Hilda Morales-Roybal
Mother of four and foster parent
Educator
San Antonio, Texas
Before moving to central Texas, I had lived in the border town of El Paso for most of my life. The flow of drugs into the country from Mexico was a constant topic of conversation, and a problem on the minds of most local parents. So for my family and I, stories of drug abuse and overdoses were incredibly common. I thought I had heard it all—until someone told me that teens were abusing over-the-counter cough medicines.
The reality was, I could imagine kids abusing anything but cough medicines. I was shocked, but what was most shocking was that this was a growing problem within my own community, and I had no idea it was happening.
I have a fantastic relationship with my four children, and talk to them about everything. I have also been a foster parent to eleven children over the last several years. I am an educator, working with families and children in the San Antonio area on a daily basis. And yet with all of this contact with my own children, foster children, and the local community, I was still clueless.
I was left with one question: If a mother of four, foster mother of many, and local educator was unaware that cough medicine abuse was a problem, how many other parents are in the dark? The numbers are too high to imagine, which is why I’ve joined the Five Moms Campaign.
I am the first in my family to graduate high school, and the first to get a college education. I am living my dream, working as an educator and helping to provide Hispanic-American families and children with the same great opportunities that I was fortunate enough to have as a child. But my greatest accomplishment is simply being a mother.
Two of my kids are grown, and I have two still at home: my 11-year-old and my 10-year-old. My 10-year-old loves sports, while my 11-year-old loves to draw and loves school. I love spending time with them, playing basketball or just sharing breakfast together. I’m really aware of how important it is to be a role model for them. I think they look to me for advice, and for inspiration about how to live life and succeed. That’s a huge responsibility that I take very seriously.
Today’s teens are faced with a world of challenges and negative influences that we as parents could never have imagined years ago: online predators, violence on television, and now a host of new types of drugs being abused. Sometimes it feels like our job as parents is just to try and keep up with the changing times. I hope that the Five Moms Campaign will help parents do that.
