Liberated: To set free, as from oppression, confinement, or foreign control.
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A few years ago, I learned about an alarming phenomenon from colleagues in the ‘biz’ of training daycare workers. They had a term: Monday Morning Diaper Rash. This was due to the parent (most likely a single mother) using one diaper the whole weekend because she couldn’t afford diapers.
Think about this. Really think about this. In America, and as I type this, there are children in government-subsidized daycare who will have diaper rash Monday morning because their WORKING mother cannot afford enough diapers.
I’ve thought a lot lately about how the mom/parenting communities I’m part of are mainly comprised of middle-class working parents whose concerns include how to spend more time with their spouse or get their kids to eat vegetables. While those are valid concerns, we forget that so many mothers in America don’t have a spouse or support system in place and just worry about their kids having enough food. There is a group of people largely hidden from society (and the blogosphere?): poor, working mothers with children.
Disproportionately single mothers. Disproportionately African American or Hispanic. Disproportionately [based on my observations] not part of the blogging working mother community.
Check out these stats from a 2009 Bureau of Labor Report:
- 12% of working families with children lived in poverty compared to 3% of families without children.
- 26.6 % of families maintained by a woman with children under the age of 18 were in poverty.
- 18.2 % families maintained by a man with children under the age of 18 were in poverty.
- 7% of married-couple families with children under the age of 18 were in poverty.
- Black and Hispanic workers continued to be about twice as likely as White or Asian workers to be poor.
- The likelihood of being classified as working poor greatly diminishes as workers attain higher levels of education.
Here’s more food for thought. In Virginia where I live the minimum wage rate as of February 2013 is $7.25. Working full-time at that rate for 1 year, a person’s income would be $15,080. If that was your salary, could you see where a mother would have to choose between diapers and food for the weekend?
This post was initially inspired by a graph that was shared with me. It was from an article from the Huffington Post on Class Privilege and Parental Leave.
This graph is telling. This graph is important. The less education you have, the less likely you are to have paid maternity leave. But what this graph is really telling us that the lower your education, the more doors are shut for you. You make less money. You have fewer benefits. The graphs for education status and preterm birth, breastfeeding duration, and health insurance coverage – I guarantee you – look very similar to this graph. (Check out data from the Pregnancy Assessment and Monitoring Survey from the Centers from Disease Control if you want to geek out on this stuff.)
This is why, when you’re acting to improve education and employment for mothers, you’re improving the health and well-being of children.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the disparities that exist in this country based on education, income and class. Socioeconomic status impacts a person/family’s ability to function. To get health care. To pay rent. To buy a house. To pay for daycare. To work. To be fully engaged with and contribute to the growth of society their children. And who is impacted more severely? Mothers and children. And in many cases, these mothers are working hard for their money.
I hear you thinking now – Oh my gosh, you have just laid out a whole lotta heavy in this article and I just voted and isn’t President Obama all into Early Childhood now and what am I supposed to do with this information?
Well, here’s what I do with it (and admittedly, not very well – I’m a work in progress).
I try to be mindful that I’m really very fortunate to have a well-paying meaningful job and I feel grateful.
I challenge myself to do more within my sphere of influence to help a fellow mom who’s struggling.
I try to recognize that the cashier or hairstylist may be a working mother too.
I tip well when I can.
I wonder how we can use our bloggy power to truly help liberate ALL working moms.
I challenge the notions that “the poor will always be with us” and “people have to pull themselves up by their boot strap.” How can we expect working moms to move out of poverty without help when taking time off for education or maternity leave may mean their children will go hungry?
I advocate for issues and vote for public officials that promote equal access to high quality education and healthcare.
I think of Monday Morning Diaper Rash.
Amen. I’m amazed at the challenges faced by even those single moms (and dads) with well paying jobs, much less those who are struggling financially as well. I’ve never heard of Monday Morning Diaper Rash before, but it explains why our location food pantry also asks for donations of diapers.
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Wow.
Humbling, frightening, saddening. A lot to think about.
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I think I should have titled this “Working Moms and Poverty” or something? Anyway… to clarify, all the stats are in households where the adult is employed. In 2009, there were 1.7 million working married-couple parents with children living in poverty, and 2.0 million working single-mom headed households in poverty. Staggering.
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Great post today. I was just hiding in my car, basically having a fit/late lunch because 1) I lost my smart phone music playlists, 2) someone treated me disrespectfully at the office today and 3) I was sulking about my wonderful husband (who also works full time at a good job) not ‘accomplishing’ anything yesterday when he was home solo with our girls. …Attitude adjusted. I can not agree enough that we should be conscious, encouraging and fighting for all working parents. Sometimes I forget all but my own stupid small world.
There are days that I need to remind myself how well off we are in comparison.
There is a small church near my parents house that collects baby items for single moms in need. Every six months or so I take a bag of baby stuff – diapers too small for A or ones that I got on sale, blankets, samples, formula coupons or samples – and deliver to the church. It’s not much, but it is better than throwing it away knowing it can help someone out.
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They don’t make it easy in this country to get ahead out of poverty since as soon as you get that job, no matter how low paying it is, you lose so many of the benefits that were helping you take care of your family. Sometimes it feels like the social safety net (insofar as it exists in the US) is geared toward keeping people poor.
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Christa the Babby Mama,
What you said about the social safety net keeping people poor is sooooo true. If you are able to tap into all the available resources you can live a decent life but as soon as you better yoursef, work more, or make more money you lose the resources at such an extreme rate you are worse off. This scenario is especially true for people that haven’t been working because when they start working they now have to balance work, life, and kids for a life that isn’t as good as when they didn’t work. Why would they better themselves?
In the current economy this scebario is becoming reality for the middle class too. In my personal scenario my husband and I both work full time at “career” jobs. We both have a bachelor’s degree. I just finished my degree this summer. I got a significant raise 10 days later. Yay, education works right? No! It bumped us into a higher tax bracket so I wasn’t taking home any additional money and then we lost the subsity to our children’s insurance (it wasn’t free for us but it had been subsidized). This was an all or nothing program so we went from paying 80$ a month for their insurance to 470$. I essentially took a 390$ a month pay cut because I “bettered” myself. I am an educated person that has always been middle class. That subsidy is the only government assistance I had ever gotten, so I just bucked up, paid the additional money, and called it life. However, what is someone who has always know the “system” going to do in that scenario? Probably give up the new job because, “why work harder to be behind financially”.
These comments have taken an interesting turn! Well… I think there’s the issue of ‘dependence’ and ‘independence’… but there is the tendance to ‘blame the poor’ for their circumstances when it’s actually a whole lot of interacting factors. I learned today about a 17 year old mom who wants to go back to high school but can’t b/c there’s no daycare available for her 2 month old. That’s the kind of junk that keeps people in a downward spiral.
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Yes it is. I wish she lived by me because we have an amazing free day care for teen moms.