Why the Silence on Welfare Reform?
Harriet’s faith in men and in public schools spiraled downward at the same precipitous rate. In conversations with us, she remembered a father “not as reliable as he should have been” and disclosed that the fathers of her own children are no longer in the picture. But Harriet is pushing herself hard to work–resolved that she will not fall back on welfare. Living in a poor Boston neighborhood, earning under $20,000, she can keep her subsidized child-care slot for a year. And she is elated over her 4-year-old daughter’s preschool, where teachers push the child, developing a lively, active mind, and warn Harriet, “Please don’t send her to public schools!” Sheryl is another of the 14 working-poor mothers we’ve gotten to know over the past two years. At 20, with two young children, she fled Mississippi after her husband attacked her and her best friend with a baseball bat. Sheryl, too, works full-time in Boston, using her subsidy to enroll her son in a family day-care home in the city’s de
