The “Families Matter” transcript with important themes from and also themes relevant to the

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Families Matter

Male
We’re really concerned about having money and giving our children things rather
than spending time with them.
Female
When I look at my budget with my childcare, I’m going to struggle just to buy
diapers and food.
Female
How am I supposed to do all the stuff on my own?
Female
My parents raised five kids. I feel like I’m going to be doing really well and
it’s all I can do and my husband can do to raise one and provide what I feel
she needs and be her advocate in this world.
Male
I think it’s our obligation to build a better world for them.
Male
We did what we thought good parents should do and we look around and we wonder,
what happened to the leadership? My wife and I really feel like we were
betrayed.
Narrator
Tonight on Listening to America, Families Matter.
Listening to America is
made possible by Mutual of America and its family of companies, major
underwriters of group pension plans and retirement savings programs, the John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a catalyst for change, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.
Bill Moyers
Good evening. Growing up in East Texas, I used to hear my father talk about the
local politician who bragged that he never met a baby he didn’t kiss. Some of
them were ugly as sin and drooling like a broken faucet. But he confessed that
kissing them meant he’d never had to explain his voting record to their
parents.
Now, politicians don’t have
to kiss babies these days. They can just talk about family values. They do it
to reach us at our most vulnerable human connection to come down on the side of
hearth and home. We’re getting a lot of such talk in this campaign.
G.H.W. Bush
There is no sure way to build our nation’s future than with mortar and the
bricks of moral values and strong families.
Dan Quayle
The culture leads, respect neither tradition nor standards. They believe that
moral truths are relative and all lifestyles are equal. They seemed to think
the family is an arbitrary arrangement of people who decide to live under the
same roof. That fathers are dispensable and that parents need not be married or
even of opposite sexes. They are wrong.
Ross Perot
My parents are my heroes. I was born on a very modest circumstances but no
child could have had better parents than I had. They didn’t preach to me, they
didn’t lecture to me, they were wonderful examples.
Bill Clinton
The question, “Is not our family values important?” Of course they are. It’s
not, are they under fire? You bet they are. It’s not, is TV destructive of
family values? all too often it is. The question is, what are we going to do
about it?
Bill Moyers
All these talk about family values is not new. A 100 years ago, the US had the
highest divorce rate in the world. And Americans were beginning to worry about
the effects of the industrial revolution on the family. Parents working long
hours in factories and mines, children being exploited as well, rapid alcoholism,
and fathers including my great grandfather heading West and never coming back.
The family has kept
changing in the 20th century, more divorce, more single parents, more out of
wedlock birth, more absentee fathers, more children in poverty. Now the baby
boomers born after World War II are having children of their own. When you
listen to these parents, you hear them describing a society that is anything
but family-friendly. Listening to parents is something Richard Louv does very
well. He’s a reporter from the San Diego Union-Tribune. But he describes
himself as a father first and he brought his son to New York with him, he’s
sitting right over there behind him, and a journalist, second. He’s also the
author of the book called Childhood’s Future based on some 3,000
conversations with parents, teachers, and children from all over the country
from every walk of life. Richard, do parents and kids talk the same way as
politicians?
Richard Louv
No. The politicians generally are of the “let them eat values” school
of politics. We get preached at a lot by politicians, by CEOs, by company
presidents, but the politicians don’t sign family leave bills, the CEOs don’t
have family-friendly policies in their companies, they fire young mothers for
going home to take care of their sick child when the daycare calls, but we get
preached at a lot.
Bill Moyers
What do parents tell you they need and all these conversations that you had,
can you just tell the essence of what parents say they need?
Richard Louv
Parents need each other. That’s what parents tell me.
Bill Moyers
We went with you to talk to some of the parents that you had met while you were
doing your book. They met in the studios of public television station, our
sister station KPBS in San Diego. Here’s a little bit of that discussion.
Male
We feel like we rent our kids. Our day starts at 4:30, rent the centers at
6:00. We’re both at work, working in uniforms at 6:30, we’re off at 4:30, we
get the kids at 5:00, we get home, we feed thekids by 6:00, the little ones
asleep, the—Zach needs a bath, he’s in bed, by then it’s eight and we’re dead.
So, let’s try this again tomorrow.
Female
I think we need to revise our assumptions about what a good life really is. And
that I don’t think we’re going to be able to compete with our parents. My
parents raised five kids. I feel like I’m going to be doing really well and
it’s all I can do and my husband can do to raise one and provide what I feel
she needs and be her advocate in this world.
Female
I came from a different country and a different culture. But now, 11 years
later, I’m still not used to the way children are seen in this country. Most of
the time, I felt really lost as a parent. Children means happiness in Vietnam,
“phuc” means happiness.
Male
The word children—
Female
The word children means happiness. So, if you ask about my income I can tell
you, “Oh, I’m not that rich in money but I’m rich in children.” In some way,
it’s more valued than having more money because in Vietnam, I don’t think we
have a lot of respect with people with a lot of money but we do have respect
with good family with a lot of children. That’s something that we’re missing
here, then that’s scary.
Male
When I grew up you know, there’s always drugs and gangs and I don’t want my
daughter to be raised in the same atmosphere as I was.
Female
You know, I went back to college. I’m struggling with that. I was on welfare at
the time, barely covered in necessities of life you know and I’m struggling.
I’m trying to do my homework. The kid’s screaming you know, crying you know.
I’m all alone here. I don’t have anybody to help baby-sit even for a little bit
because every dollar is going to a box of macaroni and cheese in order to be
able to survive. And just one day, I just lost it you know. I just picked up a
chair and threw it across the room because I’ve just had it. How am I supposed
to do all these stuff on my own?
Female
I don’t believe raising children was meant to be done solo. We don’t do a good
job. Children need more people to bounce off of. So I think we need to quest
after something else besides individualism and independence which we’ve
achieved. We’ve defined ourselves and now we have to get connected.
Female
You know if I go to work and I have to run home because my child just had an accident
or is sick, the job—the workplace doesn’t look at me as, “What a nice caring
parent she is,” they look at me as I’m unreliable.
Female
The navy has a saying that they tell you, “Well, they didn’t—the child or your
husband or your family in general did not come in in your sea bag.” When you
went through boot camp, you were issued everything you needed but not a family
and not children and if you decided to do that on your own then that’s your
problem.
Female
I applied at McDonald’s and I told them I had a daughter and he goes, “Well, do
you have time to come for her you know, for you to come to work?” And I said,
“Yes.” He goes, “But you know, if you don’t come too much to work or that your
baby is sick or this or that,” he goes, “You could automatically lose the job.”
Male
I am an employer and in my company, I really encourage people to put their
families first. I think their family should come first.
Male
Exactly.
Female
And that’s not to say that no one has ever been fired for being absent too
much.
Male
So you said, you talk to your – you are really nice to your employees, right?
Female
I try to be.
Male
Do you have a childcare for them?
Female
We don’t have a childcare. No, we have access to a childcare facility down the
street. We don’t have –
Male
But do you pay for that?
Female
No, we don’t pay for it.
Male
You see, that’s the problem. Not all of us can afford that to pay this, even
though it is a little bit cheaper or anything.
Female
The problem is, it’s a double-edged sword because most companies can’t afford
to pay for childcare for all of their employees either.
Female
My childcare and my loans are more than my rent. OK, when I was on welfare, I
did better on welfare, because when I was on welfare I didn’t have to pay
childcare, my kids stayed at home.
Female
We need to just—to rethink our whole attitudes toward each other. And those of
us who have more out—it’s sort of funny for me to characterize myself as
someone who has more because I think that I have less and I’m doing a little
lot less because of our decision for me to stay at home. But, I think that
those of us who have enough to own a home and have one person at home, should
be looking out into the community and saying, “There are people that don’t have
as much as us. Can we give?”
Male
We’re really concerned about having money and giving our children things rather
than spending time with them, actual time with them.
Male
And I look around and over and over again, it seems like children aren’t valued
but we say they are. We say that they are the future of the country. We say
that we are here to care. But it seems like that every turn in the road, we’re
creating children whose worldview, we are going to have to work so hard to make
sure that it’s compassionate and then it’s hopeful. It’s disturbing to me. My
wife and I really feel like we were betrayed. We did what we thought good
parents should do and we looked around and we wonder what happened to the
leadership.
Bill Moyers
Question: Are the concerns of these parents representatives of those around the
country? I posed that question now to Rosalie Streett, Executive Director of
Parent Action, the national membership organization for parents, what about it?
Do you hear that kind of talk elsewhere in the country?
Rosalie Streett
Constantly. There was an African saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
And I think that that is what I keep hearing parent saying is, “Where is
everybody else, where are the supports, where are the legislative policies,
where is the community to support what I’m doing?”
Bill Moyers
The last parent as you said, suggests that there’s a leadership problem and
Jill Bradley, you worked with parents and kids running early childhood
development program for the Chicago Housing Authority. What do your parents
tell you about what they need?
Jill Bradley
Parents who find their way into our programs have already fought through
several barriers because within the Chicago Housing or public housing, parents
are isolated even to a further degree I think then—some others who don’t have
to fight through poverty and the concentration of poverty to have a vision to
walk out of their apartments and say, “I am somehow going to connect.” There is
a tendency that it’s not unreasonable to be—to feel hopeless. So once they pull
themselves up and make a decision to come out and join the company of other
parents, they find some of the supports that they need in our centers.
Bill Moyers
Richard Louv, in your book Childhood’s Future, you described a web. And
as I hear Jill and Rosalie both talk—they are—they talk about support but
they—I can see that web that you described, what is that web of support?
Richard Louv
First, it’s not the safety net. It’s this higher thing that has a thousand
strands. It’s almost organic, it’s everything from how wide the sidewalks are
in a new development whether there’s enough room for the kids to play, to
whether the school really means it when they say that they want parents to come
and volunteer, whether the employer really means it when he talks about family
values just to give any time off for people to go and volunteer in the schools.
Does it make those connections or are there connections between these
institutions?
The best way that I can
describe this personally, when I grew up, I grew up in a family like many
families have. I had very loving parents but they have problems with alcohol,
my father had alcohol problems. But I always had the sense, that when I went
out the front door, I could find some of what it was I needed. I could find the
old couple down the street that I could adopt as my surrogate grandparents
whether they wanted to or not. They would feed me cookies and loan me books and
listen to me. I have mentors in high school and I had people in my neighborhood
who report anything bad I did on the street, and they did. And my parents had
that web of support too, even though they often didn’t know it. It was often
invisible. That’s the thing that is both private and public, both government
and family-based and neighborhood-based that has been pulling apart.
Bill Moyers
What I hear you describing is what we used to call it civilizations: safe
streets, good parks, schools that works, scouting, extra curricular activities,
community activities, right?
Richard Louv
The flat truth is that we do not raise our children alone. We are being told by
the society that we should. We can’t do it. We need our neighbors. We need our
schools. We need the government.
Bill Moyers
We see that in another family, you introduced us to in San Diego. So let’s take
a look at a day in the lives of a couple from our parents’ group out there in
the West Coast, reporter Gail Pellett visited with the family of Greg Boulden.
Leila Boulden
What time is it?
Greg Boulden
6:54.
Leila Boulden
Okay.
Greg Boulden
You better hurry up!
Gail Pellett
In the Boulden household, time is carefully measured in the mornings.
Leila Boulden
Do you—
Kid
No.
Gail Pellett
This is a two-parent working family.
Leila Boulden
Did you brush your teeth?
Kid
Yes.
Gail Pellett
It’s 7:00 AM and Leila, her husband Greg and their three kids are so far on
schedule.
Leila Boulden
Bye honey.
Kid
Bye.
Leila Boulden
Kiss, kiss goodbye. See you later.
Gail Pellett
The Boulden’s live in a new development in Spring Valley, a suburb of East San
Diego. They’ve only got one car, so Greg drives Leila to work every morning
while the kids waited home for him to return.
Greg Boulden
Oh, they don’t have dance class after school today. They have a program—
Leila Boulden
When they’ll have the program?
Greg Boulden
Tomorrow night.
Leila Boulden
Okay, —
Gail Pellett
During the 20-minute ride to Leila’s job is courier for Federal Express in San
Diego, Leila eats breakfast, writes checks and makes notes for Greg.
Greg Boulden
Oh, what time you’re going to be home tonight?
Leila Boulden
7:30 would be good.
Gail Pellett
Leila works 10 to 12 hour shift, four days a week.
Leila Boulden
See you later.
Greg Boulden
Bye.
Leila Boulden
Bye.
Gail Pellett
Greg now drives home to finish getting the kids ready for school.
Kid
I have to put my bedspread on it.
Greg Boulden
Did you pick up all your stuff animals?
Gail Pellett
The twins Diana and Donita are seven.
Greg Boulden
Are you going to tuck yours in too?
Kid
You want me to take some of that?
Greg Boulden
Yes. Can you take my jacket for me?
Gail Pellett
There son Gerard is nine. It’s a 10-minute ride to their school.
Greg Boulden
Look at this, the whole football team is late.
Gail Pellett
After school, they’ll go to a babysitter.
Greg Boulden
You guys walk up to Tasha’s mama’s house after –
Kid
Maybe—
Greg Boulder
No. You have play rehearsal. OK, so se you guys this afternoon.
Gail Pellett
Greg will pick them up at 5:30.
Greg Boulden
Close the door!
OK, now I can turn up my
music and relax.
Gail Pellett
In the past, Greg was a technician producing antenna systems for the military.
When his contract expired, he decided to work with the family counselling
center connected to his church. Now, he’s the director, trying to raise enough
money to turn it into a viable business. But so far, he collects no salary.
Greg Boulden
It was very trying. My wife and I, we—actually, we discussed it and we talked
about it and the job market was really soft. So we just decided that we would
make a decision and basically we worked on one income.
How are you doing?
Female
Fine, how are you?
Greg Boulden
What can I do for you this morning?
We thought that there was
something that we could do and we could do it for a long haul. It was something
that needed to be done in the community and people are out there hurrying
that—they’re even more soft than I am. I’m blessed that I have a wife that has
a good job.
Gail Pellett
The counseling center provides emergency food, a job bank and housing
referrals.
Greg Boulden
OK, call and ask for Ms. Weaver, until you heard about it, through the
Southeast Counseling Center.
Female
OK.
Greg Boulden
I mean, people come in with mental stress. They’re unable to pay the gas and
electric bill, even if they can pay the rent.
What kind of work—what do
you do?
Female
Well, actually I’m a licensed hair dresser and I had to stop working January
this year, because I had a family members taking care of my daughter. And they
couldn’t take care of her any longer so I had to go and look for a childcare
and it was too expensive—
Greg Boulden
Unemployment rate across the nation may be 7%. Here in this community, maybe
it’s high as 30% or 40%.
If we could help you find
childcare that’s you know, less expensive.
Female
Yes, definitely.
Greg Boulden
And I know one young lady who wants to open up her own shop.
Yeah, let me give you the
number and maybe another question I always ask, do you have a church home?
Female
Well, yeah I do. I just haven’t been there in a while because I have no
transportation to get there but—
Greg Boulden
We feel that the church is basically a family unit, and in the churches we find
strength and we find unity and we find help.
Gail Pellett
Greg’s church provided him with a link to others concerned with what’s
happening in the community. Greg is co-chair of the San Diego Organizing
Project, a grassroots organization that reaches out to families through
churches of all denominations.
Female
Can we come in and talk with you?
Male
Sure, why not.
Greg Boulden
We are a community-based coalition and we represent about 25,000 families in
the San Diego area. We went out to our communities and we asked them, “OK, what
are your main concerns?”
Female
What bothers me is we’re just trapped around with all these drug selling and
what scares me is that I just have my daughter three months ago and I was
frightened when I was expecting her, a little boy right across the street from
us had died from a drive-by shooting.
Male
When we moved here, it was great, it was a good community and everyone here
tried to help each other. Now, we’re scared.
Gail Pellett
The Lovato family has lived in this East San Diego neighborhood for 20 years.
Greg Boulden
How can you see us making a change?
Male
I did it all the way. We can make the change. We can make the change if we
fight together against—to get a better world for the future, for the child and
I think it’s our obligation to build a better world for them.
Greg Boulden
We wanted to thank you for inviting us into your home.
Male
Thank you.
Greg Boulden
And I appreciate your time.
Male
I feel better because I don’t feel alone.
Greg Boulden
That’s right.
Female
And don’t forget to vote.
Male
Oh no, OK.
Greg Boulden
Through this process, going back and actually canvassing the community, going
door-to-door, talking with individual families, we came up with a comprehensive
plan. We needed extended library hours. We needed after-school programs because
a lot of kids were lousy kids. We needed drug-free zones around our schools.
Gail Pellett
The San Diego Organizing Project approached their elected officials with a
proposal to fight the drug scene. They succeeded in getting $28 million over a
five-year period to extend library hours, provide tutors and create home-study
centers in libraries. The money also goes toward improving recreational
facilities at parks.
Greg Boulden
In the neighborhood crime protection plan, there are allocations for park
rangers and walking patrols throughout the community and greater utilization of
the parks, after school programs, programs designed for the kids.
We work closely with the
police. We work closely with our elected officials and said, “You have to do
something,” and they did. Because we came out not with one or two people, not
with you know, 300 or 400, the first time we met with the mayor, we met—it was
a thousand people.
So let me ask you
something, do you see very many of drug dealers around here now?
Kids
No.
Kid
Sometimes we see gang bangers.
Greg Boulden
Sometimes you see gang bangers.
Female
But was it better than it was like a long time ago? Did you use the park a
while ago?
Kid
It was a lot of stuff. There used to be shootings up here.
Female
Do you think it’s better now?
Kid
Yeah, it’s better, way better.
Female
Way better.
Five years ago, you
couldn’t even use this park at all. I usually take my kids after work sometimes
and take them up there for a picnic and there was like dealers up on the hill
and everything, and there are a lot of apartment buildings in the area. So
there’s a real need for parks and a lot of our public officials told us, they
wanted to respond to the drug problem by saying, we needed more jails and more
police officers. But when we interviewed people in our neighborhoods among
ourselves and we found out that people, they were afraid, they wanted to be
able to use the parks.
Greg Boulden
Let me ask, how do you feel about the park now?
Female
It’s pretty good now. I used to—I use to take her to the park, I wouldn’t come
to this one.
Female
We—out of these people, the one who pay the taxes would pay for the people that
are in the government and the good government, the good leaders got to listen
to the needs of the people that put them there.
Gail Pellett
In late May this year, the San Diego Organizing Project held what they call an
accountability session with a group of candidates running for Mayor of San
Diego. They wanted to ensure that their $28 million plan was going to survive.
At a follow-up meeting,
Greg and the other leaders assessed what they’ve learned from their process.
Greg Boulden
All right. You know, we can bring out 600 to 700 people out and we could
confront the next mayor of San Diego and tell them what we want them to hear. I
mean, we should feel good about ourselves.
Female
I feel very proud, very proud to come from—
Male
Very powerful.
Female
Powerful and just to know that we’re well organized.
Gail Pellett
One of Greg’s colleagues turns the meeting into a training session before the
group goes out to canvas more families.
Male
Empowerment, right.
Female
We empowered ourselves.
Male
Empowered ourselves.
Female
Right.
Male
OK. When you think about it, why is it that you felt that kind of power there?
It’s because of you being in relationship with other folk, right?
Male
Anyone of these doors, just any doors.
Male
We’re living a web of relationships in our communities where in many ways, the
community becomes our extended family. And so as we go out tonight, let’s
engage with people inviting them to share their story and invite them to talk a
little bit about what’s important to them and then, invite them to participate
with it.
Bill Moyers
Trying to connect this concern with family to matters of public policy is the
work of our next guest, Steven Bayme. Dr. Bayme is Director of Communal Affairs
of the American Jewish Committee and co-editor of a book entitled Rebuilding
the Nest: A New Commitment to the American Family. He also serves on the
Advisor Committee of the Institute for American Values. Dr. Bayme, I find Greg
Bouldens is all over the country and organizations like that in San Diego, but
why isn’t the accumulated effect of all these individuals wanting to change the
way things are not more positive. Why do you think we’re at some kind of
impasse in our ability to deal with the needs of parents?
Steven Bayme
Well, this story is particularly encouraging because it brings together the
resources of parents, of religious institutions such as churches, synagogues,
and governmental policies. As a means of trying to break through and improve
the quality of family life in the country. Buy and large however, the policy
today is a polarized one. You have liberals talking about governmental
programs. You have conservatives talking about family values. Neither side is
listening to one another and as a result, rather than make the kind of progress
that Greg and his group are making, utilizing a wide variety of institutions.
Both sides are talking pass to one or another.
Bill Moyers
I was very taken with your essay, a new synthesis on family policy, calling for
moving beyond left and right, moving beyond liberals and conservatives.
Steven Bayme
Liberals have to really—again, listening to conservatives when they talk about
family values. The term family, responsibility, authority, commitment, all
those are crucial family values that should not become politically incorrect.
But at the same token, conservatives have to listen when liberals charge
governments with neglect, with failure to institute enough policies to help
parents to be parents. Liberals tend to talk in terms of economics and that’s
very important. Conservatives tend to talk in terms of personal conduct and
responsibility, and that’s equally important. Unless we are able to synthesize
both points of view, we’re not going to get anyway with this debate.
Bill Moyers
Does that make sense to you out in Chicago in the public housing work there?
Jill Bradley
In fact, it makes a perfect sense. Some of the people in your interviews talked
about empowerment, it is their decision to make a better life and be public
about it and to join the community of others. In fact, to choose that
community, to figure out which other mothers are going to try to raise their
children like mine, how can we work together to help each other, and again, to
try to duplicate some of the things that you’ve talked about in your life and
mind too as well.
Rosalie Streett
It makes sense to me. We see all over the country as well that people are
meeting in small groups. They may not have gone as far as the group that we
just saw. In fact, most of them haven’t, but they’re meeting in groups and
trying to figure it out, how do we do this, how do we make a life for our
families that that’s the kind of life we want.
Bill Moyers
But those small meetings and local efforts, those seem to add up to the new
national consensus that Dr. Bayme is talking about.
Richard Louv
Even in feminism before it was called feminism. I think that we’re in a
historical period that is very similar to that, which preceded the feminist
movement and the civil rights movement and we’re going to have a family, I call
it a family liberation, but some kind of a family movement is coming that will
not be easily labeled conservative or liberal.
Steven Bayme
Politicians are listening to us and that was reflected in some of your opening
clips. Conservatives are fighting in some of the liberal programs that there
are something worth listening to and aligning themselves with. By contrast,
liberals equally look to conservatives by saying, supply us with the values and
the content and perhaps we can marry some of the programs together with the
values.
Bill Moyers
Well, let’s come back to some families who are trying to do just that, there’s
another a parent in San Diego with whom Gail Pellett spent some time. Her
name is Janet Peterford.
Gail Pellett
Janet Peterford lives in El Cajone, a suburb northeast of San Diego.
She’s 28, single, and has a 20-month-old son, Lemar.
Janet Peterford
The biggest thing, I think is that you’re all alone; you don’t have the husband
or the father, or the co-parent, to bounce ideas and come up with strategies on
discipline or whatever, it’s just you.
Gail Pellett
Monday through Friday, at 8:30 in the morning, Janet drives Lemar to a
babysitter, about five minutes away from her house.
Janet Peterford
My mom, is about two hours away from here and we get to see her every two
months or so, but we’ll call each other and other than that, no, I don’t have
any family out here.
Gail Pellett
Janet is unemployed and spends most days with job hunting. This morning
however, she’s off to a parenting class.
Female
What’s one of the questions that I often suggest that you ask yourself?
Janet Peterford
What’s wrong with it?
Female
What’s wrong with it. When you’re getting upset with what your child is doing,
ask your self “what’s wrong with it?”
Janet Peterford
You know if somebody came over the other day and says you know, “what’s he
doing with the bottle?”
Female
Well we get advice from everybody in the community, we have to make our own
decision in the end anyway don’t we?
Gail Pellett
The mothers in this group are mostly single and all of them are recovering from
alcohol or drug addiction.
Janet Peterford
I can remember getting high the first time—it was like eleven or twelve. And so
my drug problem got bad fast.
I still have a problem with
you know, when I get real frustrated and I am tired and stressed, you know with
my anger, because I just want to throw something across the room.
I was really just going
nowhere. I was dying out there. I ended up homeless. I got in trouble with the
law, and I just got to deal with all that, you know all my feelings.
Gail Pellett
Although Janet sat with this group out on her own, some of these moms have been
ordered to this class by the court.
Female
So what I did was, I swatted her with it and I felt bad after I did it because
first, I swatted her so hard with that strap one time that it made a welt on
her leg and I start tripping—they’re going to take my kids away and this
is not what they taught me in parenting and I was totally out of control.
Janet Peterford
We need a safe place to go where not being judged and where we can really feel
safe to talk about our feelings.
Female
It’s really difficult for me to say that I am sorry to a child because it is
like, I’m the one supposed to know everything.
Janet Peterford
We get mad at our kids, we get mad that we have to you know, struggle so hard
with our recovery and we are scared.
So, I get kind of break in
the middle of the day. My son is at daycare and I’m job hunting usually come
home and eat lunch and they go back out and hit the pavement.
Gail Pellett
During her recovery, Janet earned a college degree. Recently, while working
with the mentally retarded, she was injured so she’s been receiving workman’s
compensation and looking for another job in social work. Her problem as a
single parent is finding a job that will pay enough for childcare.
Janet Peterford
When I got this job offer, he’s offering me $8.46 an hour, which some people
say I should be lucky that people with master’s degrees are fighting over jobs
that are $6.00 an hour. But for me, when I look at my budget with my childcare,
I found childcare now $300.00 a month, and then I have my school loans.
It’s possibly, I could get them down to $100.00, but right now, they’re
$200.00 a month. That’s more than my rent right there, and you know, I look at
my budget and I’m going to struggle just to buy diapers and food, a little on a
babysit