While Betty had five children total, as a slave she would have been separated from her children for most of the day. Betty also had "little control... over the lives of...[her] children." Austin and Ona were selected by George and Martha Washington to accompany them to New York and Philadelphia after Washington was elected President. There was nothing Betty could do about this, and her children were forced to be separated from her because they were Martha Washington's property and she could do whatever she wanted with them. Every child Betty had enriched the Washingtons' and the Custis Estate, as children and young adults provided more enslaved labor. The number of children that Betty had and the varying white fathers may illustrate the sexual vulnerability that enslaved women faced, especially when they worked in the domestic sphere, which put them in close proximity to many white men, not just their owner. (See, for example, the biographies of Alice Clifton, Jane the Runaway, Bridge Town, and Winney Grimshaw.)