Today’s price truly isn’t yesterday’s price, and everyone across the country is feeling it. Post-pandemic inflation, corporate greed, supply chain disruption from global conflict, high fuel costs and an employer-driven job market are all affecting how Americans make it day by day, month to month.
Lately, though, attention has become a growing outlet for mothers to earn additional income while building community. In 2025, single mother of three Nykia Hamilton went viral after a customer filmed her running a short-staffed Burger King in South Carolina practically by herself. After Hamilton was fired for tardiness due to childcare issues, supporters rallied around her; her GoFundMe has raised more than $141,000.
While many single moms don’t see that type of financial support, sharing their stories online can help them survive.
Different Stories, Similar Fabric, Shared Strength
Alaysia tried to leave twice before, but this time, there was no turning back. During an argument with her husband, things took a physical turn.
“He pushed me and my head busted open, “ the 28-year-old told EBONY. “I always felt like maybe we could work it out so we could have a two-parent household, but each time I went back, it got worse. That’s when I knew I cannot stay here.”
Alaysia hatched a plan: she would wait for her tax refund to arrive, buy plane tickets for her and her four children, ages two to seven, then leave Illinois.
The family of five has been living in New York since January.
About two years ago, Ember Jonae was planning her own multi-state escape. Already a mother of one and pregnant with twins, she was beginning to experience high blood pressure that matched her high levels of stress. Her relationship with the twins’ father was souring with each passing day and intense argument. After kicking him out of the house and taking his key, Jonae woke up the next morning, walked downstairs and found him sitting on her couch.
“ I was trying to figure out if you don’t have a key, and these doors were barricaded, how did you get in here?” the 30-year-old mother of three recalled to EBONY. “I didn’t [want] to trigger him, so I went to the bathroom. He barged in there and threatened to really beat me up.”
His growing possessiveness was Jonae’s turning point, she says. Unbeknownst to him, she packed up a U-Haul truck on the same day as her baby shower.
Shortly after, she drove 800 miles from Delaware to South Carolina. Now she creates content online about her new chapter with her three girls.
Lakeitha Lee isn’t a stranger to Alaysia and Jonae’s stories, either. The 39-year-old Alabama native is a survivor of domestic violence too. Things were beginning to look up for her when she met Tavoris, a doting father to their three children and Lee’s older children from previous relationships. Sadly, last July, Tavoris died in a gruesome car accident after being struck by a cement truck.
“ I’m still in the active process of grieving,” the mother of 10 shared with EBONY. “I have to be that emotional support for the children, so I never really had a chance to just sit down and just cry or even tell somebody what I feel because there’s nobody here for me to talk to for real.”
On her social platform, she talks about work and rebuilding a life for her family.
With Transparency Comes Community… and Criticism
For these women and many others, the internet has become a place to express themselves. Whether it’s the heights of life’s highs or the depths of its valleys, vulnerability is the currency creators use in order to build a connection with their audience.
In return, that audience shows up for them — in person, even. Lee boasts a growing GoFundMe, which will go toward getting a car so she and her children can get around the city. Sometimes, her supporters will donate money on CashApp, which she’ll use toward the night’s dinner. Recently, someone stopped by Lee’s local Golden Corral restaurant (where she works as a waitress) to deliver some school supplies for her children.
”It’s been a lot of people from my city [that have supported me],” Lee gushed. “Through content and people seeing me, I’ve been gifted furniture. I’ve gotten clothes for my children. I’ve gotten clothes for me, ’cause like I said, I didn’t have nothing but my top two work pants and a work shirt. It makes me wanna cry just thinking about it.”
That kind of transparency can come at a cost, though. Content creation exposes you to a group of people you can’t quite see in totality. The digital medium can dull a creator’s humanity, fostering criticism and critique that would never be exchanged in person.
“One girl commented on my video saying I was slow,” Alaysia admitted. “Then she inboxed me asking me to drop my location, trying to fight me: ‘That’s why you scary, that’s why you got beat on [by your baby’s father].’ How are you trying to fight me because I’m homeless? There are some crazy people out there.”
Married Moms Share Stories, Too
Shay Barbee is a married mother of 14 children, ranging in age from five to 25. She and her husband, Will, live just outside Chicago, Illinois and post about their daily life as a large family in a modern world. That includes multiple trips a week to Costco, morning routines, homeschooling and as many family outings as they can schedule. While many of Barbee’s followers are fascinated by the family structure and overall supportive, she says she’s gained valuable insight from the negative comments.
“I’ve gained that people really hate kids. People hate families. People really hate Black families,” she told EBONY. “There are a lot of miserable people, and they want you to feel miserable, too. But that’s just projection.”
Content Equals Confidence
The content creation experience has also become a point of self-reflection and worldview. Alaysia remarked that brands who only offer compensation in the form of products/gifts miss the point: she needs money, “not a teddy bear.” Lee realized that people truly believe that Black women in poverty don’t want better for themselves, which informs how they treat and speak about them. Barbee mentioned that although she isn’t monetized on any platforms yet, the editing process has become a hobby she truly enjoys.
Jonae says even with negative feedback from commenters here and there, she’s found strength in two things.
“Community and confidence,” she said assertively. ”Growing up, everyone’s always been like, you’ve always been confident” but I never felt it. When I decided to get on social media, and I started seeing how people were receiving me that didn’t even know me, … I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m worried about the wrong things.’ So that really helped with my confidence because I came on there in my rawest form.”
Beyond the Screen
How else are these mothers making ends meet?
For Lee and Alaysia, content creation is both a resource and an income source. The two receive government assistance, visit their local food banks, and monetize some or all of the major social media platforms, which boosts their families’ income. Lee told EBONY that in a real pinch, she’ll go live on TikTok and tell her followers about her day. In turn, her followers send donations, which she uses for groceries or an easy dinner option, like pizza.
Barbee, 45, really relies on tips and tricks she’s accumulated over the years: cloth diapers, buying quality clothes that she’s able to pass down to her younger children or buying clothes only when they’re on sale, and stocking up on filling whole foods in bulk, like rice, beans, potatoes. She and Will also buy a whole hog and a whole cow twice a year, which their family freezes and eats for protein. They also grow their own vegetables like pumpkins, peppers and cucumbers. Pair that with their 40 chickens and ducks, and the Barbees are able to find ways to sustain even as grocery prices noticeably rise.
Oh, and Shay Barbee also has her own homemade recipe for when she couldn’t breastfeed: 2 cups of whole milk, 1 ¾ cups of water, 1 teaspoon of molasses, ¼ teaspoon of virgin olive oil, ½ teaspoon of coconut oil and 2 teaspoons of maple syrup.
“One mom thanked me profusely because she was paying $412 a month just for formula,” Barbee tells EBONY. “With the recipe I gave her, she’s saving $250 a month.”
Jonae’s lifestyle is slightly different from what is stereotypically expected of a single mother. She makes a decent living as a project manager, a job she can do from home thanks to a part-time nanny. Because she’s above the poverty line but far from wealthy and in school to become a reproductive endocrinologist, she represents a number of women who have to find a way without the help of government assistance.
“ I feel like working-class, middle-class moms struggle the hardest because we don’t get that government assistance,” says Jonae. “ We don’t qualify for anything. I still have to pay for insurance through my job because I can’t qualify for Medicaid.”
That’s what drove her to start making content. Budgeting months in advance for special occasions like her children’s birthdays (all in October) and sticking to a tight schedule has been her saving grace. She completes her schoolwork at night while her daughters sleep and sets her work shift so she can get her children dressed in the morning and pick up her eldest daughter from school in the afternoon. Re-prioritization is the name of the game.
A New Lesson to Share
Ultimately, Black women are doing what they can to get the job done. Even in a job market that has disproportionately affected them and their bills, they’re finding their way through entrepreneurship and community.
Jonae hopes her content carries a resounding message.
“Every single mom is still a person,” she said. “Some of them are single moms from loss. Some of them are single moms because they chose to be. Some of them are single moms because they thought that they were gonna have it all and had to leave that person, get a divorce, or escape. So not all situations are what you think they are,” she stated.
“I want people to just continue to understand that for the single moms that feel defeated because it wasn’t the life they thought they were gonna have — there’s still a life after. I know that I can come out of this. I know that I can do better for my kids.”