The Blog
The data is one thing. The lived reality behind it is another. This is where we connect them.
We had food on the table. We weren't poor. But money was never talked about in our house — not between my parents, not with us kids. When I asked for something, the answer was either no, or: work for it yourself. I hit my thirties with zero financial framework. Not because I wasn't capable. Because no one ever taught me.
Read →When my mother died, the people disappeared. When my brother died, I was almost completely alone. When I had Toby, I understood for the first time what a village is supposed to feel like — and what it costs to not have one.
Read →I grew up losing people. My mother at 16. My brother at 18. I didn't know what it felt like for love to stay. Then I drove to Golden, BC — and found Tony in a kitchen.
Read →My body was dismissed by doctors for five years. My workplace assault was dismissed by my boss. The EI system dismissed sixteen years of contributions. At some point, you start silencing yourself.
Read →Somewhere between losing my mother, surviving my brother's death, and years of being dismissed by doctors, I had learned to hate myself quietly. It took a long time to see it.
Read →I had Crohn's disease. For five years, one doctor told me I was bulimic. I was sixteen years old and I partly believed him. This is what medical dismissal actually costs.
Read →I thought the system would protect me. I was wrong. This is the first of seven stories about the hidden poverties that keep women — and mothers — stuck.
Read →At The Poverty Solution, we work with thousands of mothers across North America. And what we see, over and over, is that poverty is never just one thing. It is layered, compounding, and deeply tied to systems and culture — not personal failure. This is the framework that changed how I understand it.
Read →Indigenous mothers in Canada face poverty rates 2–3 times higher than non-Indigenous mothers, the highest food insecurity rates of any demographic, and a system that was built to exclude them. This isn't a statistic. It's a colonial inheritance.
Read →When rent takes 50–70% of a family's income, everything else becomes impossible. Food. Childcare. Emergencies. Low-income mothers are being priced out of stability by design — and a raise only makes it worse.
Read →The motherhood penalty doesn't end when your kids turn 18. Every year out of the workforce, every reduced hour, every unpaid caregiving shift — it compounds into retirement. The gender pension gap is real, documented, and entirely predictable. That's not bad planning. That's a system.
Read →From age 15 to 31, I paid thousands into Employment Insurance in Canada. When I had my son and needed support, I got nothing — because I'd had the audacity to start my own business. The government kept all of it.
Read →Food insecurity in children often goes undetected because parents absorb the deficit first. The child who eats slowly and leaves nothing. The one who never asks for the expensive snack. This is what hunger actually looks like.
Read →Canadian food banks recorded 2.2 million visits in a single month in 2025 — double the rate from 2019. Two-parent working families now make up 23% of clients. This isn't a crisis anymore. It's the new baseline.
Read →More than half of women in lone-parent families in Canada are food insecure. Parents absorb food shortfalls so children don't feel them. This is the invisible hunger — the one that never makes the statistics.
Read →The story we tell about poverty is wrong. It's not a story about people who don't work — it's about a system where working isn't enough. Nearly 7 in 10 families in poverty have at least one working adult.
Read →A mother earning just above minimum wage faces an effective marginal tax rate of 65% — keeping only 35 cents of every additional dollar she earns. Taking a raise can make her thousands of dollars worse off. This is the benefits cliff, and it's by design.
Read →80% of all autoimmune disease cases affect women. Lupus is 9x more common in women. Sjögren's syndrome 19x. This isn't biological bad luck — researchers now believe chronic stress and caregiving burdens are part of the explanation.
Read →The majority of mothers report burnout — with some surveys finding rates above 90%. Chronic stress rewires the nervous system and dysregulates immunity. The invisible labour of caregiving isn't just exhausting — it's making women physically sick.
Read →Nearly half of young children in Nova Scotia live in childcare deserts — areas with fewer than 3 spaces per 10 children. In the U.S., 1 in 4 families has no access to childcare at all. This isn't a supply problem. It's a policy failure.
Read →In 85 of the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, childcare for two young children costs more than rent. The average annual childcare bill for two kids: $29,000. This isn't a childcare problem. It's a housing crisis in disguise.
Read →Canada promised $10-a-day childcare. The plan is falling 90,000 spaces short of its target. Waitlists are growing, hidden fees persist, and the families who need the program most are often the last to access it.
Read →A single mother in the U.S. spends 35% of her entire income on childcare just to go to work. A married couple spends 10%. The same care. Opposite affordability. This isn't bad budgeting — it's a structural trap.
Read →Over $113 billion in child support goes uncollected across North America. The system designed to protect your kids leaves mothers to fight expensive legal battles — or go without.
Read →Women lose 46–50% of their household income when a marriage ends. Men lose 15–23%. Same relationship, same divorce — opposite economic outcomes. And most women don't see it coming.
Read →In the first year after having a child, Canadian mothers see a 49% drop in earnings. That's not a temporary dip. Research shows it persists — still 34% lower — for over a decade.
Read →When a man has a child, his paycheck goes up by 25%. When a woman has a child, hers drops by nearly half. Same office. Same coworkers. Different rules.
Read →Most people know about the gender pay gap. Fewer know about its shadow — the motherhood penalty. Over a 30-year career, the average mother loses $600,000 compared to fathers working beside her. This is not an accident.
Read →"80% of autoimmune disease happens in women." It was said simply, like it was obvious. And everything I thought I knew about poverty shifted.
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