The book opens with the story of a main character's early life. The character's mother had her young and out of wedlock. The woman never got beyond high school and worked at a diner. They lived with the grampa.
Then the grampa dies, the mom can't support the baby and the house and they end up homeless, the mom a prostitute.
I know its a book ans fiction. But the scenario isn't all that impossible.
Lots of single moms who started as young as I did tend to stop. They focus on the baby and get a low paying job. They get by on food stamps, help from friends and family, child support, and subsidies for housing and daycare.
And there certainly have been times recently that I got by on government help.
But its a fragile existance. Changing policy and the whims of politics and the fate of the relatives supporting the small families can all cause everything to come crashing down.
I'm a weird woman. I have little kids out of wedlock, like a low class type. I'm educated and employed like someone from a higher status.
I don't fit in any group. I'm weird in the low rent bars and parties of most of my friends and cousins. And I FEEL out of place in higher end settings. I hate the feeling of not fitting. Of having out grown what my tastes in friends and people, and not knowing how to break into those other groups. It makes me feel lonely and rejected.
But then I read stories, real or fictional, like that and I remember why I did this.
I did this so that I would be able to give my kids a warm, bright, safe home and not have to worry about the rug being pulled out from under us.
Remind me of that when I'm blogging about being lonely.
In other news in the life of Alley. Jason seems to have moved on. To his best friend's girlfriend. no, no one told me directly, but hints from both sides were given.
I guess I can put up with a lot, but not that. Call me a fool. Smack me upside the head if you have to.
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