Mercedees Morgan: “Everything Just Costs”

Story By: Bruce Poinsette

Illustration By: Paola De La Cruz

This story is made possible by a grant from the Oregon Community Foundation.

As a student success coordinator for Portland Public Schools, Mercedees Morgan is caught in the middle when it comes to qualifying for child care resources. On one hand, she’s a single mother with a 12 year old daughter and 6 year old son. However, the State of Oregon’s Employment-Related Day Care program says Morgan makes too much money to qualify for support for childcare for her son.

As a result, her son is currently not able to participate in before and after school programs. Meanwhile, Morgan pays tuition for her daughter to attend private school. However, it doesn’t provide meals and comes with other costs like bus passes.

Transportation is a major source of stress for Morgan. Both her children’s schools begin at 8 am, which is also when her workday is supposed to begin. If she can’t get her son to the bus on time then she often has to take both children to school, usually making one late and adding extra hours to her workday that she’ll have to make up after 4 pm, which is when it’s supposed to end. That doesn’t take into account that her son gets out of school at 2:15 pm while her daughter gets out at 3 pm, adding another 30-45 minutes to her day that Morgan will have to make up for covering that transportation too.

“It’s the best I can do at this point because I’m a single parent and don’t have any help,” she says.

Sometimes Morgan can rely on a friend to help with transportation, but she’s overwhelmingly on her own. Her mother can help but Morgan tries not to burden her unless she absolutely has to because her father recently passed and she wants to give her mother space to work through her grief.

“I basically count on myself at this point,” says Morgan.

Growing up in Portland, she had a very different childcare experience. Morgan spent her days at her grandmother’s family daycare with her cousins. When she got older, her parents put her in the Boys & Girls Club. Between her two parent household, the larger family network and some of the staff she remembers people looking up to at the Boys & Girls Club, she had a number of Black caregivers.

When Morgan envisions an ideal childcare system, she sees 24/7 availability, including for transportation. She also desires facilities that provide meals and offer support for things like homework. The latter need became especially pertinent to Morgan during the pandemic when she had to interrupt her work days to help her children with their schoolwork at, more often than not, very inconvenient times. Perhaps most importantly, Morgan envisions childcare being free, a far cry from the current system’s drain on her budget.

“Everything just costs,” she says.