PUBH 520 Assignment 8

Interviewer: Like I said earlier, I’m interested in learning about the types of things that have helped women get through stressful times and achieved good health. Good health can include many things. It could mean your good overall health, having a healthy pregnancy, having a healthy baby, good physical health, good mental health, any number of things.

To start with, I would just like to know a little bit about the people in your life. Can you tell me—and this could be your partner, your family members, your friends, a support group, coworkers—who gives you support on a regular basis?

Interviewee: My mom is my biggest supporter, I think. She’s been there throughout. My first two pregnancies was kind of rough. The father wasn’t helpful. He was in and out of jail. My mom was always there for me. I think if I wouldn’t have had my mom and I’d be pregnant again, I think I’d be lost. I might’ve probably wouldn’t even have gone through this pregnancy this time. I’m a single mom, so raising a baby by myself can—with two older kids is probably the biggest stressor, plus working a full-time job and paying bills full-time myself. I give my mom the most respect, and she’s been probably my biggest stress reliever.

Interviewer: Okay. Great. Does she lives close to you?

Interviewee: Yeah. She lives about five minutes away, so—

Interviewer: Oh, that’s helpful.

Interviewee: - and it’s just—she’s a phone call away. She’s not working right now, so she—it helps.

Interviewer: Okay. How old are your other children?

Interviewee: I have a six-year-old and a nine-year-old.

Interviewer: Oh, okay, so a little bit older?

Interviewee: Yeah. My six-year-old will be seven in November. Her birthday’s actually [personal information removed] and I’m due November 7th.

Interviewer: [Cross talk 01:43].

Interviewee: I’m hoping it doesn’t fall on her birthday.

Interviewer: Right, so she’ll not feel as special anymore. [Laughter]. I understand.

Interviewee: Mm-hmm.

Interviewer: When you talk about your mom supporting you, tell me specifically how she supports you?

Interviewee: If I’m ever in need of anything, toilet paper or milk or certain days I work and daycare’s not open—she’ll come take my kids.

Interviewer: Okay, so childcare.

Interviewee: If she feels that I’m having a stressor, she’ll take my kids overnight for me so I can have a night to myself. We go out to eat. She calls me on a daily basis so I have somebody to talk to. She listens to everything. She gives me criticism, but like a normal mom. She supports in any way that she can, basically.

Interviewer: Okay. Does she help you financially?

Interviewee: Yeah. She helps me pay my—she helps me with my bills. She helps me if I need to borrow money for—say I’m short on rent or whatnot, she’ll help me with that, and then I help her back. We go back and forth with one another, and it’s—financially, emotionally, physically, mentally—my mom is my supporter.

Interviewer: All sorts of support?

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: Financial support, like you said, helping you with tasks like childcare and some of that?

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: Then the emotional support and giving you advice when you need it?

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: Okay. Do you have anyone else that you count on, like friends or other family?

Interviewee: There are moments in time where—my spouse.

Interviewer: Your spouse? Okay.

Interviewee: Yeah. He’s a supporter, too, but he’s also a stressor.

Interviewer: You said you were a single mom, so—

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: - is that your ex-husband?

Interviewee: I’m not married. It’s the father of this child.

Interviewer: So it’d be your partner? Okay.

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: My other father of my child—I don’t—there’s no communication. We have a seven or ten-year restraining order against one another.

Interviewee: Okay. That was for your other children?

Interviewer: Yeah, for my other two kids.

Interviewee: Okay.

Interviewer: This one, we have our moments, so if I need his support, he’s there to talk to me, but he also has another daughter that he has to take care of. It’s—I don’t know. Hopefully, after this baby’s born, it’ll be a little bit different. I’m just taking it day by day with him, but mainly, the person that I always run to or go to is my mom.

Interviewee: Your mom? Okay.

Interviewer: Just because she’s most dependable. My other siblings and family members—they have their own stuff that they have to deal with. I don’t wanna put my stress or my pain or my agony on them and make them ten times worse. They have their own families and everything. I know my mom’s my mom, so any [inaudible 04:33] in time, she’ll be my number one supporter.

Interviewee: Right. I understand.

Interviewer: I’d rather go to her than burden somebody else.

Interviewee: Okay. Are your siblings and your other family also close by?

Interviewer: Oh, we’re all close. We’re real close. Me and my brothers—we talk every day. Me and my sister—we talk about once or twice a week. Her sons and my daughters play together all the time. They’re like best friends.

Interviewee: Oh, so you have playdates? Okay.

Interviewer: Yeah. No, our families are real close. We’re very family oriented. We all stick together, so anytime we can have a grill out or a cookout or just birthday parties or going to the beach—it’s not just me, my mom, and my kids. It’s me, my mom, my sister, her kids, my brother, and my brother just found out that he’s gonna be having a baby, so—

Interviewee: Oh, wow. Congratulations. Great.

Interviewer: - now we got more talking about that, so my mom’s gonna have two grandkids in the next year.

Interviewee: Nice, so you have sort of a network in your family?

Interviewer: Yes. It’s one big network. It’s not just seeing them once a year. It’s seeing them five to eight times a month, basically.

Interviewee: Okay. Good. We talked a little bit about childcare, like you get—you said your kids go to daycare, but your mom helps with that—emotional support, which you get from mostly your mom, and then financial support which your—does your partner help with that at all?

Interviewer: Yeah. He helps when he can. Right now, he’s going through a child support battle.

Interviewee: Okay. With the other? Okay.

Interviewer: Yeah, so right now, the money that he does make basically goes to child support, and then whatever he has left—it’s going towards what we need.

Interviewee: Do you feel you could count on him for financial support when it comes to your child, at least?

Interviewer: Yeah. When it comes to my child, yes. He’s a good father. I’m not stating that. His number-one priority is his kids, so he puts them first before anything else, and then he’ll put whatever else needs to be—he wants to make sure that—‘cause his other daughter doesn’t live with him, so he wants to make sure that he is able to support her and that she has everything she needs, knowing that if she needed somebody to fall back on, he’s there. He gives me the same support like that. It’s just when it comes to my emotional or my stressor or physical or anything like that, I just feel that that’s between a mother and a daughter to talk about.

Interviewee: Sure. I understand. Right. Okay. You talked a little bit about this already, but I wanted to know a little bit more about your community. Community, again, can mean many different things. It can mean your neighborhood, your extended family that we talked about, members of—like a church, a religious institution. First of all, what do you consider your community to be?

Interviewer: My community is my family. I have close friends. We don’t see or talk to each other on a daily basis like me and my best friend, which is the aunt of my child, but whenever—I guess she could be a supporter, too, but whenever I need her and she’s available, she’s there. I’m a Baptist, so I don’t really go to church every Sunday, but on holidays, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas. My daughters really wanna go back, so we’re thinking about going back. Part of my community would be my family at work.

Interviewee: Your extended family—oh, at work? Okay. Sure, your coworkers.

Interviewer: Yeah. They can see when I’m stressed out or whatnot, and they’ll just sit down and be, like, “Hey. How are you?” I’ll be, like, “[Groaning noise].”

Interviewee: You kinda have someone to just kind of vent to or talk to?

Interviewer: Yeah. Basically, I have a lot of people I can vent to, so my community is just everybody that’s around me. I’m a very friendly and outgoing—I guess you could say I’m outspoken, too. I’m not blunt to the point where I’m gonna be rude to somebody—

Interviewee: Right.

Interviewer: - but I’m not gonna keep something back and hold it. I’m gonna be, like, “This is my opinion on this. I’m sorry if you take it the wrong way, but that’s my community is everybody around me.” It’s not just one certain set thing. It’s just whoever’s around me. I consider you a friend, and then my family is my main—

Interviewee: Your main source of—

Interviewer: Yeah.

Interviewee: Okay. How ‘bout neighbors?

Interviewer: My neighbors are old.

Interviewee: Okay.

Interviewer: They’re nice. They give the girls Christmas presents and Easter baskets and Valentine’s cards.

Interviewee: There’s some interaction? Okay.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Interviewee: Our backyard is my girls’ playground where we live—we live three blocks away from the school, so a lot of people in my area—they’re really older, and then you get closer to the school, and then there’s the kids.

Interviewer: The young families? Okay.

Interviewee: I live on a main street. The closest thing to me is a bar.

Interviewer: Okay.

Interviewee: That’s not really community friendly.

Interviewer: Kid-friendly, yeah. The backyard probably helps them a lot. Okay. That’s a good support.

Interviewee: Or the school. The school is a good supporter, too—good community helper. They do a lot of summer activities. Tonight, they’re doing the back-to-school event where they help kids with backpacks and school supplies and clothes and food and music.

Interviewer: That’s great. That’s been an important support to you, to your children, you would say?

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: It sounds like you kind of have a close relationship with your school, with their teachers?

Interviewee: My nine-year-old has ADHD, so that’s also a stressor on me because—

Interviewer: Sure.

Interviewee: - she has her mood swings. The school’s a really good help with finding the right resources, after-school help, during-school help. If she has a bad day, the social worker’s there. Social workers are a good part of my community too. They help me out with if I ever needed any funding or anything or help with clothing or whatnot, they’re in that, too.

Interviewer: Is she on a medication?

Interviewee: I take her off for the summer. I’m actually, after my doctor’s appointment, I gotta go set up an appointment for her and my other daughter.

Interviewer: Yeah. That must be hard.

Interviewee: They have to do physicals before school.

Interviewer: Right. Right. Okay. Does the social worker sort of help with that process, too?

Interviewee: [Cross talk 10:54]. Yeah. They communicate with the doctors and everything to make sure that—she was on Concerta, 36 milligrams, but I took her off of that. It just didn’t seem like it was working anymore, so this year, we’re gonna try something different, and they wanted her to—they want her to start two weeks before school starts so it’s in her system.

Interviewer: Okay, so then she kinda gets—right.

Interviewee: When we go back two weeks, we can let the teachers know, “She’s been on it for two weeks. [Cross talk 11:22]. We’re gonna do another month’s study to see how well it goes and then we’ll proceed from there.” Mainly, it’s her attention—her attention span last year was ten seconds. Unless she’s very, very interested in that, then she’s right there. I’ve noticed that it’s changed, that she’s more into arts and music.

Interviewer: Okay, so that’s sort of more attractive to her?

Interviewee: Yeah.

Interviewer: Okay. Great. We talked a little bit about your mom, and we talked about your extended family, and we talked about the school being a support, and then you mentioned that you go to church sometimes. Are members of your church also—

Interviewee: Actually, I work with a member of my church. She’s known me since I was six, seven years old. They’ve seen me grow up, and now they’re seeing my kids grow up and everything. They don’t pressure or anything. My church isn’t like a type of church where they pressure you into being a supporter of God and everything like that, ‘cause I have my beliefs and my disbeliefs. They respect that. I think I just wanna do it for my kids. They like going. They like learning about him.

Interviewer: Okay, like a community? Okay.

Interviewee: Yeah. They have Sunday school and everything like that.

Interviewer: Do they go to Sunday school? Okay.

Interviewee: We’re gonna be starting, actually, ‘cause I just now got my Sundays off.

Interviewer: Okay. Great.

Interviewee: Oh, good. She’s moving.

Interviewer: I understand. [Laughter]. You’re having a girl. That’s nice.

Interviewee: Yeah. She didn’t move yesterday but maybe twice, so it made me nervous.

Interviewer: Oh, I understand. Yeah.

Interviewee: I’m just sitting there. I’m, like, “Oh, my God.”

Interviewer: I think it’s still a little early where—for them to move all the time.

Interviewee: Mine constant. It’s just this last week has been a really big—it’s been hard. I think I’m got the early baby blues. I just want her out.

Interviewer: I understand.

Interviewee: I’m having more heartburn and more anxiety and everything. I think she’s grown more hair or getting big. I feel like I’m running out of space.

Interviewer: [Laughter]. Yeah. I understand. I understand that. Actually, you’re kinda bringing us to our next point. Let me just finish up on this point. Members of your church—how else do they support you? Do they come over?

Interviewee: No, nothing like that. I haven’t been attending that much for them to know where I live or anything like that.

Interviewer: Okay, so you go there, basically?

Interviewee: Yeah. I keep church separate from home.

Interviewer: Okay. Tell me a little bit about—is faith important to you, personally?

Interviewee: My faith and what I believe is important to me. What other people believe—I’m not judgmental, so I keep my faith to myself. I believe there’s a God. I believe that there is a Heaven and there is Hell. I believe that people are destined to go where they need to go where they need to go to. I’m not gonna sit there and preach to them about it. If they wanna sit and talk about it, I’m not gonna be judgmental. I’ll listen. Atheists have their rights to their own beliefs. Catholics have their rights to their own beliefs. I’m not gonna sit there. I’ll listen. I’ll attend your church. I’ll see how it is, but I’m not gonna judge you about it. That’s not me.

Interviewer: Okay. We’ll come back to your faith a little bit later. You kind of just touched on this, but can you tell me about an especially stressful or difficult time that has had a negative impact on your health? You mentioned that your past two pregnancies were tough. What did you mean by that?

Interviewee: My other daughter’s father was very abusive, so physically, mentally, and emotionally. For five years, it was really rough for me. I was the only supporter. I was the only one working. I was the only one paying bills. I was the only one taking care of the kids, cleaning the house, cooking, everything. I was a single parent. Even though he was there, I was still doing it all.

I was working two full-time jobs being seven months pregnant, working from 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at night. That was my stressor there. After five years, once my youngest daughter hit two months, I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m, like, “You know what?” He went to jail for domestic abuse—felony domestic abuse and attempted murder on an unborn child. I went through that, and then I just—for the next—well, let’s see. We’ve been together for a year [audio skips 16:13] so for the next five years, I’ve been doing it on my own.

I’ve had my supporters. I have my best friend. She was helping me when I was living in Milwaukee, and then I moved back up here ‘cause my grandfather passed away. My grandma, she’s now in the first stages of Alzheimer’s dementia, so I want her to get to know my kids. I don’t want them to miss out on growing up with their cousins or their aunts and uncles.

Interviewer: Right, the extended family. Right.

Interviewee: No one lives down in Milwaukee but my aunt, and she has her—she doesn’t have any kids or anything, so I rarely ever saw her. Being up here, I can see my family more. Plus, the environment that Milwaukee was was a lot of stress and everything with the violence and the drugs and—

Interviewer: Okay, and it’s a big city and traffic.

Interviewee: Correct. Getting from one place to another without a car—living expenses out there was outrageous. I loved growing up here, and my kids enjoy it, so I’d rather keep them where they’re more comfortable, ‘cause right now, my main means of—my life is around them. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about my kids.