Low Wage Lifestyle of Single Mothers

I plan to look into the lives of single mother’s and the low wages that themselves, and their kids, have to live off of. Luckily, my parents are not divorced but I feel like more marriages are ending, leaving mothers in a bind. In Shipler’s The Working Poor, Caroline had a “marriage that produced three children, lasted fourteen years, and finally sank into a swamp of suspicion created by her husband’s infidelity… the relationship was then corroded by distrust” (Shipler 55). She, like most divorced women, got no share in the house, could not afford the taxes, and was only given $400 a month for the child support. The decline of employment these days is making it even harder for single mothers to find jobs when number of them went from being a stay at home mom (making them have little to no past experience). Ehrenreich wrote of a similar situation, “I drop off my application and am about to start hitting the Targets and Kmarts when I get an idea: no one is going to hire me based on an application showing no job experience—I have written, as usual, that I am a divorced housemaker reentering the workforce” (Ehrenreich 123). I want to explore this topic not just because unexpected divorces, but for other reasons too that women can become single parents; such as the passing of their husband, young teenage pregnancy, legal issues, etc. Overall I felt like this is a low wage lifestyle that I hope I never experience or my friends, but it is bound to happen later in my life to anyone from my mom, sisters, friends, or myself.

Single Mother’s: Working, but Still Poor http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/socialservices/20060810/15/1931
^ one link that I have Already found that could be relevant