Ain't No Trust. Judith Levine

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      BerkeleyLos AngelesLondon

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2013 by Judith A. Levine

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Levine, Judith Adrienne.

      Ain’t no trust : how bosses, boyfriends, and bureaucrats fail low-income mothers and why it matters / Judith A. Levine.

      p.cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-27471-6 (cloth : alk. paper)

      ISBN 978-0-520-27472-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

      eISBN 9780520956919

      1. Low-income single mothers—United States—Social conditions.

      2. Low-income single mothers—Employment—United States.

      3. Low-income single mothers—Services for—United States.I. Title.

      HQ759.L47442013

      306.874’32086942—dc23

      2013003307

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Rolland Enviro100, a 100% postconsumer fiber paper that is FSC certified, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certified.

      For my mother, Helene J. Levine, and in memory of my father, Herbert S. Levine,

      With appreciation for their love, support, insight, and humor.

      And for Edward Sobel and Julia Levine Sobel,

      For making family life such a pleasure

      I tell musicians, “Don’t trust nobody but your mama, and even then, look at her real good.”

      —Attributed to Bo Didley

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      1.Welfare Reform and the Enduring Structural Roots of Distrust

      2.“The Way They Treat You Is Inhumane”: Caseworkers and the Welfare Office

      3.“I Couldn’t Put Up with It No More”: Perceived Mistreatment and Distrust at Work

      4.“I Don’t Trust People to Watch My Kids”: Mothers’ Distrust in Child Care Providers

      5.“You Can’t Put Your Trust in Men”: Gender Distrust and Marriage

      6.“I Trust My Mother and No One Else”: Trust and Distrust in Social Networks

      Conclusion

      Appendix: Research Methods

      Notes

      Bibliography

      Index

      Acknowledgments

      This book is based on two rounds of interviews that took place ten years apart. Given that time frame, I have racked up debts to several waves of advisers, research assistants, colleagues, and friends from different institutions. My first and greatest debt, however, is to the women who agreed to participate in the study. They generously told me the details of their lives, even though I could offer them little in return other than vague hopes that the research would help women like them down the road. Many of the women I met reported feeling mistreated by those who represented mainstream institutions, and their resulting suspicions, which are the subject of this book, kept them from interacting with too many like me—a graduate student and later a faculty member at large universities. Their willingness to give me their time, their thoughts, and sometimes their secrets was thus an enormous gift.

      I thank Susan Lloyd, Rhonda Present, and Jody Raphael, who helped connect me to service providers through whom I might meet participants for the study. In addition, Susan Lloyd allowed me to identify several respondents through her own study in a Chicago neighborhood. I also thank all of the directors and staff members of various agencies who gave generously of their time and who allowed me to approach their clients with invitations for interviews. I regret that to protect the study participants’ confidentiality, I cannot thank them by name.

      I am deeply grateful to Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro and Melissa Ford Shah for their hard work and great skill as they conducted almost half of the second round of interviews. They were also my partners in devising and implementing the coding scheme for the transcripts. Johanna Gray’s quick mind kept us organized through the data collection and coding processes. Thomas Nigel Gannon helped me tackle the literature on trust, served as a sounding board for the book’s major ideas, and was an insightful reader of drafts of most of the book’s chapters.

      For additional research assistance, I thank Adam Avrushin, Valerie Bonner, Abigail Coppock, Jessica Iselin, Amanda Naar, Neelam Patel, Yvette Pettee, Sarah Pollock, Lauren Ross, Jacqueline Singer, Christina Stewart, Rochelle Terman, Michael Tower, and Corey Waters. Kai Andersen-Guterman, Bessie Flately, and Tatiana Poladko conducted analyses of census data to produce the appendix’s maps with advice from Melody Boyd and Richard Moye. Jorge Navarro translated research materials for Spanish-speaking research participants. Ellen von Schrott transcribed the majority of interviews for both time periods and encouraged me through her enthusiasm for the project.

      I conducted the first round of interviews as a doctoral student at Northwestern University, where I had the dream team of dissertation committees. I am eternally grateful to Christopher (Sandy) Jencks, whose rigor made my work stronger, whose editing made my writing clearer, and whose warmth made my time in graduate school easier. I thank Art Stinchcombe for believing in this project, often seeing aspects of its conceptual significance that I was slower to discover. I thank Carol Heimer for her ability to advise on both the most abstract theoretical concepts and the most mundane tasks involved in conducting qualitative field research. One of the great rewards of academic life is that such relationships endure over the years. Even though my former committee members were not involved in the second half of the project’s design and data collection, each continued to indulge my requests toward the end of the writing process. Rebecca Blank, Julie Brines, Kathy Edin, Roberto Fernandez, Mark Granovetter, Kathie Harris, Susan Mayer, and Mary Waters also provided valuable guidance during my graduate school career. Kathy Edin and Maureen Waller advised me on my successful application for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Dissertation Improvement Award. Fay Cook, Greg Duncan, and Mary Patillo invited me back to Northwestern for a productive year as a visiting scholar.

      My many wonderful colleagues in