Georgia Miller did not have an easy life. The moral compass that becomes a part of people’s upbringing, one that they are taught in an environment of care and nurture, was never within her reach. That is not to say that she wasn’t aware of it. She just didn’t have the luxury to live by it. Was it Ervan Sylvanus who said that “it is easy to preach morals on a full belly”? Well, Georgia was full of fire, wanting to escape her hardships and build a better life for her children. As we see in Season 1 of “Ginny & Georgia,” she had grown up in an abusive household where she could not rely on anyone to take care of her. She did not have the option of “fighting” and had to resort to “flight.” Lucky for her, she meets some kind people in a motorcycle gang who were empathetic to her situation and willing to help her out. When she goes back home with a gun in her hand, pointed at her father, it is probably the first time she feels powerful and in control. The man who had tormented her for so long was shaking in fear in front of her. Shooting his hand was not just her revenge; it was a declaration that he couldn’t harm her anymore.
Despite the circles she was in, Georgia does find love. Zion truly cares for her, and his parents were good, responsible people who were willing to help the young parents. They take them in, and Georgia has a safe home, at least for a while. But the depraved environment she had grown up in was bound to leave a mark. When Zion’s parents recommended legal guardianship, Georgia was scared. In her whole life, Ginny was probably the only person she had been able to claim as her own. What Zion’s parents were recommending did not mean that they were taking Ginny away from her mother, but Georgia was unable to see that. Maybe it was the imbalance of power that scared her. All her life, she knew that as long as she was the less powerful one, she was at a disadvantage. In a healthy parent-child relationship, the power balance wouldn’t matter, but Georgia was unable to judge that and resorted to running away with Ginny. She regrets it later when she sees the effect it has had on her daughter, but as a scared teenager, she must have felt that the options in front of her were limited.
It could not have been easy, struggling to make enough money to feed both herself and her daughter. That is why she had to resort to taking help from a man like Anthony Green, even though he clearly wanted to take advantage of her. Georgia had to operate in an environment of constant fear. She had to shield her daughter from everything by taking it upon herself. Life might have been easier for her if she had given up Ginny for adoption, but Georgia loved her. She was probably the only thing she cared about. That is why she agreed to marry Anthony Green. Everything illegal she did, she knew was wrong. But she did not have the choice of the right thing. Doing that might have kept her records clean, but then she would still not have the means to earn the means to take care of herself and her daughter.
She saw a lot of her youth pass before her eyes without getting to do things people her age were doing, all because she was trying to survive. She couldn’t have a retail therapy session with her friends; instead, she had to shoplift for clothes. She couldn’t go on dates whenever she wanted; she had to look for babysitters first. In Season 2 of “Ginny & Georgia,” we saw how she met Gil Timmons, a guy who accepted that she had a daughter. He was sufficiently charming and seemed ready to take care of Ginny and Georgia. That made him a good fit for their lives. But what Georgia did not know was that abuse is often cyclical. Victims of abuse are the ones most likely to be targeted by predators again. It wasn’t long before Gil got abusive toward Georgia. This time around, she had two children to care for, so she took the only available way out in front of her. Gil had to go, but she needed money for her exit plan. So, she framed him for embezzlement and made her escape. But her struggles were far from over.
For a woman with limited education and facilities, she often found herself relying on men to keep her family afloat, which meant that the relationship ending had to have been intertwined with some financial matter or another; otherwise, Georgia wouldn’t have had to move so much. When she does get married to Kenny, she feels like she can finally take a rest, but seeing him misbehave with her daughter lets her know that her battles are far from over. But getting Kenny’s inheritance means that she does not have to rely on other men for money, which is why she believes that life in Wellsbury can be a stable one. But that was not to be, as her money was stuck, which caused her to resort to stealing again. No matter what Georgia was dealing with, she never wanted her children to experience even a sliver of the hardships she went through. She understood that her lived experience meant that there was no normal for her. When Ginny convinced her to tell the entire truth to Paul, it was a push for her mother to accept that she deserved just as much happiness and security as she wanted her kids to have. Georgia often had to stomp on others to get ahead in life, and the world did not look at that kindly. But she had no time to care for a world that worked against her. However, just like everybody else, there was a tiny part of it, that would accept and love her for who she was, provided she was honest. When Georgia finally took that chance with Paul, it was probably the first in a long time that she was able to breathe a sigh of relief. We are not completely sure what Season 3 of “Ginny & Georgia” will bring, but we want Georgia to just enjoy the security and love that she so clearly deserves.
