What's a Mom to Do?

What do you do?

You’re a single mom with a child in high school. You work full time to support your child. Your ex-husband lives one hundred miles away. The school-subsidized bus that used to take your child home from school has been eliminated due to budget cuts.

What do you do?

With the economy the way it is, you’re lucky to have a job. You wish your job was closer to home. You can’t leave work to bring your child home from school every day. You scour the want ads and hope that a job opportunity becomes available nearby. But for now, you’re stuck where you are.

What do you do?

You reach out to other parents who are in the same situation. You try to get a bus together on your own. But not enough parents are interested in this option. You’re told that “…most kids don’t want to take the bus anyway…they call it the ‘loser cruiser…”. School officials tell you they assume most kids will get a ride with siblings or friends who are upperclassmen. But your child has no older siblings and all his friends are the same age.

What do you do?

You try to arrange carpools with other families, but their problem is the same as yours: they can manage the morning drop off but can’t leave work in order to pick up their kids at 2 p.m. Some work from home or part-time, but if their child is involved with after-school activities, they may not pick them up for an hour or two past dismissal.

What do you do?

People ask why your child can’t walk or ride a bike the three miles between school and home. With a very heavy backpack and no sidewalks for most of the route home. What happens when it rains? When the temperature dips below freezing and the wind whips through town? What about when it snows? When the streets are covered with ice and slush? When the plows leave a wall of snow, narrowing the roads further and limiting visibility.

What do you do?

You ask the school where children are supposed to wait if they need a later pick-up. If the school library is closed, you’re told that your child can do their homework in the cafeteria. You are told that there are always teachers and janitors “around”. But on the day when your child tries to do his homework in the cafeteria, he’s told that there is a meeting scheduled there, and that he can’t be in any other room in the building without adult supervision due to fire laws. So your child waits outside in the rain for two hours before someone is able to pick him up.

What do you do?

You scramble. You rely on the kindness of friends and neighbors and your father who lives 25 miles away and is willing to come twice a week to drive your child the three miles home from school. You worry about the day when you don’t have a ride lined up. You understand budget cuts; no one wants their child in a classroom with 30 other students. You don’t want your school to cut music or art programs. You realize that the money has to come from somewhere. But shouldn’t getting students safely to and from school be a priority? It may not be “the law” but isn’t it the right thing to do?

This is what friends of mine are dealing with now. And when my child moves up to the high school next year, I will be dealing with it as well.

So…what do you do?