruby along.
Mayer’s modeled her day job around Ruby. Despite no background in education, she took on a position as a teaching assistant at Montessori School of Charlottesville. The job comes with a
tuition discount, and it matches her schedule to Ruby’s.
When Mayer and her daughter recently sat down to talk to C-VILLE at the library, the inseparable pair out of school for the summer, they were scheduled to catch up with Ruby’s dad after the interview.
During the visit, Ruby and her dad did an art project together. He bought her a slice of pizza and an ice cream cone. “She seemed happy,” Mayer said.
It was the kind of hopeful but skeptical ending that Mayer found her way to in “To Carter,” a poem she published in the Anomalous Press.
“Then I said who needed the sea with all that sky, but now I know different because though you did not stay, I can’t help but remain—here, in my home—Virginia.”—Shea Gibbs
On her own: Discipline and friendship makes for a delicate balance
Melissa Reilly moved out of the apartment she shared with her partner one week before their baby was due. The then 21-year-old moved in with her parents and soon after, her son Leeland was born. She filed for, and received, full custody—and it’s been
the two of them together ever since.
They’re very close and share a special bond, she says, and she finds being a single parent rewarding.
“I get all his love and admiration, and all the hugs and kisses. He puts me on a pedestal. He tells me all the time he’s so thankful that I’m his mommy.”
She calls being the only parental unit “draining,” because she takes on all of the parenting duties singlehandedly. Reilly also admits that while it’s a challenge, she made a choice to be a single mom. She says she hopes that it makes it easier on Lee in some ways, like not having to deal with two sets of rules in two different households.
Reilly works full time managing FaceValue Salon in Crozet, and receives no child support. With no help, she’s found and navigated Lee’s daycare, summer camps and extracurricular activities all on her own. The upside? She doesn’t ever have to compromise.
“The decisions I make for our family—they’re all my decisions. I can raise him exactly the way I want to.” But she points out that because she’s the only parent, “he can’t see us as friends.” Reilly says that’s hardest when she wants to spoil him but can’t because she needs to also be the disciplinarian.
The pair has lived in an apartment for the past several years, but recently moved back in with Reilly’s parents, who help provide stability. She looks to her own father and her friends’ husbands to provide good male role models.
“I have lots of support, and I’m really thankful for my parents.”
Because she was just 21 when Lee was born, the pair has “kind of grown up together,” Reilly says, and while being a single parent “makes dating a bit difficult” for the 28-year-old, she says wouldn’t change a thing.
“I’m proud to be his mom. I love having him. I might not have chosen the right route, but I can’t imagine life without him.”—L.T.