Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [59]
POOR FAMILIES: LOVE’S LABORS MULTIPLIED
All parents are faced with multiple, daily child-rearing tasks. But, in poor families, the difficulties involved in executing those tasks are much greater than in middle-class families and working-class ones. The additional burden created by poverty is not connected to the competence of individuals (although individuals do vary in their social skills). Rather, it is the result of the uneven distribution of structural resources. Unlike in Western European countries, where all families with dependent children get a monthly stipend, in the United States, financial stability is considered a matter of individual responsibility. Public assistance does not cover the minimum costs of raising children. Moreover, the social resources available to the poor are not simply insufficient; they are also bureaucratic, slow working and stigmatized.
Ms. Brindle is not currently employed, but she has held jobs in the past and seems proud of it (e.g., noting that she had worked at McDonald’s, she adds, “I was good at it”). She hopes to return to work once Melmel starts school. In the meantime, the Brindles try to survive on public assistance. Twice a month, Ms. Brindle has to go in person to collect her food stamps and cash stipend. Usually, due to lack of child care, she takes Melmel with her. However, on this day his older sister Jenna watched him. Going to get food stamps is a chore she “hate[s].” The bus ride is long, the disbursement office is bleak, and, on days when food stamps are released, it is crowded with slow-moving lines of tired women (men are vastly outnumbered) towing young children. The lines form outside the building, before the office opens. The day we go, it takes fifteen minutes of inching forward before we even get inside. Once we have edged into the building, we join around seventy-five people who are waiting in another long line in a small, dusty and dirty room. There are no public restrooms; there are no drinking fountains. We wait another thirty minutes. The cashiers move slowly; they look bored and disinterested. At 9:05, we are done but exhausted by the wait.
While standing in line Ms. Brindle says, sounding anxious and a bit desperate, “I am out of everything. Milk, eggs, bread.” We go to the grocery store immediately after we get the food stamps. Katie’s mother buys four boxes of cereal, a loaf of white bread, a gallon of milk, bologna, American cheese, a dozen eggs, and a cake mix and frosting. It is Katie’s birthday that day. The cake mix calls for vegetable oil. This is an unusual and added expense. Ms. Brindle looks stressed while she is staring at the glistening plastic bottles of yellow oil. She sighs deeply and says, “I wish food was free.”6
We then head back home; the entire expedition having taken approximately two hours.
Under conditions where every dollar for food matters, unexpected losses present serious problems. One afternoon when Ms. Brindle returns to the apartment after getting her food stamps (she had gone by herself), she is upset. She thinks she has been shortchanged:
CiCi sat down at the dining room table. She sighed and took off her coat and put it on the chair next to her. She looked at Jenna and said, “I think they gypped me forty dollars. There were all these people in line shouting to hurry up and I tried to count it, but I couldn’t concentrate.” CiCi sounded sad.
She started counting each page in the first [food stamp] booklet and then the second booklet. . . . Katie made a noise—a humming noise (it wasn’t loud)—while CiCi was counting. CiCi said in an angry tone, “Be quiet. That’s what happened in line. I couldn’t concentrate. Everyone was yelling.” . . . CiCi looked at Jenna and said, “They’re not supposed to do that. They gave me all these books with low numbers (dollar amounts). They’re not supposed to do that. They’re supposed