Terri Rushing dreads the day she gets her next raise.
The single mother of three children, an 11-year-old and 10-year-old
twins, Rushing receives child-care assistance from Tarrant County Child
Care Management Services, a Texas Workforce Commission program that
helps working parents become self-sufficient.
Her day-care expenses are about $1,170 a month during the summer. She pays $235.
A raise of more than $500 annually would push Rushing over the income cap, ending her child-care subsidies.
Even with assistance, Rushing, 49, is barely making it with an
annual income of $27,600. Just last month she had only $96 to last for
two weeks after paying rent, day care, $30 for gasoline and $50 worth
for groceries.
Rushing's struggle is familiar in a country where the
proportion of children living with single mothers has increased
steadily from 8 percent in 1960 to 23 percent in 2006, according to the
report The Feminization of Poverty by the YWCA and the J. McDonald
Williams Institute. These families are more likely to be poor. In 2005,
36.2 percent of single mothers lived in poverty compared with 17.6
percent for single fathers and 6.5 percent for married couples with
children, according to the report.
To keep costs down, Rushing hurries from her job as a trainer at the
Gaylord Texan Resort and Conference Center about 6:15 p.m. each weekday
to pick up her children. She can't be late because at 6:30, the day
care will start charging her $1 a minute.
"I work until the last second," she said. "Having to pick them up makes me seem unavailable for work and not flexible."
During the summer, the Rushing children have to stay at the
center from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and the cost of day care goes up $150
for field trips.
"If they had a choice, they would rather not go there," Rushing said. "We just don't have any other option."
When single father Vedat Lika of Fort Worth was unemployed for
eight months, he constantly worried about how he could afford the high
cost of child care for his two 5-year-old children while searching for
a job.
Lika, 52, considered enrolling his children in the federally
funded, preschool Head Start program. But he said he didn't qualify
because he had earned $32,500 a year before being laid off from
managing a cafeteria in Arlington.
He looked at getting day care through the Tarrant County Child
Care Management Services, the county's largest provider of subsidized
care. To qualify, a parent must be employed or going to school at least
25 hours a week. If there are two parents, each must be employed or
attending school. Lika was unemployed.
"That is something that some of our parents do voice a concern
on, and we totally understand that. But that's one of those policies
and procedures that have been in place with the state," said Patricia
Walker Looper, director of the Tarrant County program.
"The whole point of this program is for them to get to the
point where they can provide for this on their own, and we do have some
great success stories," she said.
So Lika relied on the kindness of neighbors and friends, or
paid for day care with a credit card, which contributed to a $17,000
tab he's now paying off. Sometimes he took his children on job
interviews.
"I know that cost me some jobs, but what could I do?" he said.
He turned down several job offers because the $10 an hour salary range wasn't enough to pay for child care.
Since Lika got his job May 1 working for the Tarrant Area Food
Bank, paying for child care is a bit easier. He earns about $40,000 a
year teaching low-income adults how to cook for a living.
He pays the Little Shepherd Children's Center in Arlington
about $1,000 a month to care for his son, Arman, and daughter, Madison.
This fall, Lika's children plan to attend the East Fort Worth
Montessori school, where Lika teaches his classes. But there is always
next summer when the school is closed. He will have to worry about
paying for day care again.
"If you are going to take care of children, you do the best that you can," Lika said.
Full text available at the Star-Telegram
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