On a recent morning at her home, Ladson lifted Kaila into her high chair for breakfast, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. Ladson quickly whipped up a batch of bacon and quarter-sized pancakes for Kaila and set them on her tray.
“Put your hands together,” Ladson instructed before Kaila could take a bite. “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this food.”
MULTIMEDIA | Interviews with six black women focus on family life, success and self-esteem, which were identified as major themes in a nationwide survey conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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Rich or poor, educated or not, black women sometimes feel their lives are reduced to a string of labels.
Nearly three-quarters of black women worry about not having enough money to pay their bills.
With Kaila safely occupied, Jane divided her attention between a second batch of pancakes on the griddle and a stack of thick envelopes about her disability benefits. Just before Christmas, her doctor told her she couldn’t go back to work.
Ladson sees the diagnosis as a temporary setback. She has five years to figure out a new game plan, thanks to a government program that temporarily lowered her mortgage payments. She remains resolutely optimistic about the future, mirroring a slight rise in the number of black women who are happy with their lives despite the obstacles they face.
Fifty-one percent of black women reported being “very satisfied” with their lives, according to the Post-Kaiser poll, up a bit from 46 percent in 2006. Satisfaction rates for white men and women decreased.
That’s why Ladson is still going to therapy, even though she can only afford treatment once a week. She has set a new goal: Return to work by the end of 2012.
On a gray winter morning while Kaila was in day care, Ladson used her arms to power a cycling machine at NovaCare Rehabilitation in Fort Washington. Only five minutes forward and five minutes backward, but soon she was grimacing in pain, sweat beading on her forehead. With 45 seconds left on the clock, Ladson paused for a break.
She isn’t clear on how much her disability checks will be; each letter from Amtrak seemed to provide a different estimate. She knows it won’t match the salary she made before the accident but hopes it is more than the limited payments she had been getting from her insurance company.
“If it’s less, I’m really not gonna make it,” Ladson said.
Too much was riding on her shoulders to give up hope of a job and the life she knew before. So Ladson started cycling again, even though only a few seconds were left on the timer.
Finally, it buzzed, and Ladson stopped to drink a glass of water, breathing heavily.
That was just the warm-up.
Polling manager Peyton M. Craighill and senior research analyst Kristina Meacham contributed to this report.
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