People rally around single mom who confessed to shoplifting diapers for her 7-month-old son

Parenting is one of the toughest jobs in the world even when you have a family and financial support. However, what happens when you're a single teen mother of an infant you had with an abusive man? In one such heartwrenching tale of motherhood and misery posted on Reddit by u/cityburnsx8, she talks about the lowest point of her life, pushing her to wonder if things will ever be better. The internet, however, comes to her rescue, makes her feel heard and gives her courage.

The beginning of this post shows just how terrified this mom was to write here, and just how scared and defeated by life she is. She gives a trigger warning of abuse in her post and starts her story. She was 18 years old when she got pregnant with her son, who is now 7 months old. The father of the baby was a terrible person. He was physically abusive when she refused to give in to his sexual urges. He was a 24-year-old with a job so the teen kept living with him for support.

Now, the woman's father passed away a couple weeks before this and her mother was no help whatsoever. It's this way to such a large extent that the teen often feels like her own mother prefers the baby daddy over her. So one day, she just left the father of her child when he was at work, and took whatever she could fit in her car. She said, "We ended up staying at hotels, and women's shelters and now I rent a room from a friend of a friend." She reached out to everyone she knew, but no one including her mother, was any help. She said, "I was able to get approved for WIC and SNAP and my son gets Medicaid and we're on the list for low-income housing but my social worker told me not to hold my breath because the wait list is years long. I DoorDash to make ends meet and have applied to so many jobs but I only have a GED so I either get rejections or just never hear anything back in the first place."

On one unfortunate day, she only had 4 diapers remaining for her son and no earnings from DoorDash. When she called the pediatrician's office to see if anything could be done, they were no help either. "The receptionist said they couldn't help me unless I had an appointment and my son's next appointment isn't until February for his 9-month wellness checkup." With nowhere to go and no one to help her, she went to Walmart and tore a packet of diapers to stuff a few in her bag. She then checked out, but the guilt ate her up inside. Ending her story, she said, "It shouldn't be this hard to survive after leaving an abusive relationship but I either had to do what I did or let my son be in wet soggy diapers and he didn't deserve that at all." Despite all of this, she still felt guilty and came on Reddit to ask people if she was in the wrong.

The community came together to support her and offer help. u/katerintree dropped some pearls of wisdom and said, "A wise man once said, 'If you ever see someone shoplifting diapers, no you fucking didn’t.' I second everyone encouraging you to hit up every possible local resource. I also want to encourage you: my kids are now 8 and 11, and I wouldn’t go back to 7 mos if you paid me. In my experience, the infant stage was the hardest, but it is gonna get easier. And you are going to get out of this shitty situation. You are resilient and strong, you can absolutely do this." u/JesusSaysRelaxNvaxx made a beautiful suggestion and asked, "OP, do you have an Amazon wishlist or anything? I'd be happy to send you some diapers. (Also I have no idea how it works lol, I just know I've received links before and was able to purchase items from their list)."