The overwhelming majority of African American women in identify education as an important goal for themselves and especially for their children. Even if they have no specific plans for themselves, they are quite confident about the importance of education for their children. Education is viewed as a way to improve one's opportunities in the job market, a way to make something of oneself, a source of personal pride, and a model for one's children. Yet the route to educational uplift is a difficult one, especially for these low-income single mothers. In addition, its rewards are limited. (Polakow, 1993)
I am Carrie White, a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two children, a boy and a girl. I am employed as a nurse's aid at a local nursing home and has worked there for a little over three years. I began working at age thirteen in the summers: I chopped cotton, baby-sat, cleaned house, and worked in a fast-food restaurant and later at a manufacturing plant. I was eighteen when my first child was born and received food stamps and welfare in varying amounts until I began to work full-time. When I was twenty-five, at the urging of my sister who had completed a teacher's aid program at the local community college, I entered the college in the JTPA program.
Within about fifteen months, I completed my GED and the nurse's aid certification. I began working at the nursing home thirteen days after receiving I certificate. Currently I work full-time and earn $4.50 per hour and is am longer eligible for AFDC. My food stamp allowance varies monthly, depending upon my earnings. I am able to manage on this income because I live in public housing which costs me $100.00 per month, I have a private-duty nursing job that pays me additional money, and I was given a car........
