Star

Star is a twenty-eight-year-old white woman. She is a single mother with one child. She works as a waitress and depends on her tips to supplement her minimum wage salary.

My stepfather was always mad at me. He would hit me with anything that was near. He hated me. As soon as he came in at suppertime, he would say, "Get into your pajamas and go to bed," even though it was only six o'clock. My mother would say, "But she has homework, and it's only six o'clock." But she was scared of him.

I always had to go to bed. I couldn't even keep the light on to do my homework. He would never let me do my homework, then the teachers would be mad be- cause I hadn't done it. That's why I quit school at four- teen, that's why I'm poor. No education, no good job. And a lot of hate inside me. I'm no dummy, either. I survived the street. I'm only twenty-eight and I feel like an old woman. I'll always have a hard time with money. The struggle makes you old. Free daycare would help me, but I don't want no social worker messing around with me and my kid.