Fueled by wanting better for her kids

 

 

Fueled by desire for better life for her kids

Mother of 4 works full-time, goes to school, hopes for better life

 By Alexis Rufener

Youngstown State University

WELLSVILLE - Three girls and one boy darted from the living room to the kitchen, laughing and shouting as their mother sat on a chair. She didn’t even flinch when the shouts turned to shrieks.

For Jaye Daniels, this was a rare few minutes – a chance to be home with her children and not at school or work.

Daniels has spent the last several years of her life on a routine that starts before 6 a.m. and doesn’t end until well after midnight.

Work at the Dairy Queen in Wellsville, homework, packing lunches, cleaning, starting all over again.

And then there’s laundry, three loads some days. Story time for her four children who range in age from 6 to 12.

Tests for school where she is studying for a bachelor’s degree in physical assisting at Kent State University, East Liverpool.

If she talks about everything that she does and everything that she has to do and what she wants to do, she gets overwhelmed.

Fueling Daniels is a determination to make a better life for her children than what she had – even if it means serving ice cream and burgers and fighting back exhaustion with energy drinks.

 “The main hardships of attending school while raising one child let alone four children is that I can’t work as much as I need to because then I would never see them ever,” Daniels said.

In the morning, she gets up, smooths out her hair black coarse hair with a thin bristle brush, wakes her four children and readies them for school.  Her fiancee’ is the hardest to waken and he normally sleeps until around 1 p.m. 

Even with tired eyes and aching muscles, she always walks her four children, ages 12, 9, 8, and 6, to Wellsville Elementary School, which is one mile away down a cold, cracked and gray sidewalk.

Before they leave the home, she searches each child’s backpack looking for missing papers or slips that need to be turned back into the school.

With her head in her hand, she said she doesn’t want her kids to have to live the way she used to.

It’s those thoughts that help her every time she starts to have doubts about whether she should finish the degree she is pursuing at Kent State University or whether she has had enough of working.

“I have to work but we still struggle with everything because I’m a mom that wants my kids to have better than I had growing up,” Daniels said.

“I absolutely wish I had more time to spend with family and do school work. After classes let out, I go home for a few short hours. My kids are walking in the door from school and I’m walking out the door for work.”

At the Dairy Queen, where she has worked since 1998, she earns $7.95 per hour and is in charge of her co-workers and even the newcomers. Her shift ends around 10:30 p.m., leaving little time to spend with her kids.   

“The DQ was my first job and I absolutely adore the family that owns it.” Daniels said.

She later explained how working full time is very difficult during the winter and when school comes around.  She said she doesn’t earn enough money at the Dairy Queen and once had an office job after earning her associate’s degree from Kent State University in physical assisting. But she said that she doesn’t have a car and that it was too hard to get to work.

She said the Dairy Queen is convenient and familiar.

She said her fiancé does not work and the six of them are having a hard time surviving on one paycheck.

Yet, she said she can’t think of any other options right now.

So, she sips her NOS purple energy drink and acknowledges that these drinks help. “Once my work day is over I’m usually too exhausted to finish my homework. Sometimes its energy drinks or coffee and an all-nighter just to finish homework.” Daniels said.

Copyrighted

Produced for Journalism as Literature Class at YSU., Fall 2014. For more information or to use this story, contact Professor Alyssa Lenhoff at ajlenhoff@ysu.edu