Blog #10: Strategies

Chaudry describes different strategies that the women in the study used to survive after the welfare reform. I do not see the strategies describe as being actual strategies that the women implemented to make child care and work issues work. The way I see it the women did what they had to do to get by. Sometimes this meant working their work schedules around day care schedules and other times it meant working day care schedules around work schedules. In some cases it meant leaving a job, either temporarily or indefinitely, because the child care did not meet the expectation of the mother. Going by Chaudry’s use of the term “strategies”, however, the women had many decisions to make. Sara for example, made the decision to leave her mother’s home and become homeless. She did not want to subject her daughter to the emotional and psychological abuse that she was feeling while living there (Chaudry, 159). For Sara, her strategy was to give Cristina as much stability she could with the Girls and Boys child care service. Sara may not have known where they were going to lay their heads at night or where the system would lead them, but she knew that from 8:30 to 5:45 everyday her daughter would have the stability she needed. Not all mothers took this road.

Some mothers relied only on kin based care. This entailed sharing food and clothing, financial obligations, and living spaces (Chaudry, 164). This method usually proved to be unreliable and did not offer the developmental elements that mothers sought for their kids. Some of the mothers were utterly alone and did not have family to ask for help from. I think that these mothers showed the most perseverance. They would go from center to center, waiting list to waiting list, and would not stop until they got the care they needed. Many of the women were informed from the beginning and sought subsidized care from day one. The lag time in between actually receiving the subsidy, however, left them frantically searching to get the care they needed right away. The last strategy women turned to was Agency-Based Care. These agencies would not only help the mothers find child care, but they would also help the women find work and internship programs to better their lives. This all makes it sound a lot simpler than it actually was. Everyday living and obstacles that came their way added to the tribulations that had to be overcome. Day care times and work hours did not always work out. Late payments and mistakes on the agencies part caused women to have to seek other child care options at the last minute. Jobs were lost, trust was broken, sick children had to be taken care. These women fought day in and day out to get everything accomplished. Without work there was no child care, and without child care there was no work. These mothers had to find a way to balance both because without one, they could not get the other.

There are many similarities between Chaudry’s findings and recommendations for welfare reform. I think that the most important one is to make the process simpler. These women lost too many work hours and sometimes jobs from having to make repeated trips to the agency offices. This suggestion coincides with Chaudry’s suggestion to allow mothers to work continuously (Chaudry, 192). Proving aid during transitional phases will alleviate a major part of the headache women feel when trying to get off welfare. Many of the women in the study had trouble finding care for their infant children. If policies could be changed to mirror Chaudry’s way of thinking than we could expand Child Care options to provide more infant care. Another issue many of the women faced was developmental issues with their young children, such as, speech problem. I think that society as a whole is forgetting that these young children will be running the country in a few decades. There development is essential to our cultures well being. The popular phrase “the children are our future” says it all. Lastly, I think it is important to follow Chaudry’s advice to make all child care affordable. To increase the federal poverty level so more people are eligible for Head Start Programs and so more people are eligible for subsidy aid will be beneficial for everyone. Chaudry states that we should set limits so no family is spending more than 10% of their income on child care. Seeing how on average family spend 18% of their income on childcare. That extra 8% would aid greatly in fulfilling other financial obligations.