Single mother of 3 who beat the odds as teen mom honored by her children
This is a story of perseverance, love and undying grit. Three children are paying tribute to their mother, who left home at 16 and went on to raise them all on her own.
Tracy Tate and her three grown children know the true meaning of sacrifice. Together, these four overcame a lifetime of setbacks and struggles.
"Even though my kids had to do without a lot, even without electricity and gas simple things like that, sometimes food, but you know what we were always together and things eventually did get better," said Tate.
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Tate became a teen mom at 17 years old and was a single mother of three by the time she was just 25. She raised the kids, and they helped raise her, as she worked four jobs to keep food on the table.
"She's been thrown a lot of bad curves from life. And she could have easily thrown in the towel with three kids trying to make their dreams come true, trying to make her own dreams come true, trying to be a kid raising kids," said Derek Chip, Tate's son.
Derek, Desiree and Jon Jr. are all grown and out of the house now, but their mother still plays an important role in their lives.
"I always say that you know I'm the daughter of a dreamer, somebody like who can believe that anything is possible," said Desiree Miller, Tate's daughter.
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"She's just always been that person to lend out a hand or help me focus or give me some type of advice, and when no one else was there was like, 'hey I got you,'" said Jon Anderson Jr., Tate's son.
And in a home where education was paramount, it's no surprise that now all four of them have college degrees.
"As a mother, I always like to go, now I'm OK because every mother wants to make sure their babies are OK and by my kids having college educations, no matter if I'm here or not, they're going to be OK," said Tate.
