Blog #7

There are lots of factors that contribute to the instability of child care that Jaqueline and Julia experience. At first, Julia tries to use kin care by having the baby’s father watch the children while she is at work. This did not last long though because eventually they broke up. The next care provider was Julia’s cousin, Izzy, but that ended after five months because Izzy’s work prevented her for continuing to provide the care. Next up, Julia turned to the Agency for Child Development for subsidized care, but she was placed at the end of a long waiting list because she was not a high priority because she was not working or attending school at the time she applied. She finally did make it into a welfare program, Work Experience Program, but shortly after finding care through that program, the welfare program’s system was late in making payments, leaving Julia without child care once again. She lost her next child care provider because of subsidy payment problems again, but this time she risked losing both of her jobs as well. Shortly after this, Julia lost all her assistance from the government and her increased housing and food expenses left her unable to pay for child care. In the end, Julia’s expenses and debt continued to grow and her work schedule also did not fit with any available child care schedule. With minimum wage jobs the schedule is most likely not as flexible. When you work minimum wage jobs as a poor working mother you probably work more than one job, therefore making it even more difficult to find child care for all the time you are at work. Minimum wage jobs make child care very unstable for children and mothers as well. It is also very hard to work your way up when you start at minimum wage jobs, most moms said that they have worked minimum wage jobs their entire lives, never making it over that hump to better pay and a reason for that could be lack of child care in order to give the effort needed in order to move up.