Through My Own Eyes

Revealing, penetrating and sobering, Through My Own Eyes paints a poignant portrait of real women's real lives. At one level, this sensitively written book packs lessons about struggle and survival. At another level, it is a profound treatise about culture, class, misdirected practice, and misconstrued policy. All who read it will face themselves and their attitudes about poverty with new understanding. A triumph! -- Sharon L. Kagan, Senior Research Scientist, Yale University By allowing us to glimpse the strengths, aspirations, and struggles of fourteen single mothers in poverty, the authors force us to confront preconceptions about women in poverty and the needs of their children. To offer assistance in ignorance often erodes the very lives we hope to benefit; the insights in this volume teach essential lessons in program design. -- Edward Zigler, Sterling Professor of Psychology, Yale University The authors are particularly adept at confronting the dominant mythologies through which we are urged to view poor mothers, challenging us instead to see these individuals less as irresponsible, misguided, voiceless strangers and more as resilient, resourceful hardworking women, doing the best they can with what they've got--much like the rest of us. -- Janie V. Ward, Simmons College Revealing, penetrating and sobering, Through My Own Eyes paints a poignant portrait of real women's real lives. At one level, this sensitively written book packs lessons about struggle and survival: At another level, it is a profound treatise about culture, class, misdirected practice, and misconstrued policy. All who read it will face themselves and their attitudes about poverty with new understanding. A triumph! -- Sharon L. Kagan, President, The National Association for the Education of Young Children By allowing us to glimpse the strengths, aspirations, and struggles of 14 single mothers in poverty, the authors force us to confront preconceptions about women in poverty and the needs of their children. To offer assistance in ignorance often erodes the very lives we hope to benefit; the insights in this volume teach essential lessons in program design. -- Edward Zigler, Sterling Professor of Psychology, Yale University

Through My Own Eyes offers a firsthand look at how single American mothers with the slimmest of resources manage from day to day. For three years the authors followed the lives of fourteen women from poor Boston neighborhoods, all of whom had young children and had been receiving welfare intermittently.

Shirl is a single mother who urges her son's baby-sitter to swat him when he misbehaves. Helena went back to work to get off welfare, then quit to be with her small daughter. Kathy was making good money but got into cocaine and had to give up her two-year-old son during her rehabilitation. Pundits, politicians, and social critics have plenty to say about such women and their behavior. But in this book, for the first time, we hear what these women have to say for themselves. An eye-opening--and heart-rending--account from the front lines of poverty, Through My Own Eyes offers a firsthand look at how single mothers with the slimmest of resources manage from day to day. We witness their struggles to balance work and motherhood and watch as they negotiate a bewildering maze of child-care and social agencies.

For three years the authors followed the lives of fourteen women from poor Boston neighborhoods, all of whom had young children and had been receiving welfare intermittently. We learn how these women keep their families on firm footing and try--frequently in vain--to gain ground. We hear how they find child-care and what they expect from it, as well as what the childcare providers have to say about serving low-income families. Holloway and Fuller view these lives in the context of family policy issues touching on the disintegration of inner cities, welfare reform, early childhood and "pro-choice" poverty programs.