Poverty Simulation - What was going on in the Mother's heads?

As one of the mothers role-playing in the poverty simulation, the stress was very high even though I knew it wasn’t a real situation for me. Stress plays a difficult role in the lives of low-income women (especially single mothers like the one I was playing). It was eye-opening to recognize how little $200 a week actually is in comparison to all of the bills that needed to be paid. Like in real life, kids get sick, refrigerators break, and day-care is ridiculously expensive. I had to put all of my energy and money into things that were just barely making our lives livable. I have certainly lived paycheck to paycheck here at JMU but I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to do that with two children (which is where most of the mother’s income went). I think low-income women perceive themselves in a way that they’re just barely making it in life. It’s very discouraging and it makes you feel like you can’t do anything right. When you’re just making ends meet, I can imagine low-income mother’s feel like terrible mothers when they can’t give their children everything they need, let alone what they want. I can imagine that low-income mothers are completely lacking in confidence and hope when they can’t even spend time with their children because they have to work just to pay some of the bills. It was pretty scary to be put in that role because while you’re only role-playing, it’s difficult to know that so many women are in that actual position in life.