This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.
When Maddie Baker told her mom she wanted to be a teacher, her mother had three words for her: Don’t do it.
Baker’s mother, a teacher who raised Baker and her two siblings as a single parent, warned her that teachers don’t get paid enough to live comfortably — a reality Baker says she experienced firsthand, especially during the holiday season when her mom would go six weeks without a paycheck because of how teacher pay is structured around the break.
“I watched her struggle a lot ... But I’m the type of person that if my mom [tells] me not to do it, naturally, I’m going to do it,” Baker says. “I have known pretty much my whole life that I wanted to be a teacher.”
In August, the 27-year-old first-grade teacher from Rockingham, Virginia, will begin her sixth year teaching. As a teacher, she’s slated to make around $58,000 for the upcoming school year.
