Single motherhood is hard no matter what stage of life you’re in. But Summer has an unusual perspective: She has become a single mom twice over, first in the aughts and again in the 2020s, raising two children born more than two decades apart. And this time, she has found it much more difficult to stay afloat. In the past 20 years, housing, child-care, and health-care costs have significantly outpaced wage growth, putting even more financial stress on single parents. Meanwhile, recent cuts to assistance programs such as SNAP (commonly known as food stamps) and Head Start (federally subsidized preschool) make it harder for low-income parents to cover day-to-day expenses. In this week's #MyTwoCents, Summer talks to personal-finance columnist Charlotte Cowles about why, despite having a better job and more support this time around, her financial struggles are much greater than they were two decades prior. Read on at the link in bio. Photo-Illustration: By The Cut; Photo: Getty Images