blog 8

Problems that Urban poverty create for poor working mothers ranges from childcare, adequate safe housing, resources available to students in public schools along with the conditions of the schools that these children attend. Jessica raises her three boys in a neighborhood that she refers to as bad. She does not allow her children to play outside for fear of them being shot or killed. The neighbors next door could be selling drugs within a 100 ft of her children yet this is all Jessica can afford on minimum wage. Jessica takes her children to the park to play in a safe environment away from their neighborhood. How is that right, a home should be a place that one can go to, too feel loved and protected from the outside world and yet Jessica takes her children away from their home so they can play safely outdoors. No mother should have to live under those conditions and no children should fear what is right outside their front door. Schools in areas like Jessica also have to deal with used and out dated school books, run down buildings and inadequate resources. Jessica and her children are victims of a society that believes that a single mother of three children can live adequately on minimum wage. So how do these problems differ from those of poor women living in mixed income neighborhoods? Looks can be deceiving of poor women living in mixed income neighborhoods. From the outside yes there neighborhood may be more inviting say that of Jessica’s and there may be more opportunities and resources available at the schools in the mixed income neighborhoods yet these are still single mothers who are working hard to raise their children and balance work and home with no time for themselves and little time left over for their children after work.