This is not a story of a family living out of a broken down van, or begging in the streets, or suffering from poor health due to lack of insurance. This is not a story of a family who has to take turns eating from one day to the next. This is not a story of unemployment or home foreclosure. This is a portrait of a family that, in between the horror stories of home foreclosures and starving children contrasted against a financially stable family, would most likely get lost, since they are just getting by.
In short, this is a story about a mother's sacrifice.
Mary Smith* and her husband own a small business in Hernando County. They are still able to keep their business afloat, but things have gotten so bad that Mary has had to leave running the store to her husband in search of a more predictable paycheck. Even though her children qualify for Florida's Healthy Kids program, the business does not generate enough income to be able to pay for health insurance for her and her husband, especially since her husband has chronic medical conditions.
Certified to teach both elementary education and music education, she spent all summer searching for jobs not only in Hernando, but in Citrus, Polk, Pasco, Hillsborough, and several other counties. By the time the new school year started, the only job she was offered was in St. Lucie County, over three hours away on Florida's Atlantic coast. Faced with the choice of living away from her children to provide health insurance for herself and her husband, or staying with her children and going without coverage, she felt she had no other choice but to accept the position.
Starting pay for a teacher with a bachelor's degree in St. Lucie county is $35,356 annually. Therefore, a good estimation of Mary's monthly income, after taxes, is approximately $2,100. This hardly offsets the cost of renting a room during the week and paying for gas to get back and forth for weekend visits ($800/month) and cost of health insurance ($200/month). At the end of the year, Mary might have a little extra to spend on Christmas gifts for the children she rarely gets to see.
The real cost of working over three hours away from her children, however, cannot be denoted in dollar amounts. Her oldest son, now 18, has taken over most of the responsibilities of caring for his younger siblings, since his father works at least twelve hours each day in the store. The younger children's grades have started to slip, since it is difficult for either parent to stay on top of their homework, even with weekly communication with their teachers. Mary has also had to miss out on many of the activities she used to enjoy with her children, including their dance performances and parent nights at school. Then there are the Sunday evenings, dreaded by the whole family, when Mary has to leave her children and return to the other coast so she can be in her classroom on Monday morning.
Mary's family is making it. But at what cost? How far can we reasonably expect a mother to go to provide for her children? How many families will be torn apart before we fix a system that is clearly broken? How many more mothers will be forced to make this sacrifice?
*Name changed to protect identity.
