My babies are adults now. What happens next? A sense of fear hovers if not consume me with the uncertainty of what their future holds for them. It doesn't look bright or hopeful.
The picture shown here was taken 10 years ago, they are both now adults so I am trying to keep what they look like now to some degree of privacy for their sake. I have worried about them for a very long time. When they were this age in the picture I was applying to private schools for both and only got one opportunity scholarship. They said they wanted to treat my other kid like a test subject to see how the other would do without the scholarship. If I recall both were waitlisted at Georgetown Day School. They were rejected at St. Albans and Sidwell Friends. I took it very hard. I decided to enroll the one with the scholarship to a catholic school not to far from the charter school the other child continued to attend.
“I would also change the white supremacy centered American curriculum.”
What do I mean when I say I took it very hard. At the time I was very consumed with news articles I read about the likely hood of their chances to "do well in life". You know all the statistics we are given. It was because of these news articles it also drove me to move out of SE when other shit hit the fan. Like my car getting shot up several times in one night and two break-ins in one year. All of these events along with my mother's failing mental state where I became the enemy in her eyes and the water and food I was dropping off at her house on my way driving my kiddos to school, were poison. She was convinced I was trying to kill her.
Kids then and Adults now
I will admit I was not in a good mental state back then. I truly was devastated when they didn't get into a private school. I thought they had no future and they were doomed to live in poverty and/or die young. I thought it was horrible when I read murder suicided cases that involved children in the news but honestly I was in such a bad mental state I thought if I did do that I was sparing them a life of hardships and struggles.
So now several years later and on the verge to be evicted. Since then my oldest failed 6th grade at the catholic school and because I didn't want him to be behind in school. I enrolled him back into the funneling charter school his sibling was attending to the next grade I wanted him in. As growing kids they were hungry all the time. I enrolled them into a afterschool program which made the younger one especially happy. He found a love of guitar and eventually settled with piano. He also enjoyed making jewelry and crocheting. Because they were gone on such long hours the whole school days they were hungry and started stealing snacks at the local corner store. They felt guilty and paid the store manager what they owed. The manager banned them for a year and they felt bad that some of his employees were vouching for them. So does this make me a bad mom. Are my kids bad? Or are they desperate? They were hungry because their school lunches were small and usually not very tasty. Could I have packed them food? No, because my SNAP benefits where already small because I was working at the time. Because that is how the system is done. I make any money and then I get less food benefits. So I spend extra time out of my day going to food pantries to supplement what I lost in food assistance.
You know what infuriates me more. When I got into a conversation with the principle at my kids school at the time. He suggested there is a salad bar they could use if they still hungry. When I was a teen I didn't like salad so not surprised my youngest isn't a fan. But also they don't fill you very long and if it is iceberg lettuce it isn't really all that nutritious. Sadly wasn't the first time someone wanted to salad shame me. Again does that make me a bad parent my kids don't eat salad?
And these lovely food banks. I get so many canned food. I love how coucilmembers and everybody middle class want to judge my eating habits but here I am picking up food from the food pantry getting food they will give me. Not food of my choosing from the grocery store. And I continually made to feel bad about how I feed myself and my kids.
So now they are adults. I find myself continually living a life of unstable housing and food insecurity. And of course I still wonder what the future holds. I was lucky enough that my oldest graduated high school. He is smart enough to be able to advocate for himself and get his school work completed to the teachers liking. He didn't make extraordinary grades to get any scholarships to colleges. So community college is his only opportunity. And was looking for work long before covid and after and continually had a hard time getting anything with the current minimum wage. So currently he gets paid a stipend. That wouldn't even cover our current rent as tutor under a learning program at a charter school. Americorps pays him slave wages. I am telling him he will make more money with instacart and not want to come back. That is what happened to my friend who was a special needs teacher. She got pregnant twice and started going instacart because childcare is expensive. She does better off doing gig work. That is what America gives you. And you wonder why teachers have left?!?!
As for my youngest that just turned 18 on the 24th of April. He is struggling very much but hopefully this is his last year in high school. Virtual school wasn't at all good for him. Failed all his class but Chinese. He is autistic so he was attending online school but with camera off and remind silent the whole time. If he graduates this year it will be a miracle. I am telling his teachers he can't do another year. We might not be able to stay in DC much longer. Because again we are about to be evicted. I have no childhood home anymore. It was sold to fund my mother's care in Maryland when she was alive. I could barely see her because I couldn't afford gas to go all the way to Maryland.
Those covid protections really helped me to stay in DC and not worry about being homeless. But now those protections are gone. STAY DC is gone. And I am being told if I don't have a job that covers my future rent if I do get help with back rent from ERAP, then I get no help at all. So my adult kids don't have much of a promising future? What it feels like to be desperate? I tell you from where I am sitting I understand why crime is up from carjackings and shootings. But the people with power have the luxury of not wanting to truly address the actually issues of what poor people need. Fucking stability. This is why I find education advocate a joke. If you want poor kids to do better in school the parents of those kids need the help of stability. Then those kids will struggle less. I would also change the white supremacy centered American curriculum. You know how many times my autistic child cried thinking he think his is stupid for not being able to comprehend Shakespeare. I have always told my kids they are smart in different ways but how we teach and what we teach needs to be addressed.
I have been doing housing advocacy since 2016 and since that time I have concluded I will never use the word affordable housing. Because that is another way of just marketing to middle class households. My mother was poor with a middle class mentality and sadly I know a lot of folks like that. I find myself in the desperate state of hoping my autistic teenager passes high school and not be immediately homeless. We were already homeless when I had him. I was a covenant house youth at the time living in their shelter first and then their transitional housing. I got plenty of stories about my time there. So this is what years of housing insecurity looks like and no family support looks like. So where do we go from here? To the mayor that wants to be re-elected. To the council members that want to represent ward 5. To the current councilmember of ward 5. To the councilmember in charge of food and rapid rehousing? To the councilmember in charge of housing in DC and my mother, since she also in charge of the elders in the city. Fuck all you you, since you have royally fucked me and my family over.
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