"I chose poverty to save my son from daycare"

[summer]

www.yahoo.com/parenting/i-lived-in-poverty-to-save-my-son-from-daycare-108291746313.html

When my ex-husband and I divorced my economic situation took an abrupt downturn. My son and I moved from a luxurious home in an affluent suburb to a small apartment in a blue collar neighborhood. Our new home had none of the frills and extra amenities like the home we left behind. It was elbow-cracking small, the unreliable air conditioning made it heavy with heat in the Texas summers, and the neighbors were sometimes sketchy. But it was the best my budget could afford.



My son and I went from being part of the upper class to living below the poverty level. We didn’t go out to eat or take vacations anymore. I paid cash for a car that I had to drive with my fingers crossed that it would make it to our destination. Things that used to be a regular part of our budget, like a gym membership and weekend movie outings, became luxuries. Now we could only afford most of the basics, most of the time.



I hadn’t worked full time since my marriage. After the divorce, I could have. Many people let it be clearly known that they thought I should have. My son, they said, didn’t deserve to have his standard of living change like it did. They believed I should have put him in daycare and returned to the workforce full time. But I knew that doing that would exact a price much higher than the disappointment of not going to the movie theater or the neighborhood pizza place.



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When my son was an infant, just learning to pull himself up and creep along low level furniture, he was mauled by a dog. The animal, a golden retriever three times his size, sunk its teeth into both sides of my boy’s head and threw him, effortlessly, into the air. That moment, forever etched into my brain, changed my son from a confident, happy little boy into an anxious, uncertain one. It was as if his life was cracked in half: before the mauling, when he was carefree in a world that was his playground, and after the mauling, when he felt unsafe anywhere but in my arms.



My son did not quickly recover his belief that he’s safe in the world separate from me. He is better now, but in those years after the divorce he was still recovering his confidence in himself and his ability to navigate through life. His one safe place was in our little apartment with me by his side. Even with other family members he felt exposed. He had no tolerance for strangers or unfamiliar environments.



Putting my son in daycare would have cost him more than sadness about not going out to eat anymore. He didn’t need a restaurant-made pizza. He did need to spend as much time as possible in an environment where he felt safe. Putting him into daycare for 40 to 50 hours a week would have undermined the hard work we’d both put into restoring his self-confidence.



Instead of taking a job that would have required my son being under someone else’s care for the bulk of the work week, I took a job I could do from home, on my own schedule. While the income did allow me to buy a reliable car and increase our weekly food budget, it still left us living on an income below the federal poverty level.



But I was home with my son when he struggled through panic attacks or was barely functional during the day because he hadn’t slept the night before due to nightmares and anxiety. He wasn’t with other caregivers trying to wrestle with those challenges on his own because he couldn’t trust them to keep him safe.



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Financial poverty was my choice. I made it because I knew that being in daycare would take emotional health from my son that no amount of money could replace. I never asked anyone else to be responsible for my choice though. We never received public assistance. There were a few times when I went to a local food bank because my court-ordered support payments lagged behind. But other than those few times, I didn’t ask anyone to bear the cost of my choosing poverty.



I was still judged, sometimes harshly, for that decision. Our society can set very limiting norms for determining what is and is not acceptable parenting behavior. We are told that the choice of being poor is one made by lazy parents who would rather not have to work than provide a good life for their children. Somehow we have equated living above the poverty line with the preferred place to raise children. The two are not mutually exclusive



Children need more than money and the things that money can buy. They do have a right to having their basic needs met; housing, clothing, food, education and medical care. But they also require love, guidance and protection. When mothers and fathers cannot provide those, no amount of money can fill the aching loss a child feels. Why do we find it more acceptable for a parent to be emotionally unavailable to their son or daughter than we do for a parent to choose to live below the poverty line?



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My choice was never the popular one. But it was the right one. It gave my son the safe space he needed to regain his footing. His counselor educated me in ways to help him navigate his anxiety. When he was wringing wet with fear I was there to talk him through his overwhelming feelings. Those were the benefits of our living in financial poverty.



As my son’s health improved I increased my number of hours worked. Slowly, we crept into the lower middle class then into the true middle class. I’m now able to provide him with the newly released video games or a trip to the movie theater. If I had chosen to return to work full time and place him in daycare I doubt those luxuries would have meant much to him. Now, as a teenage boy who became healthy in a financially impoverished but emotionally rich home, he can fully enjoy them along with his restored sense of confidence in himself and the goodness of the world.

[cookiemdough]

Lololol

[cookiemdough]

Wait so did they not get child support?

[rupertpenny]

She chose to live in poverty? Must be nice.

[secretlyevil]

It must be nice to have the choice.

[my3boyz]

I agree, the title is misleading. It makes it sound like she was just some helicopter mom but the article sounds like her son would have been in bad shape emotionally without her.

[Deleted]

Now I'm not saying that her poor son probably wasn't deeply affected by the dog attack, but she seems like the type who needs to be needed. Perhaps she fostered some feelings of insecurity because of her own.

Maybe this article just rubs me the wrong way entirely. She chooses to live in poverty and then is insulting to both those who don't make the choice and those who don't have the choice. Way to go, lady.

[erbear]

Jan 29, 2015 6:23:04 GMT -5 mockingbird said:

The title made me kind of hate her, but when I read it I felt a little more sympathetic.

And yeah, child support?

That's how I felt. I was prepared to hate her, but I cant argue with her reasoning to keep him home for a few more years. She does appear to have the needs to be needed complex a bit, but an interaction with a dog like that would scare the crap out of any parent. 

Also, yeah. Child support?

[ChillyMcFreeze]

I resent her implication that non-parent caregivers can't give "love and guidance." This is such a shamefest for parents who put their kids in daycare. Daycares can be very nurturing, enriching places for kids. No parent should be shamed for finding care for their kids while they work.

[kkfeb04]

Jan 29, 2015 7:07:39 GMT -5 ChillyMcFreeze said:

I resent her implication that non-parent caregivers can't give "love and guidance." This is such a shamefest for parents who put their kids in daycare. Daycares can be very nurturing, enriching places for kids. No parent should be shamed for finding care for their kids while they work.

She lost what tiny amount of sympathy she was getting from me with that comment. She felt judged but it is cool to judge those of us that put in kids in daycare whether we have a choice or not.

[AllieHound]

Did I miss the mention of therapy for her son? Because...yeah. needs to be needed sounds about right.

[Deleted]

They got child support on top of her job. She mentioned that the only time she went to a food bank once when the CS check was late.

ETA: I posted too soon.

I don't know anything about child support but she says they went from upper class to poverty. I feel like they should be getting more if she wasn't working and was upper class before. Are there other factors like her ability to work that come in to play?

[omgzombies]

Um... I'm going to go with Mom contributing to whatever issues baby boy has. That coupled with the fact that she just doesn't come across as very sympathetic in this piece, makes me roll my eyes a bit, specifically during the whole "children need love, not restaurant bought pizza". I'm sure watching your son in very real physical danger is traumatizing, and I don't doubt that both he and she suffered a bit from dealing with that. I think therapy for both would go a long way.

[ggirl]

I have a lot of issues with this article. I also think mom was suffering trauma from the accident and probably could have benefited from therapy as well.

But it is the judgments that get me. How does she know daycare wouldn't have worked? It may have helped her son progress even more? She doesn't know but has made a judgment call about daycare. That's an insult to people who don't have the luxury of that choice.

[ttt]

Okay. I admit that I am not a child development expert. But the child was seven months old when the dog attack occurred, and they divorced when he was five years old. I am giving the side eye that in five years, he couldn't possibly have recovered emotionally from this attack when he was a baby (that let's face it, he probably didn't even remember) so much so that he could not have gone to daycare.

goodmenproject.com/featured-content/will-prioritizing-my-sons-emotional-well-being-emasculate-him-dg/

I'm going to go with "mom has major issues and is projecting them onto her child."

[ggirl]

I'm involved in a new training that is focusing on infant mental health and it is appearing that infants can remember traumatic experiences. However. When did she get him in therapy then? If she got him in young, then by 5 he may have benefitted from daycare, at least part time. Also. His anxiety may not have even been from the dog attack and she related it to that. I don't doubt that the child have mental health issues. I just resent her judgment that daycare would have made him worse.

[ggirl]

Ohhh the fact that she has her own traumatic past has given me different ideas. The training I'm doing (child parent psychotherapy) focuses specifically on this type of dynamic.

[jeaniebueller]

I can't imagine that mom's neediness and worries about the big bad world have contributed at all to this child's anxiety and emotional coping deficits. #sarcasm Poor kiddo. Did she say if the dad has visitation?

[Deleted]

Jan 29, 2015 8:00:51 GMT -5 ttt said:

Okay. I admit that I am not a child development expert. But the child was seven months old when the dog attack occurred, and they divorced when he was five years old. I am giving the side eye that in five years, he couldn't possibly have recovered emotionally from this attack when he was a baby (that let's face it, he probably didn't even remember) so much so that he could not have gone to daycare.

goodmenproject.com/featured-content/will-prioritizing-my-sons-emotional-well-being-emasculate-him-dg/

I'm going to go with "mom has major issues and is projecting them onto her child."

He was 5? Was he in school? She could have worked then.

And if they were actual wealthy, child support should have put them above actual poverty. Or her share of marital assets would have. And did they dad have some custody when she could have been working.

This situation is weird.

[Deleted]

As a parent who's kid has been in multiple daycare situations, I also raised my eyebrows that the child was too scarred to handle being away from mom. Is a dog attack scary, yes. Traumatic, yes. But I think it's the job of a parent to work with a child to cope with the big scary world, especially after scary things happen. IME, every single one of C's daycare teachers has been incredibly caring and interested in his needs. And I know there is some luck in consistently getting great child care providers but still, I believe/hope the bulk of them really do mean the best for the children in their care. I absolutely feel the child would have benefited from spending time away from mom, and learning that there is a world of caring, supportive people out there, and mom isn't his only support system. This experience sounds exhausting and morose.

[Deleted]

Isnt that nice she choose poverty. Wonder what the people who DONT choose it but are there think about it?

[penguingrrl]

If he was 5 when they divorced presumably then or shorty after he started elementary school. Also, it sound to me like mom was projecting her anxiety disorder on him.

[ECB]

So, if even with CS and coming from a wealthy life, she was living in poverty- either she had a crappy lawyer who didn't get her enough $$ AND/OR she has a crappy ex who doesn't care that his child is living in poverty. 

But yeah- I side-eye a lot of this.  I want to feel for her - trying to do the best for her child.  But 5 years after the dog attack, her child is still that fragile?  Yeah, that's not all on the child.  That's on her and for not getting the child the help he needed at a younger age.

[hopecounts]

I'm a SAHM and I am side eyeing the heck out of her.
Rather then work and get her son therapy to be able to handle what happened she had them live a very difficult way.
I am not OK with this.
I get it when your kid has challenges it can be hard to push them but you aren't doing them any favors by letting them not try.

[Deleted]

Team "She has her own problems". I'm not sure spending ALL YOUR TIME with an anxious, overbearing mother is the best way to learn the world is a safe place.

[lg28]

DS (2.5) benefits so greatly from preschool (he goes 2x per week) that I'm hoping its in the budget to keep him there even as I SAH. It's been great for his anxiety and social skills.

[heyjude]

I call some bull shit in this story. It's not passing the smell test for me.

[darnkatz]

The phrase "I chose poverty" should really never come out of a person's mouth unless they choose to become a nun. She sounds like someone I would want to pat on the head and then punch in the face. I feel like she is demeaning to every person who lives in poverty and didn't have a damn choice about it.

What she should be saying is, "I chose poverty because I'm a damn fool who is self-involved and is having a hard time adjusting to not being a rich princess any longer but I'm using my son as a cover-up."

Oh, sorry. Did that just come out of my mouth?

[jillboston]

her idea of poverty is different than mine.

[ttt]

Anyone else think she just didn't want to get a job?