Kirkland faced personal and financial struggles at an early age and experienced even more poverty when her mother, Tara, was diagnosed with breast cancer, which often led Kirkland to struggle in school as she had to care for her siblings and see her mother back and forth in hospitals from procedures. Both her parents had separated when she was a young child, but Lil Mama always maintained a close relationship with her father, visiting him consistently. Her family became homeless and their mother had moved her and her siblings into a shelter due to poverty at the time. Lil Mama told Power 105.1 she stayed in the shelters for seven years from her kindergarten year until the beginning of her eighth grade year when they managed to get an apartment in the Bronx and gain more stability. Her younger sibling's father was deceased, so her mother was the Matriarch of her family. She contributed to helping her mother financially by taking up small jobs such as baking. Growing up, Kirkland witnessed many hardships in her community including gang & drug violence, teen pregnancy, and domestic violence.