The Instability of Child Care

Jacqueline and Julia encountered several factors that definitely contribute to the instability of child care. First of all, Julia had already been receiving public assistance for nearly a year and a half at the time Jacqueline was born. This meant she was already behind the curve of what society would probably want to call normalcy because her income was low. One thing to Julia’s credit is that she wanted to start college right after Jacqueline was born. This did, at least, show that she was cognizant of her situation and wanted to better things for her and her family.

The first dilemma Julia encountered was that Jacqueline’s father was watching her and her two older sisters while Julia was at college. Then he and Julia broke up at the end of the semester. One of Julia’s sisters then took over the care of her sister’s children. She took care of the children almost full time for three months. Because money was so desperately needed, Julia and her sister started working at a fast food restaurant. They tried to get alternating shifts so one of them could always be at home to care for the children. When Julia’s sister, Izzy, got another job, she was gone.

For a while, Julia wasn’t able to secure child care. She finally got into a program that her city said was mandatory for women on welfare. This program also provided child care for her children. However, because the city was not paying on time, Julia lost that arrangement because she could not afford to pay the care giver and then wait for her reimbursement from the city.

Finally, Julia found Sonia through a network provided by ACD. Things ended up working out really well with Sonia.

Many of Julia’s problems were compounded by the fact that the government agencies could not get their act together, especially near the end of the Julia’s story. They closed her public assistance file, but also cut off other things as a result. It still made it very hard for Julia, but she was now headed in the right direction because she had a new job that paid much better.