Undergraduate / College Essay.. How having a single mother has influenced my identity [4]

Prompt: Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Below is my college essay and I was hoping for possible tips on making this a better essay. I wanted to make sure if it was clear and focused? On topic? Interesting? I would love feed back, thank you!

When I think of whom I am and my background as a whole, I automatically think of growing up in my home. I grew up in a single parent home with a single mother who I am most gracious for. Although this is one of the biggest challenges I may have had to face while growing up, it has been a motivating factor throughout my life. Since an early age, watching my hard working mother, I knew I wanted to be successful and I knew that would be something I would have to work hard for in order to reach but this would be essential to growing into who I am and my motivator through growing up. My mom has always instilled the importance of work ethics to me. At the age of fourteen I began my first part-time job. I took on this job to help with my increasing wants as a teenager. This enabled to learn at an early age to work what I want. As I grew up I watched my mother balance attending grad school, working full time in a low income school system, and of course raising me. Seeing this made me realize that things can be done with balance, perseverance, and structure as long as you put your mind to it. My mom's great balance with life has taught me great responsibly skills as a teenager to balance my academic work, work it, and sports. My mother has overall shaped my worth ethic and my perspective to work hard for what I want. My mother's values have always inspired me to set and achieve goals with balance and hard work. The strong support system given by my mother gives me the courage to go for my goals and to try my hardest and better myself whether it is at school, in the work place, or during sports. Being raised by a single mother has been such an essential to my identity because my mother has always shown be that hard work, dedication, and independence is what it takes to be a strong person or at least as among at my mother. These qualities are what I hope to strive for with all the things I may face along my journey in life. The strong relationship I've built with my mom has helped me develop who I am. Having women's influence and opinion, I've become strong minded and determined to go for what I want without the reliance of others. I believe that growing up with a strong women role model has influenced me in taking recognition to feminism because of her strong traits as women. I also have come to believe that my mother has influenced my interest in finding a career involving working with families. I've never tried to see growing up in a single parent home as necessarily a hardship or what people may consider as a hardship but as an overall beneficial and motivating learning experience. Ultimately, I find growing up with a single person to have made me a better person. A better person who has learned the values of hard work, dedication, and overall being strong. I could never show my mother the thanks to shaping me into who I am.