Chineva Smith: Showing single-parent students the support she didn’t have
“Single parents; we don’t ask to stay in poverty. We don’t ask to struggle. Like, nobody wakes up one morning and says, ‘Hey, I wanna struggle. Hey, I wanna give my kids less of what they deserve. I don’t wanna strive for the best.’ I am a single-mom who went out for two degrees. So, it shows that I really have grit. I really have a passion to be the best mother to my children, and to let them know that no matter what life throws at you, you have to stay true to yourself and your beliefs. That, no matter how many times people tell you what you can’t do, if you know that you can do it, find a way around to do it.”
Intern. Graduate student. Woman.
Mother of two.
Last fall, Raise The Barr welcomed Chineva Smith to our team. Serving as our first-ever Single-Parent Student Liaison and Administrative Services Support Intern, Chineva works directly with RTB scholars to support their engagement and facilitate programming within the organization, as well as managing scholar data. Meanwhile, she is also working toward a dual-degree at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, where she is pursuing a Master in Education, Administrative Leadership-Adult and Continuing Education and Higher Education with a Certificate in Teaching Finally, and perhaps most importantly, she does all of this as a full-time single-mother of two.
Like our scholars, Chineva has overcome unimaginable challenges as a single mother and college student. She grew up in the foster care system, was diagnosed with a learning disability in college, became a mother before finishing her teen years, and spent the first several years of her children’s lives raising them with very little outside support. By hearing her story of persistence, optimism, and love despite these barriers, we can learn to approach the world of single-parenting among college students with admiration and compassion, rather than ignorance and judgment.
Chineva has faced judgment regarding many aspects of her life, whether she chose these experiences for herself or not. For example, she has received disapproval from strangers simply because of her youthfulness as a mother. “You have to think about it like this,” she affirms in response. “For anyone who doesn’t agree with single-parenting or who has judged single-parenting, anybody can become a single parent. So that’s one of the harsh realities of things. It can either be by choice, or by—not by choice—by force.”
Chineva even had trouble finding support within her own community, where she faced doubt rather than the encouragement she needed. “During college, I didn’t have a lot of family support when it came to, like, babysitting, so I just had to figure out things,” She recalls. She often had no choice but to sneak her sons into work or lectures, because she didn’t qualify for family leave, or FMLA.
She has also borne the weight of switching between jobs quite frequently. “A lot of times, people don’t job-hop just because they want to or because they’re uninterested. For my story, I had to because I had that feeling of, ‘oh my gosh, they’re gonna let me go because I have to go make sure my son is okay,’” she explains. “I used to be embarrassed about that, but now I’m not, because it’s a part of my story.”
Unfortunately, the challenges haven’t stopped here. Chineva’s sons have experienced their own challenges as well. These experiences inspired Chineva to work as a paraprofessional for their public school district, which helped her learn to accept and advocate for her personal family circumstances. “Once I started being around the right people, the right resources, I knew [special needs] wasn’t something to be ashamed of,” she states.
Despite all of these hurdles, Chineva has never stopped working to be the best mother possible.
“I believed that I could do it, that just because I became a mom at a young age didn’t mean that I couldn’t do it,” she recounts. “I never missed a field trip. I never missed a doctor’s appointment or anything for my children, and I still don’t know how I did that, but we got it done. I had to get it done. … Being their mom is one of the most uplifting things. Parenting can be challenging, but it’s the biggest reward.”
Whenever she speaks about her sons, Chi’Neva radiates love and pride:
“Not one day did I wake up and say ‘I hate being a young single mom.’ No, I woke up every day saying ‘I love being a mom and I'm gonna show my children different.’ … I always say that Juélz taught me the importance of love. He is one of the most empathetic, most caring, gentlest souls that I have ever met in my life. … Just coming from my background, I had a very hard core to me,” she beams. “He softened his mama up. He’s softened me up so much. So that’s why I always say that Juélz taught me what it [means] to love. Love other people and actually love myself more.”
Of course, she shows equal affection for her youngest, Caden. “His name means ‘warrior,” Chineva explains. “The reason why I chose ‘Caden’ as ‘warrior’ is because I had a very tough pregnancy with Caden. Caden taught me strength, lengths of strength that I did not know that I had. He came into this world earlier than expected and ended up being on life support. So, that was a very traumatic time during my life, and his life of course. … he fought for his life—he fights every day, in regard to letting his voice be heard. Letting people know where he stands.” Chineva also takes pride in the fact that Caden is very “articulate, inquisitive, and intelligent,” pointing out that “he means business, but he has a loving soul.”
In light of all of the challenges she has faced, we admire Chineva’s unwavering love and determination. However, Raise The Barr asserts that parents like Chineva should be supported along their journey, which is why we strive to provide single-parent students with the resources and guidance that they deserve.
“I want to be the living proof that when you have a learning disability you still are able to go to the highest level of formal education,” says Chineva. “I beat the odds, and I want to give that same inspiration to others who are on this journey.” She wants “any parent out there, who has a similar situation as a single parent or as a student-parent, to know what kind of support that they have, what kind of support that we’re trying to give. And to be encouraged, to be inspired, and to know that they’re not alone during this journey at all.”
Chineva, we are so blessed to have you as a member of the Raise The Barr family.
