The Lamber Family

      Stacy Lambert is 19 years old and the mother of three young children. Lucas is almost 4 years old, LaTeisha is 2 ½, and her youngest, John Ray, is only 8 weeks old. Stacy had been going with LaTeisha's and the baby's father on and off until a few months before John Ray was born, but then she had finally had enough of him and broke it off for good. Now she's going out with someone new and they've been talking a lot lately about maybe getting married soon.

      Although it's been hard taking care of the new baby and taking care of Lucas and LaTeisha at the same time, Stacy is a lot happier now that she finally has a place of her own. Sure, it's in a bad neighborhood, but the apartment was re-done and painted up just before she moved in. It even has new carpeting and a new refrigerator and stove in the kitchen. As long as she keeps the kids inside and makes sure the doors are always locked, they'll probably be all right. There was some shooting going on in the row of apartments behind Stacy's a couple of weeks ago that had scared her, but that's the only time something like that has happened since she moved in. Besides, Stacy would rather take the risk of being shot at than to live at home with her mother again. Maybe she didn't always do right by her kids, but she sure was a good sight better mother than her own mother ever was. At least she isn't a drunk.

      Stacy was only 15 years old when Lucas was born. She continued living at home with her mother and her younger sister, Pauline, so she could keep going to school. She stayed in school even after she got pregnant again and she finished 9^th grade. LaTeisha was born that summer and Stacy tried going back to school again in the fall, but it got to be too much for her to handle and her mother sure wasn't any help. Stacy dropped out and has never gone back again. Maybe if LaTeisha hadn't been so sick all the time it could've worked out, but it didn't seem to make much difference now anyway.

      As a baby, LaTeisha was always spitting up her formula and it got to where she didn't even hardly want to take a bottle at all. Then she got real sick one night-running a high fever and all-and Stacy was so scared that she wrapped the baby up in a blanket and ran across the road to a neighbor's and begged them to drive her in their car to the hospital. At the hospital, they said the baby was starving and started accusing Stacy of all kinds of things. They even threatened to take LaTeisha away from her. LaTeisha stayed in the hospital for nearly two weeks and it ended up that she was what they called "failure to thrive" because of some kind of "reflux" thing in her stomach. They gave LaTeisha medicine to take and some special kind of formula that was supposed to fatten her up. At first, things didn't get all that much better with feeding LaTeisha, but a nurse from the hospital came out to the house every week for a while and helped Stacy figure out better ways to get LaTeisha to take her formula and to keep her from spitting up.

      It wasn't long after LaTeisha came home from the hospital that Stacy moved out of her mother's house to live with her Aunt Vivian. Living with Aunt Viv was a whole lot better but it was crowded, what with Stacy and her two children in addition to Aunt Viv and her own two kids who were still living at home. Aunt Viv also had a lot more rules than Stacy was used to living by. When Stacy got pregnant with John Ray she could tell that Aunt Viv was disappointed in her and there was a lot of tension between them. Stacy talked to the social worker, who was still coming out to see her on account of LaTeisha, and the woman helped Stacy get this apartment so she could be on her own.

      The social worker also talked Stacy into putting Lucas into Head Start. She said that at least it would give Stacy a break from one of the kids for a while each day. That sounded good to Stacy, so she and LaTeisha walked the six blocks to and from the Head Start classroom every day to take Lucas and pick him back up again. But after John Ray was born, things weren't the same. It took too much effort to get out of bed early every morning, get all three kids dressed, and walk them all the six blocks to Head Start. It just wasn't worth it. It was easier just keeping them all at home.

      Of course the social worker didn't approve of Stacy's decision to keep Lucas at home. She kept harping on and on about how Lucas needed to go for the sake of his development. Well, he could just watch Sesame Street and Barney to learn his numbers and his ABCs like every other kid did. She'd tell the social worker this too, except Stacy knew that the woman didn't approve of the fact that she was buying the TV and the CD system on a rent-to-own plan. There wasn't any sense bringing up that sore subject again. And she sure wasn't about to tell the woman that the reason she was sometimes so tired in the morning was that she had had friends over the night before and they had stayed up until the early morning hours. After all, the only time she could have some fun for herself was after the kids were in bed. What did the woman expect her to be-a nun?

Discussion Questions
 

1. Is there reason to be concerned about the health, safety, or development of Stacy Lambert's three children (Lucas, LaTeisha, and John Ray)? If so, what factors contribute to the risks you identified?

2. What, if any, policies, programs, or resources are available in your own state or community that may have prevented or reduced the complexity of the Stacy Lambert's current situation (e.g., pregnancy prevention, teen parenting program, cash incentives for pregnancy prevention, mother-child foster care for teens)?

3. We know that Head Start is available for Stacy's oldest child, Lucas. Would Head Start or another type of publicly-funded child care be available to all children like Lucas in your own state or community?

4. If the Lambert family lived in your own state or community, what child care resources would be available for her two younger children, LaTeisha and John Ray? What would the quality of child care in these programs be like? Is there a charge for these services? What are the eligibility requirements? Are they easily accessible by all children for whom they are intended?

5. What types of financial assistance would be available to Stacy-or other young mothers like her-in your own state or community?

6. What other forms of assistance would be available to young mothers like Stacy in your own state or community (e.g., food stamps, education programs, health care, subsidized housing, etc.)? Would these be available to all mothers living in poverty?

7. If Stacy considered returning to school, getting her GED, or getting a job, what policies or programs are in place in your own state or community that would motivate her to do so and make this possible? How might her eligibility for other forms of assistance change if she resumed her schooling or got a job(See answers to questions 3-6 above)?

8. If Stacy were, in fact, to marry her current boyfriend, how might this change her eligibility for various types of assistance?

9. What programs or resources are available in your own state or community that would help Stacy learn more about child development and improve her parenting skills? Would all mothers like Stacy know about these programs? Are these programs available to all young mothers and to mothers of all ages? Are these programs easily accessible (location, child care)? And, finally, are they designed and operated in such a way that young mothers like Stacy would be motivated to use them and to improve their parenting skills?

10. Mothers like Stacy Lambert are likely to be involved with several human service agencies at the same time (Head Start, social services, public health, etc.). In your own state or community, do the various agencies/programs with which she might be involved communicate well with one another and combine their efforts?

11. What policies and practices are in place in your own state or community that serve to monitor the welfare of children like Stacy Lambert's? Are these effective in terms of identifying children at risk? Are they effective in increasing the likelihood that these children will enter school "prepared to learn"?

P..J. McWilliam
National Center for Early Development and Learning
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC

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