Children.

Many of the children in the study also suffer from health conditions; chronic conditions like asthma and attention deficit disorder are common. Jill describes the types of health problems that she has been through with her older son when he was young:

Well when he was 18 months old, it's when everything started. He ended up with double pink eye. He ended up with double ear infections, throat infection, and high fever. They put him in the hospital. He ended up being there for six days because there was some air going to him but not enough…Now, gradually after a little while I got used to it like I was able to go again. Uh - see their main concern of when they do put him in is that when he gets a fever, it won't break. He's gone to 105!

Jill also outlines how she feels that others are looking at her as if she doesn't know what she is talking about and is overreacting when she brings her son to the doctor,

[I] take him in there [and the doctor says] "Oh no he's fine." Like there's a few times that I've taken him into the doctor's office and explained to the doctor what was going on. "Oh he's fine all right…End up in Outpatients that same night and they admit [him]!"

Jill wants to make a better life for her children than she had and she enrolled in academic upgrading at the Community College. At the time of the study, she had to leave her course to care for her sick child. Her infant son also has his share of health problems and at one month of age he spent time as a patient in the hospital for an extended period. She describes how Public Health staff questioned how she deals with these health issues with her children, and as a result she is being given support from a Public Health nurse to come to her home. Jill feels she was doing fine on her own with the baby, but admits that her older son is a challenge: