THE SINGLE MOTHER WHO HELPED REINFORCE MY VOW TO REMAIN NK

My New Year began with the professional cleaning of a carpet, the removal of a small sofa that had in the last few months popped a spring and broken a leg, and the purchase of another sofa from a single mother across the way who was moving about thirty miles away to more affordable housing, she said with the help of her friends.

I never asked her how it was that she got stranded by the child's father, but perhaps I didn't need to know and she didn't need to tell the all too typical story.  Her daughter is, I feel lucky, as I think the fatherless family unit is possibly even worse for sons.  Her daughter is also very beautiful and intelligent beyond her years but perhaps does not yet have a sense that she is living in poverty.  She's not in school yet.  She is generally a happy child but one who knows how to throw a tantrum and disobey to get her way.  I expect that in a couple years some child psychologist will chime in an opinion but maybe this single mother is simply out of control of her child.

In a previous post I pretty much ranted my opinion that unless you have lots of family support and money in the bank, no woman should have one or more children on her own.  I said that there were lots of frantic women in my neighborhood who had the single mom lifestyle and from what I witnessed it was a an often desperate lifestyle.

So this situation was an example.

First I and my dog went to look at the sofa.  I asked her to measure it but she never had the time. 

I decided it was worth it to buy it for the price, even if it turns out to be a temporary solution. She said that her friends who were helping her move would be glad to bring it over.  I told her I was having the carpets cleaned and the old sofa removed before then.

The day before the move she texted me that she needed to fax important papers.  It was New Years Day and I have no home fax and most places were closed.  She added that she had no money to fax so it had to be someone's personal fax.  I was not about to get on the phone to ask around for her.  What had she left to the last minute like this?  The new lease to the landlord and paperwork for her child's school.  Ah well, the texting went on and on, and I got it SHE HAD NO MONEY TO FAX EVEN IF SHE FOUND A PLACE THAT WAS OPEN.  I found a place that was open on New Years Day and she said she had no bus fare to get there.  I knew that on Christmas, in order to get to a friend's place where she was going to hang out for the holiday she had asked the bus driver for a free ride for herself and her daughter.  He said yes.  She had been begging free bus rides a lot.

I was finding all this anxiety producing.  I decided to give her $10 towards the sofa and took it and a plate of food over to her apartment.  There I found a lot of Christmas gifts torn open that her friends had bought from Santa for her daughter.  She said she was just thinking she was hungry.  Well, I suspect there was no food in the place.  She also remarked that it was cold.  It was.  No heat.  I wondered if she really needed to fax or had just managed to coax money out of me.  I decided I was not going to offer to babysit for free while she took buses to the fax place.

The place was reasonably clean maybe because it was so bare.

I asked her if she maybe needed a twin bed, as I had a twin bed frame I was giving away.  She said her daughter had her own room (i.e THE bedroom) and that she herself sometimes slept on the sofa she was selling me.  It was clear she had been unable to sell it, would have no room for it in the next place, and that she was happy to have some money in hand.  Maybe the money to pay her friends.

The next day her friends showed up in a vehicle that looked like it was held together with spackle and proceeded to tie a box springs and two mattresses onto the roof.  It turned out they were not friends but for hire.  She was so broke she hit me up for boxes and plastic bags.  I gave her the money for the sofa and an extra $5 to tip them for bringing her sofa across the street to my place.  (Apparently she didn't and kept the money, as they posed around my door awaiting tip money.)  I realized that she had not wanted the bed frame because her daughter slept on a mattress on the floor and these mattresses and box springs were so mismatched and filthy, I had to wonder if she hadn't pulled them into her place when someone else on the street threw them out.

So, no money for bus fare, no money to buy gifts for her daughter herself, no gift for the daughter from the "father", no money to heat the place, and food insecurity.

To her credit she has been doing an Internship and hoping for a new job and I certainly hope that in her new town this is possible and exactly what happens for her in the New Year.