grade.”
Two months after her commencement in 1969, Caroline got married. “And now there’s times I wished I hadn’t,” she declared. “I was young, and I think it was because I wanted that security, and I thought I loved the guy, maybe at the time. I had a strong belief that when you get married it’s supposed to work; I had real old-fashioned, strong beliefs. And I think it was so easy for me to latch onto people because I haven’t had lots of love and security and communication and things. It was almost like if a guy gave me affection, I’d latch onto almost like the first one that come along. And that’s not good. I’ve learnt over the years, it’s not good.”
The marriage produced three children, lasted fourteen years, and finally sank into a swamp of suspicion created by her husband’s infidelity. She worked night shifts in factories to put him through engineering school, took care of the kids and the animals they raised, and in the end caught him out all night with another woman. The relationship was then corroded by distrust until it disintegrated.
Because she could not afford a lawyer and just wanted out of her mar-riage, she ended up with only $400 a month in child support and no share in their house. “It was a nice place,” she said sadly. “It was a log home that we had built when I was pregnant. We had to put in our own bridge, and I had always wanted a covered bridge made out of logs. Never did get one. But at the time I couldn’t afford the taxes and everything.” Immersed in the memories, she was quietly weeping.
Proudly and foolishly, Caroline rejected an offer from her ex-husband’s parents to put a trailer on their land for her and the kids. Taking care of her was not their responsibility, she felt. So she took a small apartment and bounced between welfare and dead-end jobs, supplementing her income by scavenging for cans. “We’d go and watch a ball game at school, and I’d take bags and stuff them in my pocketbook,” she recalled. “After the ball game I’d be going around poring through the garbage cans pickin’ out five-cent cans.” Her older daughter would ride her bike as far ahead of her mother as possible to avoid any hint of association. “I figured, that few cents buys some milk, buys some bread, things that you need, you know what I’m saying? It all helps. But it embarrassed her. She hated it as she got older.”
Alone and scared, Caroline married again, and this time it was worse. Vernon Payne insulted her, hit her, flew into jealous rages—once when he thought he saw her talking to a young man outside the nursing home where she worked. The “man” was actually a woman with her hair cut short. The marriage lasted two years. “At times I hated men,” she said. “Men were no good, they just lied, and you’re not gonna tell me no different.” On the rare occasions when she voted, she made a point to vote only for women.
Yet she remained hungry for a man in her life and duplicated the pattern so often seen among single mothers who carry the wounds inflicted by men. Women of limited means who crave and cannot create loving partnerships dominate the ranks of the poor, for they are not just single mothers. They are also single wage-earners.
Amber, Caroline’s fourth child, was born into the troubled second marriage. Except for a clubfoot, the petite, dark-haired girl seemed healthy. Only gradually did telltale signs of trouble emerge. She was late walking compared with Caroline’s other children, and a little later to be potty trained. That struck her mother as nothing more than a normal variation among children. “She could watch TV and remember a lot of things shesaw,” Caroline recalled. Then, a test in a preschool program found some learning “delays.”
After the divorce Amber spent every other weekend and a week or two in the summer with her father, Vernon. She once came home with a burn on her finger, and someone filed a complaint with
Two months after her commencement in 1969, Caroline got married. “And now there’s times I wished I hadn’t,” she declared. “I was young, and I think it was because I wanted that security, and I thought I loved the guy, maybe at the time. I had a strong belief that when you get married it’s supposed to work; I had real old-fashioned, strong beliefs. And I think it was so easy for me to latch onto people because I haven’t had lots of love and security and communication and things. It was almost like if a guy gave me affection, I’d latch onto almost like the first one that come along. And that’s not good. I’ve learnt over the years, it’s not good.”
The marriage produced three children, lasted fourteen years, and finally sank into a swamp of suspicion created by her husband’s infidelity. She worked night shifts in factories to put him through engineering school, took care of the kids and the animals they raised, and in the end caught him out all night with another woman. The relationship was then corroded by distrust until it disintegrated.
Because she could not afford a lawyer and just wanted out of her mar-riage, she ended up with only $400 a month in child support and no share in their house. “It was a nice place,” she said sadly. “It was a log home that we had built when I was pregnant. We had to put in our own bridge, and I had always wanted a covered bridge made out of logs. Never did get one. But at the time I couldn’t afford the taxes and everything.” Immersed in the memories, she was quietly weeping.
Proudly and foolishly, Caroline rejected an offer from her ex-husband’s parents to put a trailer on their land for her and the kids. Taking care of her was not their responsibility, she felt. So she took a small apartment and bounced between welfare and dead-end jobs, supplementing her income by scavenging for cans. “We’d go and watch a ball game at school, and I’d take bags and stuff them in my pocketbook,” she recalled. “After the ball game I’d be going around poring through the garbage cans pickin’ out five-cent cans.” Her older daughter would ride her bike as far ahead of her mother as possible to avoid any hint of association. “I figured, that few cents buys some milk, buys some bread, things that you need, you know what I’m saying? It all helps. But it embarrassed her. She hated it as she got older.”
Alone and scared, Caroline married again, and this time it was worse. Vernon Payne insulted her, hit her, flew into jealous rages—once when he thought he saw her talking to a young man outside the nursing home where she worked. The “man” was actually a woman with her hair cut short. The marriage lasted two years. “At times I hated men,” she said. “Men were no good, they just lied, and you’re not gonna tell me no different.” On the rare occasions when she voted, she made a point to vote only for women.
Yet she remained hungry for a man in her life and duplicated the pattern so often seen among single mothers who carry the wounds inflicted by men. Women of limited means who crave and cannot create loving partnerships dominate the ranks of the poor, for they are not just single mothers. They are also single wage-earners.
Amber, Caroline’s fourth child, was born into the troubled second marriage. Except for a clubfoot, the petite, dark-haired girl seemed healthy. Only gradually did telltale signs of trouble emerge. She was late walking compared with Caroline’s other children, and a little later to be potty trained. That struck her mother as nothing more than a normal variation among children. “She could watch TV and remember a lot of things shesaw,” Caroline recalled. Then, a test in a preschool program found some learning “delays.”
After the divorce Amber spent every other weekend and a week or two in the summer with her father, Vernon. She once came home with a burn on her finger, and someone filed a complaint with
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