Unit B Blog #11

I was able to find a couple of videos on YouTube through the CBS channel that showed the hardships of working class women. One story in particular was about a family living in Florida. The family consisted of a mother and her two daughters, one who is 16, and the other is younger than that. The mother had taken various pay cuts from her own job just to stay employed, but supporting her two daughters along with her house payment became too much for her to handle, mostly due in part to her ex husband owing them 88,000 dollars in backed up child support. The family's house ended up going into foreclosure, and now the sixteen year old daughter works for minimum wage at a retirement home and gives her mother half of the money she makes every month just to help out with the house payments. The mother was visually upset with the fact that her daughter had to help out with the bills and it showed in the way she spoke. This was a family that was self supportive when the economy was booming, but like many others, they could not maintain the lifestyle they had made for themselves after the market went downhill.

This type of story is all too typical for working class women in the United States. It is deeply unfair that she has to support these children on her own, and that the government can not do anything about the fact that her dead beat ex husband owes almost 100 grand in child support. I am sure that this type of story is mirrored all over the U.S. and it is truly sad. This working mother took pay cuts just to keep food on the table, because if she refused to take a pay cut, there is a huge chance that this family could be living in a homeless shelter. We need more government support for women in this type of situation where every day is a struggle to keep up with the bills that are a staple of modern life. If more resources were readily available to her she would be better able to keep her daughters fed and happy, which is extremely important considering these children are our future. We need to do more for the working class poor, especially the working class poor mothers that support for their children when the men will not.