Ann Romney and me
Ann Romney is a year younger than I am and her eldest son, Matt, is a year younger than my son, Mike. She and Mitt were wed a year after my wedding in 1968. So, I guess, maybe I can compare my life to hers.
I had a full 4 year scholarship to OSU when as a freshman, I met my husband-to-be. We had absolutely nothing in common: he was an Air Force 'brat' and I was a Vietnam protester. When we decided to marry, there was a selective service draft going on, so I was the only one who could drop out of college and support us. It crushed my parents when I did so. Not having many marketable skills, I went to 'key-punch' school and got a job six weeks later. There was no stock trust handed over by either set of parents and I ended up with two jobs.
My husband was in a five year engineering program, and started doing poorly in 1970. About the time that I became pregnant (BC failure). After Mike was born and we had set up a hospital payment plan, OSU kicked my husband out with about 17 credit hours to go. He had spent 4 years in the AF ROTC program and when the draft board told him to appear for a physical, the Air Force said 'hands off, he's ours' and so he went off to Colorado. I got $110 a month for child support from the USAF. When he shipped out for Thailand, I filed for divorce. Mike was 10 months old.
So, by 1972, I was a single mother. With the help of my parents, I bought a small house at age 21 and my dad's co-signature on the loan. I found a wonderful woman down the street that took care of Mike for something like $25 a week. I moved up in my 'career' and became a computer operator and then a programmer. When my ex left the Air Force in 1975, child support stopped for the next 12 years.
In the 70's I marched against war and for the ERA. I joined NOW. And I lucked out and was hired by IBM Corporation in 1973. That probably put me, by income, in the top 20% of all single mothers. I never had to get public assistance. I can probably locate by 1040's from the mid to late 70's, and show you how I made something like $29,000 and paid 35% in federal taxes and had no child care deduction or anything.
Ann never worried about who was going to watch her sons. I used to take mine, asleep, and put him on the floor of the 'CE room' when I was called out in the middle of the night. I had no options as I had to do the exact same things as the 'guys' with the same job. Although, when I was hired in there was a 15% difference in salary for the men.
Ann never had to move her sons around the country to continue her employment. She never had to miss that lousy $110 a month.
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Betcha $10,000.00 - only good thing about it was how it made rick perry's swaggering he-man image suddenly shrink a little (GULP! I shurz hell can't meet that $10K bet. Oops...).
