BY KAREN SAMPLES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS - Nancy Daugherty is carrying a backpack and wearing lots of denim. Her bangs are cut short across her forehead; they frame tired eyes. She's a college student, all right - but also much more.
Because of her time on welfare, Ms. Daugherty brings a rich perspective to the average term paper on, say, feminism.
Her research showed her 425 men and 10 women in the U.S. House of Representatives. So much for the balance of power. And from personal experience, she is convinced single moms are expected - by society, by welfare reformers - to handle more chaos and hard work than many men could imagine.
"I came to the conclusion that this feminist movement took all the responsibility off of men and put it all on women," says Ms. Daugherty, 30.
She is sitting in the McDonald's on the campus of Northern Kentucky University. She comes here to study and grab a bite between classes. There are purplish shadows under her eyes. She is taking three courses this semester and working 20 hours a week at the Covington Housing Authority. She takes naps whenever she can - at 8 p.m. sometimes, so she'll be awake enough to study later.
She lives in Latonia and has two children: Blake, 12, and Martina, 3. Her son plays sports, gets good grades and takes care of himself after school. Her daughter is a chatterbox. She has a private baby sitter now, but Ms. Daugherty hopes she'll get into Head Start soon. The family has received welfare benefits off and on over the last several years. Ms. Daugherty was a good student - graduated 29th in her class at Holmes High School - but got pregnant as a senior and spent five years in an abusive marriage. During that time, she worked as a cashier, a waitress . . . jobs she knew were just jobs. Finally, she got out of the relationship.
Then came the biggest heartbreak of her life.
Her second child, whose father was a friend from high school, died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 months.
Recalling that time, Ms. Daugherty's eyes fill with tears. She thought God was punishing her, she says, and she spent two years "in hell." She slept 16 hours a day, cried constantly, even had to be hospitalized for a while.
Then came what seemed a miracle: She got pregnant again, with Martina. She didn't tell the father. He is no longer in her life, she says.
"If it wasn't for getting pregnant with her . . . I might be dead now, because I wanted to die.
"I don't want to anymore."
A year and a half ago, Ms. Daugherty obtained financial aid and enrolled at NKU. She was the first welfare recipient to graduate from Welcome House's Job START program, and around that time she got her job with the housing authority. Last summer, she also worked at a convenience store.
She pays $10 a week for Martina's baby sitter. Because she is working and still receiving public assistance, the state picks up some of her child-care cost.
If she were a full-time college student, she wouldn't get that assistance. This rankles Ms. Daugherty. Child-care difficulties are her No. 1 concern. Society underestimates how many women face this dilemma, she says.
For a recent term paper, she chose to write about feminism. She addressed women's roles during World War II - entering the workplace while men fought - and their return to the home in the '50s.
"We were taken care of," Ms. Daugherty says. "Now we have to do everything. . . . We're in the kitchen and the workplace." She isn't angry about this, exactly, just aware that something isn't quite right. Personally, she has decided to stay away from men for a while. She tends to make bad choices, she says.
And for now, anyway, her family is doing OK with just Nancy Daugherty - mom, college student, working woman, survivor.
Task force takes up where Ky. welfare reform left off
One solution: Child care at her home
Program teaches how to get a job - and how to keep it
