Someplace Like America by Maharidge Dale; Springsteen Bruce; Williamson Michael S

Author:Maharidge, Dale; Springsteen, Bruce; Williamson, Michael S.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2012-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

17 MAGGIE ON MR. MURRAY

I had interviewed Charles Murray, the author of Losing Ground, in 2000 for our George magazine assignment. But the interview material didn’t make the cut after the magazine piece was scaled back. So, at the time, I didn’t call Maggie to get her reaction to his terming the children of single mothers “illegitimate” or to his dismissal of her specifically when I began explaining to him how she was working and losing ground.

Now, nine years later, on a warm summer afternoon in Austin, I told Maggie what Murray had said.

“You know,” she began, then stopped. She thought a bit. “It’s just easy for people to say. Really, you know — ”

Maggie was as stunned and befuddled as I had been back then that anyone could say such a thing, and it took her time to react.

What would she say to Murray? “Tell me what to do,” she finally replied. “I would like to know. I’m not a burden to society or anything like that. I work night and day. I mean, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my children. I provide for them. Not because I chose to be a single mother — that’s just how it played out. I wouldn’t be a single mother if a man hadn’t left me.

“I’m out doing the best I can. I don’t have days off, I work two jobs five months out of the year. I clean houses, whatever. When I can, I bake cheesecakes; I get orders. You do what you got to do. I’m not, never have been, able to get any kind of government aid. I just — it’s a struggle.

“I just think that somebody would really have to walk in my shoes, I guess, to understand. Even for one day. I wouldn’t be a single mother if I didn’t get left to be a single mother. It’s not a blame game. It’s a responsibility thing. Come home, do the homework, get them to bed. I do the yardwork myself. I’m my own husband. Who would choose that?”

Maggie didn’t want something for nothing. She just wanted a living wage and decent health care.

“I work damn hard for everything that I have. I’ve not had anything handed to me. Everything I have, I had to scratch and fight and bleed for.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.