Making the decision to be a single mom may be difficult but it can also be the most empowering one.
Once you become a mother, you realize you have strengths you never thought you had. Loving your child completely, you develop the courage to make choices you may not have made if you only had yourself to look out for.
This is true for most moms but all the moreso for single moms who make the brave decision to go it alone as a parent. Oftentimes, that difficult decision leads to empowerment and that is what happened with Drey.
“My mompowering experience was when I decided to be a single mom. Eventually, and as a result, I had another mompowering moment when I quit my corporate job so I could have more time with my daughter,” shared Drey.
With the help of her sister, Dara, who was also a single mom at the time, Drey left the advertising world where she had been for the longest time and they set up work that not only allowed them to collaborate with each other but also to have a hold on their work hours in order to prioritize their young children.
“My sister pushed me in a way that opened doors to new experiences. I realized that the 9-5 job I was afraid to leave in the beginning wasn’t an 8-hour job anyway. Advertising work is stressful and when you have mommy duties on top of that, you can end up being very stressed and just unhappy. That’s what happened to me. And so I took the plunge,” shared Drey.
It was a plunge that she does not regret making as she is definitely happier now; able to spend quality time with her daughter Ali, who is now 13, and most importantly, have time for herself. Drey strongly advises moms especially single moms, to make time for themselves whether it’s to exercise or to catch up with friends. This creates balance and happiness.
Drey continues to find her mompowerment moments in the small day-to-day things like when she and her daughter are able to sleep early together and have breakfast together because she’s not rushing to go to work. She especially loves those moments when Ali makes breakfast for her.
Drey learned the hard way that a balanced life is the key to a happy life and that is what she wants to be able to teach her Ali.
“As a single parent, I teach my daughter to value my time and respect it as well. I teach her the value of hard work. She knows how to budget because she’s aware she can’t have everything just like that. She sees me working hard to pay for her tuition fees, to shop for her, provide for her. I like that she knows that. She doesn’t ask for money, instead, she asks what she can do to earn it. She’s a little entrepreneur herself. So I’m proud of that because, having raised her all on my own, she has grown to not be entitled,” shared Drey.
All these things, big and little, are Drey’s mompowerment wins. Every so often they remind her that the decisions she made many years ago, no matter how painful they may have been at the time, have all turned out to be the right ones.
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