Our regular columnist, Mom2KG, is back to pose some interesting questions about women and poverty. Any tips and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Hats off to TMW, who has managed to keep writing an interesting and informative blog for some time now, without (yet) running out of ideas. I have never written more than once a month, and find myself wondering what else I could say.
So, I thought for today’s post I would write a bit about what’s been on my mind lately about families and money. I recently began volunteering at a women’s residence. Young, pregnant women (some as young as 13) go there when they have literally nowhere else to go. They stay in the residence for up to a year after the baby is born, then go to transition housing. These young women are sometimes so alone that no one is attending the birthing with them. Suffice to say, the baby’s daddies are (usually) long gone and other family members have abandoned or cannot otherwise help.
I spoke to a group of them recently about basic money management. I tried not to be too lecture-y, but I’m not sure my advice was very practical. For example, my #1 tip was NEVER EVER use payday loan services. TMW readers will know why: exorbitant interest rates and short terms make repayment next to impossible. However, what, exactly, these women are supposed to do for money is beyond me. Working full time in retail will barely pay rent and food, let alone daycare for the little ones when mom is working.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how the young and vulnerable families can break the cycle of poverty? Any tips – even how to shop cheaply – would be very welcome.
This experience brought me back to my law school days, where we were taught a term in family law called “feminization of poverty.” I dislike the phrase, because it implies poverty is something women alone experience, or, worse, that women or feminism have somehow annexed poverty as a political issue. Instead, feminization of poverty refers to the fact the family breakdowns (separation, divorce, absent fathers) create a huge financial imbalance between the separated spouses and, of course, most often the mother. Families that once functioned well financially are brutally affected by these breakdowns, with the mother most often bearing the heaviest burden.
The mother’s day-to-day care of the children (of whom she most likely has custody) impacts her ability to work and therefore she does not achieve what she might otherwise in a more stable situation. (You aren’t likely to get promoted if you’re the only coming in a little late, leaving a little early, and taking days off to stay home with sick kids.) She is responsible for household expenses, many of which are often “extras” which are not taken into account when support is agreed to or ordered by a court. (And that’s assuming the father pays. Many do, of course; many separated families function very well financially – but courts hear every day from mothers who are desperate because the ex has stopped making payments.) There’s more to this, of course, and it ignores the relatively few dads who find themselves in this position.
How to solve these issues? The courts are bound by their own rules and are overflowing. The young single moms at the shelter – how are they going to look after their children and finish high school? How do you make the deadbeat dads actually pay?
Now, this is a financial blog – please don’t write in railing against the family law system, or deadbeat dads, who have their own sides of the story. I want to know what you would do to, and what suggestions to have, to address family-related poverty.
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