Blog #11

Erin Brockovich would be a movie that I would think is about the working class and poor woman. Erin Brockovich starts off as an unemployed single mother of three, which wanted her attorney to find her a job in compensation of the loss of her lawsuit. Many women that Chaudry mentioned were unemployed with child they had to take care of. Whether they were losing a lawsuit or just not having any money they were both trying to care for their children on their own and usually without the governments help. Many women are also unemployed and wanting a job but they just can’t get away long enough to look for a job because they would need money for someone to pay for the child care while she was out. This movie shows that a women with very little experience at a job can become the most important person because they are completing tasks and going above and beyond. Erin Brokovich does not give her kids the attention they want because she is working more than she is seeing them; they start to crave their moms attention. Many kids in this book are being left with another person they don’t know and not being able to see their mother for hours at a time. The children have to learn to be happy for the time they do see their mother and to enjoy what she is doing for them. Chaudry believes that a child should have a close relationship with their mother and with the mother having long hours at work or long hours away from their kid is neglecting their time together, but the children need to understand that the mother is making money to help them survive.

Blog # 10

The single women ran into problems paying the overpriced child care that more times than none they would have to turn to kin care. In “Putting Children First Chaudry talked about women that were on welfare that were providing kin care for those other women struggling to pay for child care. These women preferred the kin care program because it wasn’t costing the women as much as child care. The struggle with kin care was the mothers would have to drive their child from place to place and sometimes the women watching their children were not reliable. The welfare system often failed to submit the money when they were supposed to. This began to make them unstable and put stress in their work life. When the families started making an income the welfare system believed that they did not need the governments assistance anymore, even though this lead to more problems because they had the either the same or lesser amount of income coming in. The Welfare system would usually provide when the mothers need it least and would most likely fail when the mother needs the money most. The women were require to work and supply for their family as best as they could and they needed to find money any way they could. They would have to use their subsidized money if they were able to obtain it, most times they were not able to get the government money and it does not allow them to care for their children’s health or even their health.
Not everyone is lucky enough to receive help from their family members or able to get a flexible day care. There have been, many mothers that have been left with no assistance because the father is either in jail or in no shape to pay for child support. With the absence of the father it is very hard on the woman when she is left to pay for her kids by herself and sometimes without the governments help. Having mothers that are struggling for money and food all their lives will hopefully want them to better themselves so they would not have the stress their mother had when they become a parent. Another main issue that these women struggled with was being able to take their kids to the doctors when they got sick or even taking themselves to the hospital when they got sick.
Chaudry suggests that we provide more ways women could get financial help because even if a single mother is working she is not getting enough money to get the child care or even enough to put food on the table. She believes the government should run child care facilities that the whole working class would be able to use fairly and worth it. Women that are showing that they are working and trying to support their child should be able to get a good child care and one that they know is safe and useful. Chaudry shows that women are not being able to take the promotions in their work life because they times will run into the child care time or they are unable to leave them at a certain time, leaving them with no reliable help to watch their kids. Also if the women wanted to have another job or more up in their work life then would also want healthcare to keep them healthy and able to work. Working will only provide experienced which is very important to them because they need all the money they could get, especially if they are trying to get out of poverty. Many women in poverty are struggling to make ends meet and not only paying their bills they also need to be able to put food on the table. The government is taking the financial programs away and now more and more people are in need the help of the government and more people are ending in poverty because of the prices of housing, and bills. Chaudry wants the low income women to be able to receive help so their children can be put into a child care that will be useful and beneficial to their child.

Blog #9

The relationship between working poor women’s conditions and children living in poverty are similar. Children who are currently living in poverty were most likely brought into that poverty because their mother lived in a poor neighborhood too. There could be a possibility that many women had their children at a young age and had no choice but to raise their child in a poor community. The poverty stricken mothers are working to support their child as best they could and the child can’t do anything to help their mother get out of the struggle they are living now. It is not always the mother’s fault either because many of them get left behind when the fathers go to jail or the father is in no shape to help out with the expenses the children need. It also becomes very hard for a mother to hold a stable job or even get a good paying job at all because of the area she is living it. From the charts I find that the statistics show that the younger the child the higher the poverty the child will be in. This happens because when the child is at its youngest point their mother is unlikely to have work experience and all they will be able to get is minimum wage at the lowest position. As the women gets older and her child gets older she will be able to obtain more working experience and knowledge in her job field, which will provide the family with a better living situation. These women are trying to better their families and hope that they will be able to get out of their living situation as soon as they can. If the mothers are not able to at least they will get their child out by trying to give them the best education to further themselves.

Blog #8

Living in urban poverty left single mothers working hard to support their kids while most of the fathers were in jail. In these bad communities it is hard for the children to stay away from the drugs and violence because it is all around them. Low- income mothers are less likely to get any job that pays more than minimum wage. This disadvantage makes it hard for them to support their family and keep them healthy. The urban poverty is most likely on welfare because there is loss of a father whether he is in jail or just not in the child’s life. There is also poor functionally schools which is not allowing the child a fair and educated learning experience. Poverty was setting the children back from having a social life because there were not many people in their area that would be good people to play with, so it started at a young age. The difference between being a poor women in a poor area and a person of low income wage in a mixed income neighborhood would be that it would be more people can he can mix and socialize with. They would also have less drug use and abuse because they would have others around them that are having regular paying jobs and in a community that is a better one for children. Being a mixed income it would provide better schools and better education for the children. It would also help the single mothers because they would feel safer, being able to see if a neighbor could watch their child.

Blog # 7

Julia applied at the Agency for Child Development for subsidized day care, but there was already a long waiting list so she was placed on the bottom of that list. If she would have been working or going to school then she would have been considered before most of those on the waiting list because her child care would have been listed as a priority. Julia then heard from a friend about Leida having a day care at Mayer House so she took Jacqueline and Hope there but not long after they started going there they had to end it because the Welfare program’s system was late on making payments. She then had Sonia watching Jacqueline and her cousin watching Hope but she began to need Jacqueline to stay longer than the other kids stayed because of her work hours. She had to pay Sonia more money to keep Jacqueline longer and it was more then she had to pay her cousin, which led her to more money problems. She then applied for food stamps and she was accepted to get food stamps and the cash aid that came with the food stamps but the Welfare Department failed to give her the cash aid when she was supposed to receive it. Minimum wage jobs do not allow women to further themselves in more jobs so they can pay the bills and keep their children in child care. They are limited on the time they can work and how long they work; it is sometimes hard for them to get one full time job just because they have to be on a certain schedule. “Julia and Jacqueline’s story illustrates the fast-changing nature of child care and the interactions between Jacqueline’s care , Julia’s work situations, and changes in their domestic life” (Chaudry, 93) Child care isn’t convenient and worry free like some of the lucky people, there are those that struggle to work because their kids needs to be supervised. Chaudry states, “It was when Jacqueline was in her most stable care arrangements that Julia was able to move from progressively better internship experiences into a full-time job and off of welfare” (94).

Blog #6

Low income mothers are in need of child care but they face obstacles because of the cost of child care doesn’t meet with what they are earning while working. According to the power point child care is easily costing 4,000 to 6,000 on average per year. Many low income women are single mothers and are supporting their families by themselves on a minimum wage job. Even though they have a job many times it is hard for the mothers to pay for the child care because they have bills to pay and kids to feed. If they don’t have child care they will sometimes have to pleasure to have a family member watch their kids for cheap. On the other hand as the power point stated, “Many parents have no family nearby, or find their families too busy with their own jobs and children, to utilize their kin networks for child care.” Low wage paying jobs does not allow flexibility in anyone’s hours. With the child care that they could afford does not always accommodate to the times they need the child care so they are constantly asking for help. This care also leaves them not being able to choose the safe child care, or the place where they know their child will benefit from it. Safety is an important issue because in the low income housing it is a dangerous place.

Blog #5

Chaudry is implying that legislation emphasized work, and did not provide enough new supports for those families in need, and they also cut the supports of the families that they already had. Families were forced to send their children into care that was cheap and not great quality. The women were not allowed to be picky about where they sent their kids for the child care it was only the money issue that they were able to be concerned with. The needs of disadvantaged children were neglected because single mothers needed to carry out their dual role as a worker and a parent. It did not work out because of the needs the child had, it becomes harder when the women is a single mother because the money she made wasn’t helping with the bills plus feeding them when they were hungry.
The issue of the working poor is a public one more than it would be a personal problem because there are many people going through the same problems. Many people know what the working poor is even if they are not the working poor themselves. The working poor is not being able to make ends meet but still working full time and maybe overtime. Having the bills add up and having creditors call to lend you money because it is known that you are the working poor will only add on to the debt they are currently in. The working poor also lives in certain housing so that would be a public view that you are the working poor because of the house or apartment they can afford. Even if the issue might feel like a personal problem it is also very public, public enough that others would want to help if they were in a position such as president and was able to make a difference.