Isolated, beaten and pregnant,
I left and went on welfare

Pregnant, and with an 18-month-old son, I left my husband. He had beaten me for the last time. I took refuge with my grandmother, who lived on minimal Social Security. And I went on welfare.

It was 1973 in Santa Barbara. How much has really changed?

I looked into my little son's eyes, traumatized by the violence in his home. He had never been a day with anyone but me. Because my husband had kept me isolated, which is typical for batterers, my son barely knew my grandmother. It was going to take some time before he was ready to be in child care.

I'd been an English teacher before my marriage, but there was a glut of teachers. I signed up for substitute teaching; the woman raised an eyebrow for 30 seconds when I told her I was pregnant.

I'd put myself through college working as a waitress, but that wouldn't last long into my pregnancy.

I checked with my church and with a charity. Both told me to apply for welfare. They had limited resources, and more desperate cases.

Through friends, I got some work correcting papers and tutoring. (I even took papers to correct to the hospital when I had the baby.) But I couldn't make enough to support my family.

So I applied for Aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps and Medi-Cal.

After my daughter was born, I got three hours of free child care and teaching work at Santa Barbara City College. After two years at my grandmother's, living with my children in one room, I was given a housing subsidy so I could rent an apartment.

Though I always worked at least part time, I was on welfare for more than four years, until I remarried. I always will be grateful that my community saw fit to give that help to me, however grudgingly.

The welfare mothers I met at the child-care center were from all walks of life, but they shared two problems: desertion and violence by men. Once we polled the 48 women there: 40 were battered women and the rest had experienced less serious violence.

Few received any financial support from the fathers of the children. Fathers who did send money were the violent ones looking for a reconciliation, usually for the fourth or fifth time.

My ex-husband had stopped paying child support after two months and threatened to kill me if I complained. I took the threat seriously.

Most women don't like to talk about the sordid details of family violence, so the public thinks welfare mothers are irresponsible or lazy. But taking care of children in poverty is taking responsibility (that the other parent is shirking), and it is not a road for the lazy to travel, believe me. The women I met on welfare were very hard on themselves. They called themselves lazy, when they worked part-time, studied and cared for several children.

Welfare reform is aimed at the wrong target. It takes two parents to support a family. Welfare will end, or at least diminish, when we stop regarding it as the natural prerogative of men to desert their children and beat their women.

If I were reforming welfare, I'd try to rehabilitate the fathers (or absent mothers). Make them get a job. Give them training and educating, if necessary.

Don't cut off benefits to the children until the mother is self-sustaining. Add the cost to the father's bill.

And how about a little therapy for batterers? Most of them are basically decent men who love their families and desperately need help to control the way they have learned to express their rage. What a wonderful world if we could bring back the two-parent family.

Women often make mistakes in choosing men. When women must leave their men, they usually don't dump their children. They try to support them, even if they must beg for the help of their community.

This has not changed in 20 years, nor do I think it ever will.