The Financial Difficulties Single Mothers Face

After a marital separation, *Sarah and her children left their hometown, family and friends to move to a new city where they stayed at a Shelter until finally finding a new home; where they could start over.

However, after moving into a townhouse complex, it wasn't long before Sarah realized what type of neighbourhood they had moved into. Children and teens ran rampant, day and night with no curfews and talking language that would make a truck driver blush. She found the women to be viciously spiteful, the teens drinking in the public common playground around the younger children, while the youngest ones ran about unsupervised around the jungle gym. When she would ask where their mommy was, the reply would be 'sleeping'. She quickly found most of the mothers in the area slept at odd hours due to being on anti-depressants for depression. Depression because of the living situation they found themselves to be in. For them, it felt like a no-win situation.

They were single on a meagre income which they received from the Welfare System. Most people would say, "Well, why don't they got off their lazy couch and get to work?" For most of society, that only makes sense. It is a good question.

After moving to a new city, away from family and friends, Sarah found she had: no support, nobody to lend a helping hand with the children so she could go out to look for work, no friends, etc. It was a truly scary situation for her.

One other thing that Sarah found was...she took a schoolbus training course to drive a schoolbus part-time. She took the course and passed with flying colors. Top of her training class. However, after receiving her certificate and the office staff handing her keys to a bus to begin the school year, the manager came sauntering out of his office to tell her, "Don't get too comfortable. That is not your route for the year. It will be changing."