Before her daughter was born in 2024, Ariana McClendon’s closest family members were over 2,000 miles away in arid and sun-soaked Southern California. Though, it was originally her family that brought Ariana to North Carolina.
During her junior year of high school, the entire family made the cross-country move from California to North Carolina. While her family moved back to the west coast, she chose to stay in Charlotte after high school and put down roots.
It takes an immense amount of inner-strength and courage to be a young adult starting out on your own, so far away from everything and everyone familiar. For Ariana, becoming a mom has only amplified her strength.
“My strength comes from her,” Ariana says of her daughter. “I never thought I could be on my own and be as strong as I am until I had her.”
Ariana began relying on that strength in even her earliest moments of motherhood, right after she delivered her daughter.
“I had to have a C-section, and I was in there alone,” she remembers. “When you have a C-section, you need help with everything, even getting out of bed — there was so much going on that I didn’t have help with.”
While Ariana went home to recover, her daughter had to stay behind in the NICU; but, regardless of her own situation, she was determined to never let her daughter feel alone.
“I was in a wheelchair with a fresh scar, and I couldn’t even stand up straight — but I still showed up to the NICU every day,” she says. “The thing I kept telling myself was: this is not forever. You’re going to heal and everything’s going to feel better.”
Not long after, life shifted again. Ariana’s mother suffered a stroke back in California, so Ariana and her daughter packed up and flew west to be with her family. While she was there, she lost her job in North Carolina — one more instability layered onto an already fragile moment.
When Ariana returned to Charlotte, she needed help rebuilding. That need led her to Charlotte Family Housing (CFH), where she grew to accept that needing support didn’t diminish her strength.
“Nobody should ever feel shame about needing help,” she says.
Inside the CFH program, Ariana met other single mothers — women raising two, three, or even four children on their own. As she watched them, she began to feel less alone.
“I saw so many other moms doing it all on their own,” she remembers. “Seeing that gave me so much perspective. And we all worked hard, we all found our way, and we eventually moved out.”
After a few months in the CFH family shelter, Ariana and her daughter moved into an apartment of their own — a safe place where they can continue to grow up and mature together.
“I love knowing that I have somebody I can raise and help become who I hope she’ll be — mature, someone who loves herself, and is an independent woman,” she says. “And I love that it’s happening now, because I feel like we’re growing together.”
Now Ariana is focused on building stability for her small family and showing her daughter the power of showing up for yourself. She’s started earning her degree in respiratory therapy at Central Piedmont Community College.
“My biggest goal is to graduate college,” she says. “I genuinely believe that once I graduate, it’s going to put me in a different financial situation, and I’ll be able to provide a better life and have more financial freedom. Keeping us healthy, keeping a roof over our heads, and watching her grow — those are my goals.”
If strength once meant standing on her own, it now means something different: building a life with someone growing beside her, knowing that neither of them will ever have to endure anything alone.
“I feel like I have a bubble that nobody can pop. I just take care of me and my daughter and make it about me and her,” Ariana says. “I really hope she sees the respect I have for myself and how hard I work for me and her so that when she grows up, those traits are instilled in her.”
This story is part of our “Mighty Like A Mother” series celebrating Mother’s Day and honoring the strength of single mothers in our community. Read more: Mighty Like a Mother – Charlotte Family Housing
