This week I had to decide where Raphaela would receive the best child care next year, and I chose the Montessori nursery, even though there is a certain element of risk and folly, given that it is one the most expensive facilities in all of the Jerusalem. I am willing to add work hours while she is in day-care in order to pay for her early education, because she is worth it, and I grew up in a family which sacrificed for education.
Which is not to say that the choice doesn't scare the shit out of me, way more significant than for example, trying to buy my car.
There is the threat of construction right underneath my apartment, they will not answer my faxes or phone calls, and I have no idea when they are planning on starting the Big Dig, considering they were supposed to start drilling two weeks ago. Every time the phone rings or the fax goes off, I have a TIA, and every morning when the building equipment doesn't arrive, I breathe again.
Until today, when I realized that the lease on my apartment expires next week, and the owner (same family doing the illegal construction) and I have not officially renewed the rental agreement. I spent all of today in a moderate-grade panic that next week, July 1, he will say, "Guess what, you're evicted." I do not put it past him to make a single mother and her daughter homeless. Or he will extort a huge rent increase because he knows I am limited in my ability to make last minute arrangements.
I am trying to figure out what my legal rights are, as a tenant and with my current contract. Meanwhile, for the last four nights I have not eaten dinner (too ill from the stress) and have not slept well. I need more emotional support than I am receiving.
This stress is starting to affect the time I spend with Raphaela, because I never get a break from trying to resolve some major crisis in our lives. I knew I was going to struggle at various points as a single parent, but Raphaela is worth it. I just hope I can hold it together for her.
3 comments:
First, find yourself a new place to live right now! Don't wait any longer.
Second, I know you are an independent woman but perhaps it is time to ask your parents for some financial support and guidance. They will be more than willing to do so for you and your daugther.
Third, EAT! you have to force yourself to eat even though you are stressed b/c your daughter needs you. imagine if you need to be hospitalized due to stress and malnourishment, where will your daughter go.
Fourth, are you sure that montessori is the right thing right for you daughter now? Wanting to give your daughter a great education is a great goal but at age 1 it really will not matter so much where she goes to school (which at this age is day care) I do not believe your daughter will benefit as much at age 1 from Montessori as she will when she is three and up. Sacrificing for your daughter is a noble idea and great you want to give your daughter the best(your parents may have sacrificed trips, fancy clothes etc. for education, but I do not think they did so for you when you were one) but sacrificing your sanity and being highly stressed because you do not have enough money You do not want to stress if those extra hours do not fill up with clients. your daughter will sense it and it will not be good for her or you.
You will never be on the street. If the Worst Case Scenario happens you are welcome to stay at my home with your baby (I don't even have to ask my roommate; I know she'd agree). I would sleep on the couch and you can put her crib in my room and stay there with her as long as you need to find a decent place to live. Not ideal, but you never, ever have to go without a roof over your head, okay?
Sarah B.
hm, my last post bombed. I agree with KGM -- getting yourself settled in a good, safe, affordable place is priority; expensive daycare she can survive without. I nearly did the Montessori thing too, had my daughter on the waiting list, but when the time rolled around, she was happy at the wonderful, flexible daycare where she was and her father and I were divorcing. Money and stability were both issues. I've never regretted not sending her to Montessori.
The other thing you'll have to do at some point -- and I'm beginning to think this is chronic in poor Jewish single moms -- is to be mindful of the socioeconomic fix we put the kids in when we seek the best for them. RR is much too young to notice, of course, but at 7, my daughter is not, and I have a friend in his 50s who can be quite articulate about his own experience as the child and its effects.
When we put the kids in Montessori (Hebrew school, tennis camp, enrichment courses, good neighborhoods with great schools, etc.), we put them in with kids whose household incomes are many multiples of ours. And the kids see this. They don't have XYZ, and their friends do. They don't go to EFG, and their friends do. They're invited along and can go because someone else's parents pay. They're the ones on scholarship. They never do have the right clothes, or if they do, they feel guilty about it because they know what kind of sacrifice it entails, and they have to be super-careful with them. All of this has a real effect.
I'm not saying "don't give RR the best". I am saying, "don't kill yourself for it, because she'll know, and the guilt will outweigh the good." I'm also saying that the best will not come without trouble, even when you can afford it, so you'll have to think carefully about whether or not it's worth it. Rich people everywhere will be insensitive to her and you; there is nothing you can do about this.
I keep my kid in a very safe, good neighborhood with a great school because although she is hurt by the economic disparities, she is learning a kind of competitiveness and a set of standards that'll serve her well, and without which she'd have trouble. I take her to shul with all the rich kids there because, however conflicted she may be about it, I see that my Jewish friends who have a sense of Jewish identity feel more stable and rooted than those who grew up entirely secular; also because it's easier to reject or embrace something later in life if you know what it is. But there are social/educational situations I no longer try to push her into; the game is sometimes not worth the candle.
Sorry for the megapost --
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