Helping low-income women work-Extended bibliography

“Helping Women to be able to work.” http://views.washingtonpost.com. Avis Thomas-Lester, September 27, 2010. Web. Feb. 2011

In the article “Helping Women to be able to work” Avis Thomas describes a report released by the Women’s Economic Security Campaign (WESC) in September or last year. He says this report was to draw attention to the fact that low-income women cannot afford quality and reliable child care. With this problem at hand, low income women have a low chance of finding a good job and keeping it because of their fluctuating work schedules. They argue that this problem would eventually come around to affect businesses as well since “Disruptions in child care for working parents cost U.S. businesses approximately $3 billion each year.” Low income families also typically lack the resources necessary to the development of young children including books, music and other brain-stimulating
materials.

This article expressed the need for help and attention when it comes to low-income mothers and their children. Thomas recognizes that these parents might not always be able to obtain the resources or the knowledge of raising a child and that it usually isn’t their fault. Thomas explains that parents will most likely take care of their children before worrying about work so if businesses don’t want to feel this pressure then something needs to be done so that child care for low-income families is affordable. This article seems to lean more toward single, low income mothers rather than families, which might include a father.

This article is expressing the need for programs such as Baby Steps. Baby Steps offers free child care given by graduates of the program. This allows parents to receive the kind of education they need to raise a healthy child without having to chase their kids around the whole time. The issue of low income mothers and reliable child care seems to be a nationwide problem that is quickly grabbing the attention of many people. I believe that it is important for researchers to point out to businesses that the affects of low income mothers without child care will come back around and cost them a lot of money. Unfortunately, that’s usually what it takes for people to start paying more
attention.