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Clara WilsonClara Wilson is fifty years old and the single mother of a
teenage daughter. She also has a son who has graduated from high school and is
currently attending college. Clara
dropped out in the ninth grade but at a time when early school leaving was far
more commonplace. She married at
age fifteen and divorced ten years later. They
tell you to marry, [that] a girl don’t have to have an education--I don’t
tell mine that. I got married.
I took care of my home and everything.
I done like most women, housework. My
first husband, he was workin’ in the paper mill in Ohio.
We divorced and I came back here, me and my little boy.
I was twenty-five. I lived
with my family. Well, [then] I got
me a little house and child support and that. Like many single mothers with
limited education and few job skills, Clara turned to social services in order
to support herself and her child. She
received AFDC (now KTAP) for several years when her son was small, but
discontinued it when she remarried. When
my son got to a certain age I got married [and] I went off welfare.
My second husband was a carpenter. We
lived pretty good when we was married. When
he left, I wasn’t gonna get no child support and couldn’t get a job and had
a little girl, [so] I had to go back. They
always told me to get married and have a family, your husband would take care of
you. I had two of ‘em, they didn’t
take care of us.
Women and children often live in poverty as a result of
divorce, a reality substantiated by this study.
Clara has remained on KTAP since her second divorce and does not receive
child support from her former husband.
Clara is currently participating in a welfare-to-work
program as part of her KTAP eligibility requirements.
She works twenty-five hours each week in a local nonprofit organization. Clara contrasted her present work, which is paid, with an
earlier mandated work requirement for which she was not paid. I’ve
made a lot of friends since I’ve been on this program, different kinds of
people.
It’s been nice.
I get paid for this, this is different.
The other program, we worked twenty-five hours, just to be workin’ so
we could get our food stamps and stuff.
Although Clara enjoys her work, she points out that jobs
are scarce in the area and she is not optimistic about finding full-time
employment. She relates, “I’ve
tried to go out and get work, I’ve put my application in every place that’s
been around here.” Like other
participants, Clara indicated that “my job would have to come first” and
would take priority over adult education classes.
Clara has previously taken the GED exam and
failed it twice. She related, “I’m
so far behind, I have to catch up. You go from the ninth grade to the books they got now,[and]
it’s hard.” Clara also
indicated she would prefer a GED program designed specifically for older adults
like herself. It
would help if we could get a program in just for adults.
You get with a bunch younger than you are and they go on and pass, [and]
you feel like a total fool.
As
Clara’s story indicates, the longer an adult had
been out of school, the more difficult it seemed for them to return. |
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