Through My Own Eyes

Shirl is a single mother who urges her son's baby-sitter to swat him when he misbehaves. Helena went back to work to get off welfare, then quit to be with her small daughter. Kathy was making good money but got into cocaine and had to give up her two-year-old son during her rehabilitation. Pundits, politicians, and social critics have plenty to say about such women and their behaviour. In this book we hear what these women have to say for themselves. It is an account from the front lines of poverty, which offers a firsthand look at how single mothers with the slimmest of resources manage from day-to-day. We witness their struggles to balance work and motherhood and watch as they negotiate a bewildering maze of child-care and social agencies. For three years the authors followed the lives of 14 women from poor Boston neighbourhoods, all of whom had young children and had been receiving welfare intermittently. We learn how these women keep their families on firm footing and try, frequently in vain, to gain ground. We hear how they find childcare and what they expect from it, as well as what the childcare providers have to say about serving low-income families. Holloway and Fuller view these lives in the context of family policy issues touching on the disintegration of inner cities, welfare reform, early childhood and pro-choice poverty programmes.