When Part 1 of Stranger Things Season 4 dropped, I, like so many other people, gobbled it up like I was shoving delicious (albeit very creepy) cake into my mouth. When Part 2 came out, I did the same. Once it was all over, I sat back and reflected on something that I’ve thought about since I watched the very first season. Joyce Byers is an amazingly hard-core mother. 

Her love for her two sons, Will and Johnathan, is incredible, but it doesn’t stop there. She also clearly cares deeply about their goofy yet scrappy neighborhood friends. She seems willing to do just about anything for any of them, including going to battle with a demonic Demogorgon, infiltrating a secret Russian base in Hawkins, and breaking into a Soviet prison that happens to be filled with not only Russian soldiers but also more Demogorgons. 

Yes, Joyce is brave and dedicated, but what draws me to her character is how she demonstrates the toughness and raw love that all single mothers embody. 

I know this because I was raised by two different single mothers: my mom and my grandmother. I was 9 when my dad walked out of my family, and I was 19 when he died after a long battle with opioid addiction. I can remember my mother leaving before I left for school to get to her job collecting payments at the power company, and coming home late after her second job cleaning houses. She’d walk in well after 9 p.m., wearing stained sweatpants and an old sweatshirt, the dress she wore to the power company slung over her shoulder, a bucket of cleaning supplies and scrubbing brushes in her right hand, her fingertips still wrinkly from working with soapy water. 

My father never consistently paid child support. He was in jail during part of my high school years, and there were times when no one seemed to know where he was living. And so my brother, sister and I really leaned on my mother for everything. And as I watch Stranger Things, I can’t help but feel confident that, if needed, my mother would have stormed a secret military installation or come charging into the Upside Down to rescue one of her children, because mothers, particularly single mothers, are some of the most loving and hard-core humans in existence..

I moved in with my grandmother when I was 14, and she cared for me throughout high school. Once again I was living with a single mother, just a three-decades-older version. She showed the intense commitment and grit to see me become something “respectable” as she often said. Grandma once drove me to a guitar lesson, and a drunk, gnarly man in an Ozzy Osbourne T-shirt stepped in front of our car. He pounded the hood and dropped a few swears, and my grandmother rolled down the window, stuck her old lady perm out, and told the man to watch his mouth and get some pants that fit “proper,” all while wagging her wrinkled finger. When I look back on this moment, I can’t help but recognize that this dude was as intimidating as any Vecna, yet Grandma didn’t miss a beat. That was one of those moments that, even as a teen, I realized that my grandmother was not someone to trifle with. 

Grandma argued with me about homework, chores, curfews, TV shows and music. She was up in my business in all the ways I hated as a teen, but ultimately all the ways I needed, and when I look back on my grandmother and my mother, I realize that they both loved me enough to help me fight the Vecnas and Demogorgons in my life, and to not only be the mothers I needed but also fill in for the father who wasn’t around.

Joyce is just as devoted to her loved ones’ safety and happiness. Throughout this latest season of Stranger Things, she goes storming off to Alaska; gets kidnapped by a Russian smuggler; breaks into a Russian prison, breaks out, then breaks in again — all to save Jim Hopper, but she never stops fretting over how her children back home. It’s difficult to not see in Joyce the same devotion and love of the two single mothers who raised me.

If we learn nothing else from Joyce, it’s that single mothers are some of the most fierce and dedicated people in the world. They don’t take crap from humans, monsters or government entities. And when it comes to saving their family and friends, nothing can stop them, not international borders, prison walls or interdimensional gates. Breaking local laws, facing certain death, or committing federal and international crimes don’t really matter if they come between them and protecting their children, and frankly, that’s something to be admired, respected and, in some cases, feared. 

Is Joyce the perfect mother? Well... is there such a thing? I know my mother and grandmother certainly weren’t. And I would say that it’s the same with Joyce. But she’s caring, loyal and loves her kids, along with the people around her. That, my friends, is exactly what makes single mothers such tough and incredibly admirable humans, and it’s what ultimately makes Joyce Byers a love letter to single mothers everywhere.

So, my single mother friends out there reading this, please realize that there’s a whole lot of Joyce Byers in all of you. You’re some of the toughest humans in the world, and while the challenges you are faced with may not be as dramatic as a Vecna, a Mind Flayer or the KGB, please realize that they’re equally challenging. As a child who was raised by two single mothers, I can say with confidence that you’re making a huge difference in the lives of your children. And effecting change is one of the most remarkable things any human can do.