Summary Of Flat Broke With Children By Sharon Hays
Flat Broke with children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform is a book that talks about the person struggles of women in the welfare system. The author Sharon Hays, she is a professor in the Department of Sociology and at the University of Virginia. She wrote different books including, Inside Welfare: Gender, Family Values, and the Work Ethic, the Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood, and, The Changing Face of Fifty: Women at the Halfway Point. I chose his book because of the title, I felt like she would really get into the struggles of being a single mother on welfare. She did interview two families but it was one of those situation where she talked more on her opinion than the families at hand. The two towns she did the interview was “Sunbelt City” a
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metropolitan are in the west and Arbordale a small southwestern ton.
I just really admired how she took three ears out of her own life to gather p the information needed in order to publish this book. Furthermore, I think it was a good book and I would recommend it to people to read to learn about other people’s opinion when it comes to social welfare.
In regards to social welfare, this book helps you understand how its services can and cannot be useful to single mothers. Social welfare is considered as the nation’s system of programs, benefits, and services that help people meet those social, economic, educational, and health needs that are fundamental to the maintenance of society. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is considered a welfare service that most mothers receive, it is for low income families with children, and mainly are short allowances. Before TANF was adopted another service was offered which was called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) which was vetoed by President Clinton after the passing of the Person Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act. PRWORA, redesigned the welfare programs because it made people go out and try to find employment and it put a limit on how long those allowances could be received. With TANF you had to worry about things like the sanction period, in which recipients would lose their benefits if they was not putting in the mandatory hours needed to find a job. Hays, felt like more people was helped before the reform in 1966 because now TANF spend more money on each individual client due to things like child care subsidies. With this being said Hays feel like TANF requires so much that it tears women away from their children. According to her she feels like the government should “just give women their welfare checks and let them go home”, and I am biased about this statement for many reasons. I feel like if the mother isn’t working and the government is paying for childcare, so she can go out and try to find a job then she should take the opportunity. I feel like we say women were supposed to be left at home to raise children and then we say they need a job, but I feel like it should be balanced.
I think this book is an ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬informative text because it talks about the social welfare history and everyday problems. At first I thought this book would be a bibliography on single mothers but it seemed liked she focused less on their story and more on her own beliefs. I think her purpose was to let her audience know the pros and cons of the welfare system. Most people think that getting welfare is all peaches and cream but it comes with a lot of disadvantages as well. Hayes, talks about how the mother accept low wages, little to no flexibility, receive poor hours, and leave children in the day care all day long. The book could be helpful in our social welfare course because it talks about the changes the program have made over the years.
I really liked how she went out and interviewed two different families to get their side of the story. She even spent time talking to case workers who felt like welfare was a great thing and others felt like a working mother who left their kids in daycare was normal . This is one of the limitations in the book in my eyes because I felt like Hayes focuses more on the cons of the welfare than the pros. I felt as though she shoulder talked more on how women worked long hours and still received poor income while away from their children. She did the exact opposite, and in my eyes she contradicted herself a lot in many ways. She complained about the mothers getting little to no hours but in reality if they would have received more hours, they still would be away from home. She specifically stated that her purpose was to focus on mothers who received welfare, the Personal Responsibility Act, and the procedures in the welfare office. I think she set out to seek her goal because in the beginning of the book she talked about the case workers point of views and the different reform acts that has been passed. So, I do think she succeeded in talking about the everyday struggles on how mothers are pushed to handle multiple problems and the ins and outs of the system. For example, she discussed how low paid women are pushed into poverty and the only way out is to marry a rich man. I think this is a great example of mobility and how when you are born into things like poverty it’s hard to get out.
Reading this book it gave me an inside perspective from not only the author but the social workers and the single mothers as well. One mother talked about how it is hard to make ends meet even with the services she receive because it still is not enough to live on. I think the book especially the chapter when she did the interviews with the mothers made me realize how important getting an education is. Working a minimum wage job and depending on the system is very stressful and it is hard to get yourself out of that position. She talked to the women about multiple things including poverty, broken families, sexual abuse, homelessness, and the lengths to which they go to juggle multiple part-time low-paying jobs.
Hayes, seemed to be a supporter of AFDC and that made me wonder what changes she think the program would have been if it were still around today. I think Hayes just wanted more social welfare policies that balanced out motherhood and the average working women, lasted longer, and had more money to support the families. She talks about the traditional family and how the mother raises the child and that is considered as the woman personal responsibility. This is here the limitation comes in because if a woman had a real job she would be required to put her child in daycare and work but in this case the women had job training to do in order to receive TANF, and Hayes complained about how they should be doing “motherly duties” instead. The population she talks about in the book is the single parents, so changes that could be made could be changing some of TANF ways so they could be similar to AFDC old ways. She spends most of her time talking about all the troubles single mothers go through trying to provide and be a recipient of the welfare system. Personally, I feel like it is very hard to work and maintain a job but it just something that has to be done. TANF, doesn’t cover all the families’ expenses but I’m sure it helps the families out in some type of ways and Hayes didn’t really give the program any credit.
In conclusion, I expected the book to be better than what it was for many reasons. I think the overall purpose of the book was good but she could have went into depth about other things. When I think of different welfare programs I think about food-stamps, Medicaid, and other services that she failed to mention in the book. At first I thought it would be interesting because she gets all these different perspectives on issues like poverty, single struggling women, and she presented all of this information on the social welfare program. In reality I felt like even though she interviewed two families, I’m not getting what it mean to me “Flat broke with children”. Hayes, mostly talk down on TANF and she gives us her personal opinion most of the time. I would recommend the book for a social welfare class, if we’re trying to find out some history on the program but that’s about it. If she would have spent more time interviewing the families and putting more direct quotes in the book from the families, then I would recommend it to anybody. In general, I just needed more from the book, she touched baes on a lot but I just needed more.
metropolitan are in the west and Arbordale a small southwestern ton.
I just really admired how she took three ears out of her own life to gather p the information needed in order to publish this book. Furthermore, I think it was a good book and I would recommend it to people to read to learn about other people’s opinion when it comes to social welfare.
In regards to social welfare, this book helps you understand how its services can and cannot be useful to single mothers. Social welfare is considered as the nation’s system of programs, benefits, and services that help people meet those social, economic, educational, and health needs that are fundamental to the maintenance of society. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is considered a welfare service that most mothers receive, it is for low income families with children, and mainly are short allowances. Before TANF was adopted another service was offered which was called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) which was vetoed by President Clinton after the passing of the Person Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act. PRWORA, redesigned the welfare programs because it made people go out and try to find employment and it put a limit on how long those allowances could be received. With TANF you had to worry about things like the sanction period, in which recipients would lose their benefits if they was not putting in the mandatory hours needed to find a job. Hays, felt like more people was helped before the reform in 1966 because now TANF spend more money on each individual client due to things like child care subsidies. With this being said Hays feel like TANF requires so much that it tears women away from their children. According to her she feels like the government should “just give women their welfare checks and let them go home”, and I am biased about this statement for many reasons. I feel like if the mother isn’t working and the government is paying for childcare, so she can go out and try to find a job then she should take the opportunity. I feel like we say women were supposed to be left at home to raise children and then we say they need a job, but I feel like it should be balanced.
I think this book is an ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬informative text because it talks about the social welfare history and everyday problems. At first I thought this book would be a bibliography on single mothers but it seemed liked she focused less on their story and more on her own beliefs. I think her purpose was to let her audience know the pros and cons of the welfare system. Most people think that getting welfare is all peaches and cream but it comes with a lot of disadvantages as well. Hayes, talks about how the mother accept low wages, little to no flexibility, receive poor hours, and leave children in the day care all day long. The book could be helpful in our social welfare course because it talks about the changes the program have made over the years.
I really liked how she went out and interviewed two different families to get their side of the story. She even spent time talking to case workers who felt like welfare was a great thing and others felt like a working mother who left their kids in daycare was normal . This is one of the limitations in the book in my eyes because I felt like Hayes focuses more on the cons of the welfare than the pros. I felt as though she shoulder talked more on how women worked long hours and still received poor income while away from their children. She did the exact opposite, and in my eyes she contradicted herself a lot in many ways. She complained about the mothers getting little to no hours but in reality if they would have received more hours, they still would be away from home. She specifically stated that her purpose was to focus on mothers who received welfare, the Personal Responsibility Act, and the procedures in the welfare office. I think she set out to seek her goal because in the beginning of the book she talked about the case workers point of views and the different reform acts that has been passed. So, I do think she succeeded in talking about the everyday struggles on how mothers are pushed to handle multiple problems and the ins and outs of the system. For example, she discussed how low paid women are pushed into poverty and the only way out is to marry a rich man. I think this is a great example of mobility and how when you are born into things like poverty it’s hard to get out.
Reading this book it gave me an inside perspective from not only the author but the social workers and the single mothers as well. One mother talked about how it is hard to make ends meet even with the services she receive because it still is not enough to live on. I think the book especially the chapter when she did the interviews with the mothers made me realize how important getting an education is. Working a minimum wage job and depending on the system is very stressful and it is hard to get yourself out of that position. She talked to the women about multiple things including poverty, broken families, sexual abuse, homelessness, and the lengths to which they go to juggle multiple part-time low-paying jobs.
Hayes, seemed to be a supporter of AFDC and that made me wonder what changes she think the program would have been if it were still around today. I think Hayes just wanted more social welfare policies that balanced out motherhood and the average working women, lasted longer, and had more money to support the families. She talks about the traditional family and how the mother raises the child and that is considered as the woman personal responsibility. This is here the limitation comes in because if a woman had a real job she would be required to put her child in daycare and work but in this case the women had job training to do in order to receive TANF, and Hayes complained about how they should be doing “motherly duties” instead. The population she talks about in the book is the single parents, so changes that could be made could be changing some of TANF ways so they could be similar to AFDC old ways. She spends most of her time talking about all the troubles single mothers go through trying to provide and be a recipient of the welfare system. Personally, I feel like it is very hard to work and maintain a job but it just something that has to be done. TANF, doesn’t cover all the families’ expenses but I’m sure it helps the families out in some type of ways and Hayes didn’t really give the program any credit.
In conclusion, I expected the book to be better than what it was for many reasons. I think the overall purpose of the book was good but she could have went into depth about other things. When I think of different welfare programs I think about food-stamps, Medicaid, and other services that she failed to mention in the book. At first I thought it would be interesting because she gets all these different perspectives on issues like poverty, single struggling women, and she presented all of this information on the social welfare program. In reality I felt like even though she interviewed two families, I’m not getting what it mean to me “Flat broke with children”. Hayes, mostly talk down on TANF and she gives us her personal opinion most of the time. I would recommend the book for a social welfare class, if we’re trying to find out some history on the program but that’s about it. If she would have spent more time interviewing the families and putting more direct quotes in the book from the families, then I would recommend it to anybody. In general, I just needed more from the book, she touched baes on a lot but I just needed more.