I was a single mom of 4 boys. The hardest part wasn't always the money or exhaustion but the judgment.

• I raised four sons alone while working multiple jobs and struggling to make ends meet.
• Strangers constantly pitied us and made my boys feel like they were a burden.
• I learned to ignore their judgment and protect the happiness we had built together.

A woman was following us at the grocery store. It took me a few aisles for my hackles to rise, to get that weird Spidey-sense tingle that something wasn't quite right. I was focused on my sons, aged 2, 3, 7, and 9, trying to smooth over little skirmishes about whose turn it was to pick out the cereal, push the cart, or hold my hand. The easy, regular bickering that was the backdrop of our lives.

After about three aisles, I noticed this woman. Older, alone, watching us. Staring at us. I was so conceited about my sons that I assumed she was charmed by us until she walked over and said, "Are all of these children yours?"

I was 30 years old. Young for this many children or really any children at all. I told her yes, these were my sons, and she dropped the same three words I have since come to loathe with every fiber of my being. "You poor thing." Said always with a cluck of the tongue or a sad shake of the head. My children, always within earshot, told in so many words and so many ways that they were less valuable because they were many and I was one.

An unwanted death knell to the happy, regular life we were enjoying mere moments ago.

I heard this so often

A version of this conversation happened with absurd frequency when my sons were growing up. Strangers would notice that I was on my own with four sons and that I needed to get the details. "Are all these yours?" was often the opening salvo. A question that was no one's business, a question that turned my sons, my lovely, funny, beautiful boys, into things.

I always answered, I'm not sure why. Maybe I hoped for a different response, a positive affirmation of what I saw. "Wow, they're all so good!" or "They all look so much like you," or some other compliment to warm me and bolster me or keep me going.

Because it was not easy raising the boys on my own. We never had any money, no matter how many jobs I worked. We rented houses we could barely afford and sometimes couldn't afford at all. We moved a lot. We lost so many little heirlooms in those moves, which breaks my heart to this day.

We rarely had a car. We walked everywhere.

It was lonely to be a single mom

It was lonely too, raising the boys on my own. Always a little unsure if I was getting it right. I was desperate for confirmation that we were OK. I would have given anything for a kind comment from a stranger, just to hear that we seemed OK. That we seemed like a nice family even if we were broke.

Instead, I always heard "you poor thing." Or "those poor kids." Or maybe worst of all, "how awful for you." A condemnation of us and our life together. Decision made. We were awful. We were to be pitied.

I can't tell you how much harder strangers made things for me as a single mom. Their comments made me feel ashamed of myself. Nervous, anxious to make sure those "poor kids" behaved to avoid further judgment.

These strangers and their comments made my sons feel as though they were a disappointment to me. And in some ways, I think I let them. Too many times after a stranger called us "poor things" or clucked sadly or shook their heads, I snapped at my kids. Told them to stop arguing, stop goofing around, stop being regular little boys. It was like I stepped outside myself and saw us as poor things too.

That day in the grocery store was my final straw. Something clicked in me. I didn't cause a scene, fight with her, or call her out for her dumb comment. I just didn't let it in. I smiled at the boys. I let them get Count Chocula and strawberry Pop-Tarts as a weekend treat. I started building a little mental bubble around us against strangers, one that would protect us for years to come. Keep us sane and grounded through decades of struggle, both financial and emotional, when the kindness of strangers might actually have made life a little easier.

I just wish I didn't have to.