Globe Santa helps fill the gap when two jobs just aren’t enough
For 67 years Globe Santa, a program of the Boston Globe Foundation, has provided gifts to children in need at holiday time. Please consider giving by phone, mail or online at globesanta.org.
Her letter to Globe Santa is as much for her husband as for their two little girls, ages 4 and 7. “He tries really hard not to show just how tired he is,” she wrote. “I can see.”
“His work boots will have holes, and he won’t buy a new pair until they fully fall apart. He always puts us first, and sometimes it really breaks my heart.”
So when she asks for help from Globe Santa, the Boston Globe Foundation program that delivers holiday presents to children in need, she is asking for the whole family.
“I know Christmas is not about the toys the children get; it’s about the time and memories you make,” she said. “My husband and I both come from broken poor families. We’ve seen more than any children should, and we are determined never to have our children feel the way we felt.”
Working parents who write to Globe Santa, whether they are full-time or part-time, working one job or two, have this in common: However hard they work, however many hours per week, it’s not enough.
“Even working full time, I still never seem to make ends meet, literally, ever,” a single mother wrote. She is supporting two children, 7 and 1, while also paying off debt from being out of work because of a back injury. “It causes distress and sadness every time a birthday or holiday passes.”
It is a lament repeated in letter after letter. “I work over 40 hours a week and barely make ends meet,” wrote a single mother of an 8-year-old girl.
Another working single mother, also of an 8-year-old girl, wrote: “Every day I struggle. I pay rent, electricity, and gas bills. I also pay monthly financial payments and insurance for my car to go to and from work.” She listed her monthly expenses in the letter, totaled for Globe Santa to consider. “It is a lot for a mother alone, to pay for everything.”
It is a lot for a single mother of two little girls, 5 and 3, who, though she has been in the same job for a decade, is still not earning enough to pay for her modest life.
“I work very hard as a dental assistant,” she wrote. “This year has been particularly trying. I know there are a lot of families that need help, and I try to remember that gifts are not what Christmas is about. But as the holidays creep up, I have found myself extremely stressed.”
The letters working parents write to Globe Santa reflect reality. Americans tend to work longer hours for less pay than those in other industrialized nations; many go without benefits, vacation, or sick leave. Millions earn less than a living wage.
And they’re losing ground. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have been on the decline for decades.
The pressures on working parents are not confined to lowincome hourly wage earners. Professionals, academics, and other white-collar workers also face job insecurity and lackof benefits.
One of the letters to Globe Santa is from an adjunct faculty member at a local university. Her two granddaughters, ages 8 and 5, live with her because their parents “are absent due to the use and abuse of substances.”
To cover the cost of her expanded family, “I have obtained another teaching [adjunct faculty] position,” she said. “But soon my student loans will go into repayment status.”
The American Federation of Teachers said in a recent report that nearly 25 percent of adjunct faculty rely on public assistance; 40 percent have trouble covering basic household expenses.
They are not alone. Employee pay at social service and antipoverty agencies — the very organizations whose work is helping people in need — is often so low that employees are eligible for public assistance and, by extension, for Globe Santa’s help.
Public funding for better pay is just not there, said Kimberly Martin, assistant vice president for Child and Family Services at Riverside Community Care in Dedham. “Our family partners, our peer specialists, those in support roles, absolutely meet the criteria. They are helping others while they are themselves face housing insecurity, food insecurity,” she said. “It is really frustrating.”
‘My husband and I both come from broken poor families. We’ve seen more than any children should, and we are determined never to have our children feel the way we felt.’
MOTHER SEEKING ASSISTANCE