Over 1000 Aluminium Cans for Forty Dollars: The Provisioning Contributions of Older Children from the Perspectives of Welfare‐Reliant Lone Mothers

Abstract

In this article, as a child and family mental health therapist, I connect the feminist concept of 'provisioning' and the experiences of 'young carers' to critically examine the family care contributions made by older children living in poverty. I present the findings of a qualitative study consisting of two focus groups in which ten (n = 10) welfare-reliant lone mothers living in Toronto, Canada described the nature and significance of the contributions made by their older children (11-17 years old) to help their families 'make ends meet'. Using grounded theory, two main categories emerged: (1) the nature of the provisioning by older children, and (2) the significance of the contributions. The implications of the findings suggest that mental health approaches with older children living in poverty inappropriately misrepresent and pathologise their emotional distress and family contributions.

Youth provisioning in low‐income families: Reconsidering theories of poor attachment

“…Literature from the Global North about youth living in poverty and their provisioning is limited or at best is sparsely fragmented across different research areas that explore the impact of poverty on the quality of youths' lives or on their development and well-being (Liegghio, 2015). As Devenish et al (2017) suggest, 'efforts to identify the pathways through which poverty affects adolescent outcomes could reveal important directions for the development of targeted interventions.…”

COVID-19 and Youth Living in Poverty: The Ethical Considerations of Moving From In-Person Interviews to a Photovoice Using Remote Methods

“…First is the premise that research models and practices are deeply rooted in histories and traditions that are androcentric, classist, racist, and heteronormative, essentially organized around the social power and "epistemic privilege" of men-white, middle/upper class, heterosexual menas a social group (Berry et al, 2017;Dei & Singh-Johal, 2005;Hammers & Brown, 2004;Harding, 2006). At the intersections of class, race, and gender, lone motherhood and lone mothers living in poverty are generally studied as social problems that threaten, for example, the sanctity of the nuclear family or the future well-being of children growing up in poverty (Atree, 2006;Caragata, 2012Caragata, , 2009Liegghio, 2015;Najman et al, 2004). Our scholarship is concerned with uncovering, revealing, and ultimately, challenging the ways in which mainstream research efforts can inadvertently misinterpret and misrepresent women, lone mothers living in poverty, and their children as acts of "epistemic injustice" (Glass & Newman, 2015).…”