Mothering by Degrees

Jillian M. Duquaine-Watson

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780813588445
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

In Mothering by Degrees, Jillian Duquaine-Watson shows how single mothers pursuing college degrees must navigate a difficult course as they attempt to reconcile their identities as single moms, college students, and in many cases, employees. They also negotiate a balance between what they think a good mother should be, and what society is telling them, and how that affects their choices to go to college, and whether to stay in college or not.  The first book length study to focus on the lives and experiences of single mothers who are college students, Mothering by Degrees points out how these women are influenced by dominant American ideologies of motherhood, and the institutional parameters of the schools they attend, and argues for increased attention to the specific ways in which the choices, challenges, and opportunities available to mothers are shaped within their specific environments, as well as the ways in which mothers help shape those environments.
 

1

The Politics of Single Motherhood in the United States

A Single Mother Pursues Higher Education, Part I: Gina Ocon

As she prepared to graduate from high school, Gina Ocon found herself in an enviable position. She had excelled in both academics and extracurricular activities during high school and had achieved a 3.9 cumulative grade point average (GPA). She had also earned admission to several Ivy League institutions as well as the Air Force Academy. In the fall of 1994, just months after receiving her high school diploma, the eighteen-year-old left her home in Lakewood, California, and traveled nearly 3,000 miles to Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, she began her undergraduate studies at Harvard University with the support of a scholarship valued at approximately $30,000 a year. Ocon’s freshman year was a busy one. She devoted considerable time to academics, achieving a nearly 3.5 GPA. She also joined the crew team and the model legislature and worked at the American Repertory Theater. It was, by all measures, a successful year for the ambitious and talented young woman, a year that represented a significant step down the path she had planned for her post–high school life: “an Ivy League degree, law school, a job in international relations, and, one day, an ambassadorship.”1

After completing final exams for the spring 1995 semester, Ocon returned home for the summer. Shortly after her arrival in the Long Beach area, she crossed paths with Tommaso Maggiore, a young man who had been her high school classmate. Maggiore was also a college student, pursuing academics at Long Beach City College. He also worked in his family’s Italian restaurant, Andiamo. Although the Ocon and Maggiore had not dated previously, they soon began what she would later refer to as a “summer fling.”2 They were described as a dashing couple: “she had been a former beauty contestant runner-up, he was a well-dressed, handsome heir to a popular restaurant.”3 By most accounts, Ocon and Maggiore were inseparable that summer, “popping into local dance clubs, lounging at the beach, and cruising on Maggiore’s motorcycle.”4 As the fall semester drew near and Ocon prepared to return to Harvard and resume her studies, she and Maggiore decided to continue their relationship long-distance. Several weeks later, not yet midway through her sophomore year at Harvard, Ocon realized she was pregnant. She discussed the situation with Maggiore and the couple decided that Ocon would withdraw from the university, return to California, and move in with Maggiore and his parents.

On June 17, 1996, Gina Ocon gave birth to a daughter, Bailey Marie Theresa Maggiore. Less than two months later, accompanied by her daughter and Maggiore, Ocon returned to the Cambridge area. The couple had worked out what appeared to be a reasonable plan. Maggiore applied at one of Harvard’s elite dining clubs and intended to work full time. Ocon intended to, with the support of her scholarship, resume her studies and complete her undergraduate degree. Yet their plans did not come to fruition. By the time they arrived in Cambridge, on-campus housing was no longer available, and as a result, they could not find an affordable place to live. Ocon was forced to delay her education plans for another year, and the couple and their daughter returned to Long Beach, where they continued to live with Maggiore’s family. Shortly after their return, however, the couple had a number of arguments and Ocon decided to end the relationship, moving out of the Maggiore home and taking Bailey with her. She applied for welfare benefits, ultimately receiving $453 a month, something she regarded as a temporary, stopgap solution. She still intended to return to Harvard.

Maggiore, however, did not wish to be separated from his daughter. Only days after Ocon ended their relationship, Maggiore filed for custody of Bailey. He also filed a temporary restraining order as a means of preventing Ocon from moving across the country and taking the child with her. Maggiore made it clear that he did not intend to prevent Ocon from resuming her studies. Instead, he claimed that he was looking after the best interests of his daughter, particularly as he believed Bailey would receive better care if she remained with him. However, the case was a complicated one. Maggiore had never paid child support, and he had been arrested on several occasions for alcohol-related incidents. Furthermore, Maggiore admitted that he could not afford to support the child on the approximately $800 a month he earned as a waiter. Yet he still believed he should be granted custody of Bailey, assuring the court that he would continue to live with his parents and they would assume financial responsibility for Bailey. He also indicated that his parents would care for the child while Maggiore worked and attended classes. Maggiore contrasted the multigenerational, stable home environment he intended to provide for Bailey with the less appealing environment he believed Ocon could offer. He did not believe that Ocon could be a full-time student at Harvard and still manage to provide appropriate care for their child, arguing that “the school that she’s going to demands that you put 100 percent into school. I don’t think she’d be able to handle it as well as if she had family support back over here. I really don’t think she would be capable of doing it.”5

The case was what is commonly referred to as a move-away case, a type of custody dispute that typically involves one parent seeking to move out of state in order to pursue a job opportunity. Such a move results in significantly reduced contact between the noncustodial parent and the child. Although in the Ocon-Maggiore case, the motivation for moving out of state was education rather than employment, the court still had to consider the same rights, responsibilities, and interests that are used in other move-away cases: the rights and responsibilities of Ocon, who sought to relocate in pursuit of educational opportunities, versus the rights and responsibilities of the noncustodial parent, Maggiore, including his right to maintain a meaningful relationship with his daughter. And central to the case were the best interests of the child. On May 6, 1997, Long Beach family court commissioner John Chemelski handed down his decision. Maggiore was ordered to pay child support of $213 a month plus the cost of day care and was granted visitation rights. Ocon, who was still eligible for her full scholarship, was awarded sole custody of Bailey and granted the right to move out of state with her daughter. Soon after, Bailey and her mother were back in Massachusetts. The child attended Bigelow Cooperative Day Care while Ocon attended Harvard.

The case, however, was far from settled. Only months later, Maggiore filed for custody a second time, “alleging that Ocon has failed to take adequate care of their child”6 because Bailey was attending day care. He argued, once again, that he could provide a better environment for the child because he was still living with his parents and they would help support the child financially and provide care for Bailey so she would not have to be placed in a day care setting. Maggiore’s mother, Theresa, believed that day care was detrimental to Bailey because “she’s in day care, eight hours a day, five days a week. . . . Every time Bailey has been here, she’s been sick. She comes here sick. She goes back healthy. She comes back sick.”7 Ocon managed to retain custody of her daughter. In June 2000, after several years of what she referred to as the “ultimate juggling act”8 that involved balancing the demands of college coursework with her role as a full-time mother, she graduated from Harvard.

A Single Mother Pursues Higher Education, Part II: Jennifer Ireland

Ocon’s experiences as a single mother pursuing a college degree in the mid-1990s were not entirely unique. In fact, there are some striking similarities between Ocon’s situation and that of Jennifer Ireland, a young woman from the Detroit suburb of Mount Clemens. Ireland was a fifteen-year-old sophomore in high school when she began dating football star Steven Smith, age sixteen. The couple had been together for only a few months before they became sexually active and Ireland became pregnant. When she shared the news with Smith, he encouraged her to have an abortion. Ireland initially agreed, but after driving to the reproductive health clinic to terminate the pregnancy, she changed her mind. Her religious beliefs were particularly important in this decision as Ireland, a Catholic, said she “started thinking that I was going to burn in hell for even considering this. So I left.”9 Ireland decided to continue the pregnancy and on April 22, 1991, she gave birth to her daughter, Maranda Kate Ireland Smith. Although he had not been involved with Ireland during the pregnancy, Smith visited his former girlfriend and the newborn in the hospital. However, he did not indicate a desire to be involved in his daughter’s life. Ireland, who was only sixteen at the time of her daughter’s birth and was daunted by the prospect of raising a child alone, initially put Maranda in foster care with the intention of allowing the child to be adopted. However, after three weeks, Ireland changed her mind—she decided to raise her daughter. Ireland’s mother and thirteen-year-old younger sister offered to help look after Maranda. As a result, Ireland was able to catch up on her studies. She completed her sophomore year on time with an impressive 3.98 GPA.

For reasons that are not entirely clear, Smith refrained from visiting or otherwise interacting with his infant daughter for nearly a year, but then began to show an interest in Maranda around the time of her first birthday. Ireland permitted Smith to see the little girl, but she also filed for child support. Smith was initially ordered to pay $62 a week, but the amount was then reduced to a mere $12. Smith still lived with his parents, and they dedicated one of the bedrooms in their home to Maranda so she had somewhere to stay when she visited her father and her grandparents on weekends. However, Smith and Ireland did not have a harmonious relationship. They often quarreled over visitation and after an altercation on Christmas Eve in 1992, Ireland charged Smith with assault. He denied the charges and responded with a countersuit, demanding full custody of Maranda. As the case wound its way through the court system, there were a number of changes in Ireland’s life. She graduated from Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School. Despite the demands of being a teen mom, she had done well in her studies, graduating third in her class and securing both admission and an $11,000-a-year scholarship to the University of Michigan (UM). Ireland moved to Ann Arbor a few months after finishing high school in order to pursue full-time studies at the university. She also enrolled her daughter at a licensed, in-home day care that the university had recommended. While Maranda was in day care, Ireland attended classes, studied, and completed her homework. She and Maranda lived in university-provided family housing on campus. Because Smith failed to pay child support, Ireland was the sole financial provider for Maranda.10

Midway through the spring semester of Ireland’s first year at UM, the assault case against Smith and the custody case came to court in the same week. The assault case was dismissed. Judge Raymond R. Cashen of Macomb County Circuit Court, an admitted advocate of “family values,”11 considered the evidence in the custody case. Smith’s attorney “attacked Jennifer Ireland’s behavior as a mother, accusing her of drug and alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct. Jennifer denied all such allegations.”12 Cashen also considered the expert opinions of two social service agencies he had appointed to independently review the case. Both agencies reported that Maranda’s home life with Ireland was a positive one and recommended that Ireland retain custody. In June 1994, the judge issued his decision. Cashen acknowledged that Ireland had provided a stable home for the child and even acknowledged that the little girl “looked to her mother for guidance, discipline, and the necessities of life.”13 Yet he was concerned about the fact that Maranda attended day care: “The mother’s academic pursuits, although laudable, are demanding and in order to complete her program it necessitates the leaving of the child for a considerable portion of its life in the care of strangers. There is no way that a single parent, attending an academic program at an institution as prestigious as the University of Michigan, can do justice to their studies and the raising of an infant child. There are not that many hours in the day.”14 In essence, Cashen determined that Ireland could not devote adequate time to being a mother because of the demands associated with being a college student. Consequently, he awarded custody to Smith. The young man was still living with his parents. He worked part-time and, in a rather ironic twist, was also a college student, pursuing an education part-time at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan. Bec...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue: Lessons from My Grandmother
• Chapter 1. The Politics of Single Motherhood in the United States
• Chapter 2. Trying to Make Ends Meet
• Chapter 3. Clocks and Calendars
• Chapter 4. Navigating America’s Child Care Crisis
• Chapter 5. Mothering Alone in a Chilly Climate
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Supporting Single Mothers at Colleges and Universities
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author