Unit B - Blog 7

Jacqueline and Julia are just a sample of what many poor working women face on a daily basis. The welfare program in the United States is very inconsistent and messes up a lot according to Julia. Because working women usually have to take jobs that do not have 8-5 hours, they require childcare at an inconsistent level. In Julia's case she was trying to go to school and work an internship. Between school hours and an internship she would obviously require more child care for her youngest two daughters. When she took her first internship, she was not getting paid enough so she worked at a fast food restaurant. Hours there are never normal and so her and her sister worked alternating shifts in order to provide care for Julia's children. The problem with welfare at this point is that they do not offer assistance to Julia even though she is going to school and working hard. She was on a list to get assistance and there was a long line. Welfare is so behind in being able to meet the demand, that working poor mothers are forced to take whatever care they can get. When mothers are waiting to receive assistance from welfare, they are taking harder financial hits because they must rely on outside childcare. Julia had some family such as her sister, but her sister eventually moved on. Then she had a cousin, but the cousin was "lazy" as Julia says and refused to take care of Hope and Jacqueline when the welfare checks stopped coming to pay her. If Julia had no family she would have had an even worse time finding care and probably would have found it impossible to continue her education.

In another example, the Scotts are a married couple with two children who make low income. They started at a day care center and received a scholarship through United Way to help them supplement their bills for the child care cost. When the mother received a raise they took the scholarship away and forced the Scotts to hire a friend who was a substitute teacher. If she gets called in to work, the only option the Scotts have are a very sick father in law who is waiting for a kidney transplant. This is clearly not an environment for two active young kids. It is situations like this that force working poor mothers to continue to struggle for assistance.

I think what is really sad about all of this is that I never realized the problems with welfare and child care until I took this class. I never stopped to think about it and a large part is due to the fact that there is zero media attention on this crisis.