[title changed to thwart comment spam]
Tracy said:
My question, as a mom who ended up single in a big, bad way and therefore had to work whenever/wherever possible to put food on the table after planning and training for 20-something years to be an at-home mom (ah, such is youth and dreaming…):
What are the immediate, dire needs of at-home moms as you see them, and how do they compare to the needs of those children, such as mine, who are in some semblance of exterior childcare?
(Tracy, for those not in the know, is my co-editor at my job)
Tracy, your son needs/deserves quality childcare, right? Right. Now my argument is that you should be able to decide whether or not you are the one who gives that to him. As a single parent, your rights are truncated because without the financial support of a spouse or partner, your ability to parent the way you wish is severely limited. Right? I’d say that illustrates a dire need. Whether or not you put your son in a childcare center, in someone else’s home or keep him at home with you should be your choice and not one dictated by economic realities.
Just my not so humble opinion.
While I see your “perfect world” point; how do you manage this in our “Real” world?
**said the single mother
-d
lol! Oh well YEAH! But given the possibilities, I’d say that we’ll sooner see better childcare (via more funding, etc.) than paid motherhood — don’t you?
I dunno. Paying parents to raise children is treading on some really, really complicated territory. I can’t even begin to put down in text all the issues that arise, from every angle of life’s big pic.
Seems more do-able to at least get the government (read that: fat corporate cats who really run this joint) to start putting money into the present and future i.e kids’ lives.
Yeah, this is a tough one. Frankly, I think no one owes me a thing just cuz I had a kid and I’d like to raise him at home. It was my choice, fair and square. NOW — I have taken advantage of social programs when necessary (what a book that’ll make some day!), and I am generally socialist to the core. But reality of this country is so incredibly far from *everyone* fully understanding the whole “village to raise a child” thing, that I think sometimes we need to do a little takin’ what we can get in an effort to move at least one tiny step forward.
But far be it from me to argue that I shouldn’t be paid for raisin’ my kid at home! LOL!
Well, as a single mom I can only say this:
Guess what the government paid for me to put my children in child care so I could work?
About $6 an hour, including an hour per day commute time.
Guess how much I earned per hour when I first became a single parent?
About $7 an hour.
Guess what happened when I started making more money?
My childcare coverage was dropped.
Guess what that meant?
I was now earning $4 an hour after paying for child care.
How does this make sense?
Oh by the way–I also don’t feel that I’m “owed” anything. Child care was the only “government program” I took advantage of, and that’s because it’s mighty hard to get by on $1 an hour. Or $4. Was the problem that child care was too expensive, or that I was underpaid, or that I had to use child care in the first place? That I don’t know. But I often thought to myself that if the govt would just pay me to watch my own kids, we’d be even steven and all a lot happier. LOL
an extremely interesting thought. I love the ‘ideal’ world scenario, and I do not believe we have to give up on it. Just means we need to work harder to reach it.
though don’t ask me how, my ’small government’ self clashes with my ’society should support its ideals’ much too much.
Actually, here in Australia, you get that choice. (Although by no means is is a perfect world here!) Single parents are entitled to government assistance to the amount of about $700 a fortnight if they choose to stay home to care for their child/ren. It’s not a large amount, but a lot of people manage to live frugally on it so they are able to stay home with their kids.
They also receive financial assistance to cover their rent as well as deductions to the cost of dr visits and prescription medicines, child care, utilities and car registration. These same payments and concessions also apply to low-income partnered parents.
Once you qualify for the scheme, the payments are made to your bank account fortnightly, just like a normal wage.
It’s certainly not a perfect system, but it is better than nothing and I don’t know anyone here who takes it for granted!
I *may* be wrong - correct me someone, if so
But I think I recall there being some sort of financial assistance, break - etc. in Canada for stay-at home-parents. I think we got it our last year there…
It is interesting to hear what a single parent receives IF in the military…a LOT, comparitively.
Thank you for your insight. Thank you for helping me understand (not like - though, lol) better.
Kate, you can get that in the US too, only here it’s called welfare and it’s a huge stigma (interestingly enough it’s a way bigger stigma than receiving child care assistance even though the cash amount received is probably less than the govt spends on child care assistance). Also, I’m not absolutely sure of the rules but I know you have to devote a certain amount of time per week to job hunting or working too.
I have the same inner clash as you, Trey. I don’t believe in big government, but it bugs me that if money IS being spent, it’s spent on one thing and not another. I could continue to spit out kid after kid indefinitely and work a minimum wage job and the govt would pick up the tab for their child care (the program here in MI has hardly ANY monitoring, BTW–I could easily be out SHOPPING during the time my kids are in care and nobody would know), but try to stay home for a couple years with the ones I’ve got and I’m labeled a “welfare mom” and hit with rules, limits and scrutiny. Blah.
My question, as a mom who ended up single in a big, bad way and therefore had to work whenever/wherever possible to put food on the table after planning and training for 20-something years to be an at-home mom (ah, such is youth and dreaming…):
What are the immediate, dire needs of at-home moms as you see them, and how do they compare to the needs of those children, such as mine, who are in some semblance of exterior childcare?
_________________________________________________
Usually content to be a little fly on the wall this conversation has compelled me to speak–particularly this one paragraph copied above. I am an African American and when our problems, social, economic, cultural are discussed rarely will a nonprofessional, White person, speak up to say “hey, we have serious problems we are dealing with too,” at least not to us! This is because the statistics make it blatantly clear that our lives, indeed our very survival from birth onward faces many more challenges than just about any other group of people in the U.S.
Having prefaced my discussion with that analogy, I will add that for 15 years I was a professor at a highly ranked private college (number 1 graduate program in its bracket). Seven of the years, I was full time, enjoying a huge (by writer standards) salary, full benefits, perks and a full social life. What I missed, was my little boys who were with a childcare provider for approximately 60 hours a week. Eventually the stress, anxiety, longing and for me, hypocrisy of giving birth to children and then letting someone else raise them got the best of me in a very serious way. After the seventh year I cut back to just 2 days a week, this was after the birth of our daughter. A few years later, I cut back to one day per week with the birth of another son. Eventually, an eager beaver who was as I used to be, ambitious, zealous and young, replaced me.
Admittedly, I am fortunate to a happy marriage to my husband and father of my children. The difficulty that we have all faced as the result of my decisions to be at home is that our income was reduced drastically. I have pretty much raised these children in the suburbs without a car (sold the comfy minivan when we needed cash badly). I don’t have personal money at all–I mean, not even money for clothes from Wal-Mart or garage sales. There is no college fund. We live without water, electric or gas when they are turned off until we can pay the bill; we are creative in this endeavor and feel that there are lessons of survival in this for all of us. The list of financial burdens my leaving my comfortable job has created is lengthy and more serious than I care to admit on this blog. The social implications are huge. I live through the long winters here in virtual isolation. I am rebuilding my life, demonstrating that I am indeed a scholar but doing it without institutional support which is a full-time job in itself. (I compare this to building an apartment building out of Legos â„¢) While I still have the same intellect, abilities and experience, numerous doors for funding my ideas are now closed, as I lack institutional support.
Things are evolving and changing. I know that if I were homeless (not to say we haven’t come close) things could be worse. In fact, things could always be worse. I’m happy with my decision but it has been tough personally and on my family, not to say we don’t enjoy good times, slow cooked meals, freshly baked pies, handmade soap, garden grown herbs and vegetables and other good stuff you can do with time on your hands.
What I am getting at with this extremely long entry is that yes, it is very tough to be a single mom in this country and elsewhere but it can also be very challenging for a married, stay-at-home mom and her family too. The assumption that married women living in the suburbs are all comfortable is false, just another stereotype.
So, you must be saying what’s her deal, why doesn’t she just go back to work? I wouldn’t trade my current position for another and I have had plenty of offers. Then you say, well what’s up with her husband, is he a no good, lay about? The answer is no. He works hard, at least 6 days per week, 10 hours per day and he is healthy. We are both BFA and MFA people (most of you know what that adds up to in the real world). He has made his choices and they don’t mesh with getting rich. To us there is more to life than money, cars, commerce & stuff–we have our health, we love each other as a unit, we are involved with our community and children, we use our creativity and survive in this capitalistic society.
Ok, so I’ll stop. I just felt that the single mom issue was becoming very similar to our race card as African Americans. No one wants to touch it, so I did.
Mama Mojo
Well, I just keep coming back to what I (fwiw) think is the real issue — what do *children* need? The question is not and should never be ‘what do mothers need?’ because if we answer the question of what *kids* need, we’ve done the best we can do as a society — by everyone.
E.G. — Let’s say we manage to answer the question, “What do mothers (whether SAHM or not) need?” Let’s say we respond good and well to those needs. Isn’t it possible that some kids will get left out of the need-meeting process? I dunno, just a thought, since not all moms (or other primary caregivers) are really into their caregiving (let’s be brutally truthful here — some people just end up with kids to care for, and not because they want to…)
However (continued e.g.), if we meet the needs of kids, if we answer good and well the question of “What do children need?” — it is more probable that all of the individuals involved in the caring for of those kids will also inherently have their needs met.
Ya wanna talk about folks without choices: it’s kids. Our society has failed them miserably, to put it mildly.
Yeah, I know this sounds really “we are the world” and “imagine there’s no heaven”, but hey, somebody’s gotta carry the Pathetically Idealistic banner!
it is even worse if you are a single father who stays home. I am lucky that I can take my son to work with me for the few hours a day that I work. But I have resisted getting more work because I think home care is better. And other than WIC I get no help from anyone.
In Australia too, childcare is generally of a very high standard which needs to meet federal standards. I’ve read stuff about US childcare which just makes my hair stand on end.
As a low income family, we’re entitled to a very generous childcare allowance. I can have my child in childcare for 50 hours a week and pay about $25 with the government picking up the rest of the bill (ummm I’m too lazy to go and check those figures so they might be off a bit) and I don’t need to be searching for work, studying or doing volunteer work. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
In response to the person who wrote “I’d say that we’ll sooner see better childcare (via more funding, etc.) than paid motherhood — don’t you?” I just want to mention the $400 per child tax refunds that are in the mail. It seems as if the federal government is making an effort to make parenting less of a financial squeeze. A paltry effort, sure, but at least it’s some help.
Zelda said (and I realize that she’s been de-blogged or something of the sort at this point…):
“In response to the person who wrote “I’d say that we’ll sooner see better childcare (via more funding, etc.) than paid motherhood — don’t you?” I just want to mention the $400 per child tax refunds that are in the mail. It seems as if the federal government is making an effort to make parenting less of a financial squeeze. A paltry effort, sure, but at least it’s some help.”
That was me. My check went straight back to the IRS, to whom I owe much more due to an errant ex-husband. Sure glad that I owe the government $400 less (or in my case, $300 or whatever the least amount they were giving out was…)