I'm going to lose my mind. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate because I've put my son and I in this situation by having him, but I was 18 at the time and in love. I was pressured by my boyfriend's mother to keep my baby because of her conservative beliefs. I know now that this was a load of fucking shit but I was still a child myself and terrified so I had listened to the woman telling me I would be disowned from her family and sent to hell if I got an abortion. We lived with her at the time and my boyfriend was only making 8 dollars an hour, so I had nowhere else to go. I thought that we would end up just staying with them but after I had my son she turned even more unbearable to live with and her POS husband started threatening me over everything, so we moved out when my boyfriend managed to get his current job and we don't communicate with her anymore. I literally don't and can't go back to living with them and will not send my child with them so that I can go work. I have no one else to take our son.
My boyfriend, son and I live in a 2 bedroom apartment and we BARELY get by on what he makes. 13 an hour, we are lucky to live in a fairly cheap city with our rent 700 a month. It was 650 but they raised it when we renewed our lease. I have not been able to get a job since we've had our son. He's 2 and a half now and with prices rising and my bf's wage not changing, it's starting to become impossible to afford what we could a year ago. I want to work, I want to work so bad so that I can just help us afford needs and hell, for once even wants. I have no job experience or education other than a HS diploma so I couldn't land anything higher than 10 dollars an hour here. The issue is, with the cost of childcare here I feel like I would literally be working just to pay for it. I mean at the end of the month childcare would cost MORE THAN OUR RENT. I don't know what to do. I tried to get childcare assistance but I was told that I would have to file child support against my boyfriend because we're not married. (how the FUCK does that work when he supports us and lives with us???) Even if we got married and I got a job, with our income combined we wouldn't even qualify for childcare assistance. We got kicked off of food stamps because my boyfriend's job started making him work 4 hours of overtime every week. I'm so fucking desperate. I don't regret having my son because being able to raise him this far have been the best moments of my life. But I swear to god I would change it all completely if I could have waited at least 5 more years for this little guy. I'm sorry for this rant. I don't know where else to share this to and this feels like a proper place to put it because I feel like the system completely fucked me. Years ago I could be the stay at home mom and we'd be living in a house right now.