Roughly. My pay ranged from $8 through $12 an hour, depending what I could arrange with agencies and per-diem work. I did have a full merit scholarship at Brown, which helped, and I had some student loans, which I finished paying off last year.
Did you pay childcare and other expenses for ten kids on that?
Nix on the childcare; Laitaille's oldest is 15, which is plenty old enough for baby-sitting duties. If she works on staff, and even for some agencies, she can get medical coverage in that way. Clothes she can get from the goodwill, just like I did when I was a kid.
So the single biggest expense for the kids is food. I'll bet you $1,000 that their typical meal isn't (1) oatmeal, (2) brown beans, or (3) rice-based. That's what I grew up eating, and you'd be surprised how cheaply you can get beans for eleven people.
But were you really trying to say that it's impossible for the woman to survive at all?
Latialle's older kids ought ot be in school during the day, which nixes using them for childcare.
Have you priced childcare for multiple babies and preschoolers?
Not to mention finding a practical nursing gig that doesn't require shift work. The shift work alone, not to mention no reliable transportation, would make it hard to find and pay for childcare, and on $10 an hour (maybe)?
Still, this woman's incredibly stupid and selfish choices to bear 10 children with no man willing to provide for them...ought to be grounds for rigorous investigation and forced rehabilitation into self sufficiency. Before the illegitimate grandchildren start popping out of her teenagers and showing up in front of her TV set for another generation of welfare idiocy....
Not to mention food stamps, that would likely be paid no matter what she made with 10 dependants.
But yes, we grew up on oatmeal, grits, butterbeans and cornbread. The problem is people want to eat junk and fashion food of sorts and not the stuff you actually have to COOK. God forbid.