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FAMILY GOALS AND ENGAGEMENT WITH THE PROGRAM: PERSPECTIVES OF TWO TEENAGE MOTHERS
Rebecca Ryan and Barbara Alexander Pan
Harvard Graduate School of Education
For three years, researchers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education have been following two teenage mothers, Rachel and Kristen, as part of an ethnographic study of Early Head Start research families in Brattleboro, Vermont. The purpose of the study is to examine how factors such as parent-child dynamics, family relationships, day care, work, and welfare and other assistance interact over time in families' lives and how they influence participation in the program. It is particularly important to better understand the lives of young women like Rachel and Kristen, because teenage mothers are a population much debated in policy and press. By interviewing Rachel and Kristin in depth about their lives and choices, the hope is that they can tell a story policymakers and politicians often tell for them, one about the risks and struggles that young, poor mothers face and how best to handle this problem.
Understanding what young parents want for themselves and their children and why is crucial for understanding program efficacy, because participants' goals and beliefs determine what services they find useful. Rachel and Kristen differ strikingly both in their present lives and in their plans for the future. These differences explain, in part, how these mothers value Early Head Start services differently and how they engage in the home-visiting, day care, and adult services the program provides.
Two months after her 16th birthday, Rachel gave birth to her daughter Daisy. She and Daisy currently live in an apartment in downtown Brattleboro paid for in part by the local Land Trust. Since her daughter's birth, public assistance has been Rachel's main source of income. She works 20 hours a week in the warehouse of a jewelry company as part of Vermont's welfare-to-work program. She also takes a full courseload at a local community college. While Rachel is at school and work, her daughter Daisy attends full-time day care. Her care is fully subsidized through Rachel's participation in Early Head Start.
Over the next few years, Rachel hopes to earn a college degree and secure a good job. She believes a college degree is necessary because "in today's society you can't do anything without an education." Rachel sees attending school full-time, working part-time, placing Daisy in full-time day care, and temporarily remaining on welfare as necessary steps toward self-sufficiency. When asked what she values most about her involvement in Early Head Start, Rachel explains how crucial good-quality, subsidized day care is to her plan. Of the Early Head Start center, she says, "It's the best day care in town, and if I didn't have it I wouldn't put her in day care. I wouldn't be able to go to school. I wouldn't be able to work. I wouldn't be able to go anywhere in life." To Rachel, day care is the key because it will enable her to get a good job and pull herself out of poverty, something she thinks her own mother could not have done when Rachel was growing up. Of her mother's situation, not having a program like Early Head Start available to her, she says:
I mean I never went to day care as a child, but we were also very poor.... My mom didn't get to go to school until I was in seventh grade. She was on assistance when we were little.... She thought staying home with her kids was more important than having a job... especially without the skills to get a good job--what's the point of going out and working at McDonald's when you could be at home with your kids?... She had four kids. She's gonna put us all in day care? Okay, that's gonna be like more than what she's making. It just wasn't realistic for her to work.
Thus, Rachel uses the Early Head Start services primarily for child care while she invests in her skills and training in order to achieve professional and financial goals. She describes the program as helping her pave a realistic path toward those goals, offering her guidance on how to chart that path, and supporting her emotionally as she moves, and often struggles, along it.
Kristin had her baby, Emily, at age 17, shortly after she married her boyfriend. Kristin, her husband Jack, and Emily now live in a trailer home in Brattleboro. Jack works full-time as a mechanic, and Kristin stays home part-time to care for Emily. Emily is in Early Head Start-provided day care two days a week. Kristin is interested primarily in having time to care for her daughter, both now and in the future. She makes decisions about work and day care on the basis of how best to maximize her time with Emily. Unlike Rachel, Kristin is not investing time and resources in her own skills now to work toward a future goal; rather, her priority is how best to meet Emily's immediate needs. When asked what she gains from participating in Early Head Start, Kristin mentions information about child development and healthy ways to care for children. Kristin appreciates the Early Head Start day care center because it provides good-quality, affordable care for Emily. However, she values the day care not because it makes her own education or future professional development possible, but rather because she believes it benefits Emily's development immediately and directly. For Kristin, Early Head Start is valuable because it helps her care for Emily and supports her daughter's development during these first three years.
Low-income parents choose both whether to apply for Early Head Start and when and how to use Early Head Start services. These choices are rooted in how they understand their present and future lives and in turn influence the impact the program can have. Mothers like Kristen and Rachel can help researchers and policymakers understand the perspectives of young mothers in similar situations. Developing a deeper awareness of the values parents hold is crucial to understanding the efficacy of Early Head Start.
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