Real People of America: Meet Jasmine
I’m 24 and I’m a single mom, meaning I’m not married to my daughter’s dad, but we’re dating. I just took a year off for maternity leave and baby bonding time, and I go back to work tonight.
I was — I am — a cocktail waitress at a casino here in Las Vegas. We have unions here that protect and hold your job with a doctor’s note for up to a year for pregnancy and bonding time. I had six weeks of paid leave, which was about $800, since leave pay doesn’t include tips. Last year I made about $24,000 but I was looking into daycares and for a newborn baby six months and up it was about $200 to $250 a week or $800 to $1000 per month for a non-potty trained, non-walking baby. It goes down depending on what they can do — if they can walk it goes down, if they’re potty trained it goes down. So I make $24,000 and day care would have been about $12,000 a year so I wouldn’t have been able to afford it. I was forced to make a decision to go back to work and struggle to afford care — and groceries and toys and rent — or to stay home, so I chose to take leave and I moved in with my parents.
My doctor didn’t understand my options so I went to my baby’s doctor, and they helped me figure out the leave. Family and friends who couldn’t get that much time off to be with their babies look at me like wow, that’s amazing that you could get that much time off from work, and I loved being home with her and I feel really lucky. But we need some money!
I can definitely work. In 2012 and 2013, I worked four part-time jobs a week and kept up a few side-hustles to earn a little extra money. I worked at Starbuck’s, Le Pain Quotidien, Forever 21, and a restaurant here in Nevada. I would get up at 5 am for Starbuck’s, then do a lunch shift at the restaurant, then an afternoon shift at the café and a night shift at the clothing store. Then I would get four or five hours of sleep and get up and do it again. I usually worked seven days a week. If I only worked two jobs that was a “day off” — that was when I would do my grocery shopping or go to see the doctor or do my volunteer work with foster kids. I had no benefits, no support, just plain minimum wage, but I was still under my parents insurance so it wasn’t a problem. I got hired as cocktail waitress in 2013. Sometimes I would work one day a week, sometimes one day a month, for $10 to $12 an hour plus tips. For the first year I made about $8,000 so I worked again at Starbuck’s part-time.
Tonight I’ll go back to work and provide care for my daughter with some help from her dad and my parents while I try to put together an affordable child care option. Since my daughter is potty trained I might be able to find it for around $700 a month. Our day care here costs more than a year of college. I remember how hard it was working and paying for college so I can only imagine how rough this is going to be, but I’m positive I can do it.
Still, we should have better affordable child care. Not paying your cousin’s friend to watch your kid, but a trained professional who can watch children under the school age so you don’t have to leave them with someone who doesn’t understand kids. Someone who can teach your kids something and be kind and keep them safe, who isn’t so expensive that you’re paying more than half your monthly income for care. In today’s society our wages are low and help is so hard to come by. I know people who make way less than me who are parents. They have to make their ends meet too. How does anybody make all these crazy numbers work? We need to come together and fix it.
There’s probably nothing better than having a child but there’s probably nothing worse, financially. My daughter, she loves feeding the dog off her own plate. I’m always laughing and yelling, like, “You don’t know how much that chicken costs! Eat your chicken!” I’m starting back at work tonight, on her birthday, and even though that’s hard, we’ll have more money for gifts! And for lunches she’ll secretly be feeding to the dog. I’m happy we had the year together and I’m happy to work to support her. I’d just like to know that being a full-time worker would mean I could afford gifts, food, and safe child care.
#childcare #RPoA #LetsGetReal
