College grants for single moms

Melanie Smith remembers well that January day two years ago when she found out she was pregnant. "At first I felt seared," says Melanie, who at the time was a junior at Spelman College in Atlanta. "How was I going to tell any mother? Was I going to walk around college pregnant? What would happen?"

What happened is that Melanie decided to have her baby. And in doing so, she joined the ranks of the 4.9 million African-American mothers with children under the age of 18; of those mothers, becoming to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 3 million are single moms. Approximately 1.8 million of those single mothers, like Melanie, also work at jobs outside their home.

Heaven knows that single mothers have been part of our community for centuries. Ever since the first slave ship unloaded its human cargo on these shores, African-American families have been in a state of flux. Slavery separated husband from wife, father from son and grandparent from grandchild in the cruelest, most inhumane way imaginable--so much so that, more than a century after it was abolished, we're still reeling in its wake and trying to overcome racism's present-day strains on our families. And while it's true that our community has had--and continues to have--western society's "traditional" family units (mom, dad and children), it's also true that millions of well-to-do, middle-class, poor, divorced, widowed and never-married sisters have successfully raised families without a mate. Strong sisters, loving sisters, determined sisters-like Melanie Smith--are striving to do the best they can. "My goal," Melanie says, "is never to give up. I always try to excel at whatever I'm doing--for myself, and for Tyler.

Tyler Renee Willingham, Melanie's daughter, now nearly 2 years old, shares a one-bedroom apartment with her mom in Atlanta. On Tyler's side of their beige-and-white bedroom is a crib, a diaper pail and two Munnie Mouse posters; on Melanie's side is a bed, a dresser and a group of family photographs.

Melanie, now 25 and a Delta Airlines reservations-sales agent, works the day shift and usually gets to the baby-sitter's with Tyler by 8:30 each morning. She works from 9 until 5, then picks Tyler tip from the babysitter's by 5:30. Once at home, Smith's second shift begins: She cooks dinner, eats, watches Jeopardy! with Tyler, reads her daughter a story and gives her a snack; then, by 8:30, she puts Tyler to bed.

When she has a day off, Melanie sometimes takes Tyler to the baby-sitter anyway so that she can work out at her health club. Gone are those carefree days before Tyler was born, when, as an employee of Eastern Airlines, Melanie jetted around the country on a whim during school holidays and partied on weekends into the wee hours of the morning. "I'm not the same person now that I have a child. When you become a parent, things change," Melanie says.

Certainly things have changed for the better since Melanie's early single-working--mother days. "Tyler was about 8 weeks old when I went back to work--and I was still in school," explains Melanie. "After school was over, I'd go and pick Tyler up by four o'clock and get her to my second babysitter. At that time I was working for Delta on the evening shift, from 5:30 P.M. to 2:00 A.M. Tilen I'd pick Tyler up, go home and get some sleep." Through personal willpower--and with the support of some understanding professors--Melanie kept to this schedule for about a year. Now, after a few on-again, off-again semesters to accommodate motherhood and full-time work, Melanie returned to college this spring. She is due to complete her B. A. in psychology soon.

Juggling career, family and school can be a struggle for married mothers. And when you're a single parent, the challenge can be even greater. Many single moms find it necessary to move back home or in close proximity to their own mothers for child-care support. But Melanie is determined to finish the college education she started 2,000 miles away from her immediate family in Seattle, her hometown. In Atlanta, with the help of her own network and sisterhood of support, Melanie says, "I'm making it."

RUNNING A FAMILY AND A COMPANY

So is April Rhone, a single working another, who runs her own business out of the Dallas home she shares with her mother and her three children. At 31, April has been married and divorced three times. She's the another of two sons and a daughter, Chris, 13, Duonne, 12, and 1-year-old Ketu Sophic. As a solo mother running her own company, April says, "My philosophy is to put business before pleasure. I've got to get my business off the ground; then, when everything is going the way it should, I can chill.

April's company, Afri-Concepts, markets lunch boxes, backpacks, bookmarks, binders, little girl's purses and T-shirts that are decorated with pictures of African-American heroes such as Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X.

Becoming an entrepreneur took patience and determination. In 1987, after working at various jobs, April packed up her family and moved from Texas to California to enroll in an undergraduate program at California State University, Long Beach, Like Melanie Smith, April had to balance family and school life. Some days, while attending classes, she took her sons with her. Through grants, loans and public assistance, April scraped by financially. When school got really tough, April sent her children to live with their paternal grandmother for a semester. In 1988 the boys returned to their from in California, and April's real-world education began.

Getting Afri-Concepts off the ground has taken several years and a move back to Dallas. Now that her company is up an running, April has big plans: "I'd like to build an empire--but not just a financial one," April says, "I think reaching our people is the most important thing.

GOING FOR THE GUSTO

Lydia Davis Barrett, president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Essex County, New Jersey, says that her job as a single working mother is much easier now that sons Tehuti and Issa have graduated from college. But it wasn't always that way. In fact, Lydia, 47, a former welfare caseworker, found herself receiving welfare shortly after her husband, she says, "left a note on my pillow" and walked out about 18 years ago. Ironically, when she applied for welfare, Lydia's former colleagues "didn't know if they should speak to me or act as if they didn't see me," she says. "I think they were more embarrassed than I was."

Lydia also knew she had to get off welfare two years later when a problem with a check caused one son, only 5 years old at the time, to complain loudly about not getting "their" money. "Being educated in sociology and psychology and having worked as a caseworker, I recognized that as being the beginning of the welfare mentality," says Lydia. "And that day, walking up that street, I realized I had to get out." Lydia sold her diamond engagement ring so she could afford day care for her sons and have bus fare to go on job interviews. Since she could type, she landed a job as a secretary. Most important, Lydia began formulating a plan for her life.

"I estimated that I'd be about 41 before I got to the age where I could run around and do things without worrying about baby-sitters and such, and I would still probably be young enough to catch up with my career and to have a life," she says. "So I made a conscious choice--I mean a very conscious choice--to focus on my kids." For a while, Lydia postponed going to graduate school; Cub Scouts, movies and soccer games took priority. But, remembers Lydia, "Somewhere in my mid-thirties I was feeling resentful of the fact that I didn't have clothes and I couldn't go anywhere and I couldn't "afford baby-sitters." Back then Lydia's single friends partied every Friday night. "Then I realized that the only difference between myself and any other parent is that I didn't have a partner. If I'd had a partner, I wouldn't have been running out the door on Friday night--I'd be home and quite content. So I decided that I'd have to be content with my children."

For the most part, raising her sons has been rewarding and fulfilling for Lydia--and the result of hanging in there speaks for itself. Lydia's older son, Tehuti, 24, is a recent graduate from the Rutgers University College of Engineering. Issa, a 22-year-old Hampton University graduate, was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Program in Public Policy and International Affairs (worth $26,640 for the 1993-94 school year) to attend the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.

And Lydia, who eventually did earn a master's in public administration, now looks back on her early days of single parenting and smiles. "It was rough, but I don't regret it. Not even for one half a second," she says. "As single mothers, we don't have to settle for the minimum that society has to offer. We can go for the gusto!"