In 2003 an estimated 60,000 kids in the United States were living in shelters without parents according to Wilder sources. That is a pretty big number of kids that don’t have parents supporting them. It is very shocking to me that we take our parents for granted and don’t realize how important they truly are in our lives. For example, my mom probably hasn’t saved me from death the way most people think of. My mom didn’t save me from getting hit by a car or getting abducted by the strange man in a Walmart. She saved me from me. I never would have survived without her and that’s why she is the person who has affected my life in the biggest way. She has done this by paying for everything of mine since a young age, helping me through my toughest times as an early teen and her still being there for me now.

As most moms do, they pay for everything. They start paying for a child the second they are born and even before that! Most kids don’t take this into thought at all. Almost everyone’s mother paid for their food, shelter, water, internet and maybe even their kid’s phone. Take this number into consideration, from a child's birth till they’re eighteen years of age, a middle-income family will spend about two hundred forty-five thousand, three hundred and forty dollars just on one kid. That number comes from businessinsider. My family is a middle-income family so I look at that number now and it amazes me. I can’t believe my parents spent that much money on me and my siblings. I wouldn’t be alive right now and living the life I am, if they had just abandoned me. That is an insane amount of money to pay for a child. We as teenagers will say that we hate our parents and don’t love them or that they don’t love us. Just think, if they didn’t love us they wouldn’t have spent all that money on us in the first place. In most families, a mom/dad will pay for food, water, and shelter. It is kind of an obligation to them. Kids phones and internet, are not a necessity to have. In an experiment called “The World as 100 people” it shows that 75 people would have phones and 25 would not, but for internet use, only 30 can access it out of 100. As a child, parents will help kids out with almost everything. They are given to people not as a right but a privilege. As a child’s life continues to the teenages they try to become more independent and shun away from parents and trying to get help.

Now I am in my teen years trying to become more stable and independent for myself. Some challenges though I can’t take on alone. May through August 2017 was the hardest time for me. I tried to take it all on by myself and I fell quick. I had self-diagnosed myself with an eating disorder called anorexia nervosa more commonly known as just anorexia. It was the scariest thing for me to hear. I was a 14-year-old girl that never thought I would ever be that sad and alone to harm myself in such a severe way. I struggled with it by myself for 2 months. In those two months, May and June, I also lost my two best friends. I was devastated and the only thing that helped me out was my mom. I don’t think I would be alive today without her. In July I told my mom about everything that was going on in my life and it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. She is so significant because she was the only person that actually got through to me. Sure, friends tried to tell me to stop and that it wasn’t okay but I didn’t care. My mom told me it wasn’t worth it and it hit me hard. I was hurting myself so badly and I couldn’t control myself. She helped me realize that I can’t control how others see me or who likes me and who doesn’t, but none of that mattered because my parents will always accept me. In the United states unparented kids are rising rapidly. These kids have no one to fall back to unlike me. I had hit my rock bottom but my mom was still there.

My mom never gave up on me. It seemed like I could be the biggest screw-up and make the worst decisions, but she would always be there for me to fall back on. After that whole incident, it still lives with me today and I will always struggle with it. The thing is, that I continued to make mistakes even after I thought I was okay. I got into trouble with another school because I broke the law.I had never expected myself to do something like that. I could have been charged but I wasn’t and I am forever grateful for that. My mom was so disappointed in me that she couldn’t even stand to talk to me. I was so ashamed and embarrassed with myself that I didn’t want to talk to anyone. My mom might have been upset with me but she never gave up on me. She worked it all out with me and never left my side. She refused to let me do it all alone and that was a big moment in my life. I knew that someone would always be there and I could always talk to her if needed. Even though sometimes I can be the rudest child and say some pretty mean things she always stayed. She stayed unlike my “friends” that left because of my poor choices. They thought I was a criminal and I couldn’t be trusted and as a 14-year-old, 4.0 GPA girl, that hurts bad. I was always a great kid and parents trusted me but now they don’t allow me to be around their kids at all. Some people chose to leave but my mom didn’t. She was my only friend for a little while. Brianna Johnston was also there through it all and never left because we were best friends and I am very happy I still have her. Brianna did a lot but overall my mom was my motivator. My problem with the law was the most recent incident and I haven’t had one since then and plan to keep it that way.

If I think about it, I’m incapable to pay for myself at a young age and even when I get to be a teenager my parents pay for almost all my stuff. When I become a teenager I try to become more independent but I will always need someone to fall back too if I get in trouble. I always needed to remember that my mom was there when no one else was. My mom is the most important and most significant person in my life because without her I wouldn't be alive. I was on the verge of death if I had kept up what I was doing and she saved me from it and I'm glad she did. Now in 2017, about 171,000 kids live homeless without parents. The number is rapidly increasing and it isn’t slowing down for anything. Kid these days need their parents more than ever. Now that I think to myself, I need to thank my mom for not leaving.