Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America [Paperback]

Michelle Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2006

Michelle Kennedy had a typical middle class American childhood in Vermont. She attended college, interned in the U.S. Senate, married her high school sweetheart and settled in the suburbs of D.C. But the comfortable life she was building quickly fell apart. At age twenty-four Michelle was suddenly single, homeless, and living out of a car with her three small children. She waitressed night shifts while her kids slept out in the diner's parking lot. She saved her tips in the glove compartment, and set aside a few quarters every week for truck stop showers for her and the kids.

With startling humor and honesty, Kennedy describes the frustration of never having enough money for a security deposit on an apartment—but having too much to qualify for public assistance. Without A Net is a story of hope. Michelle Kennedy survives on her wits, a little luck, and a lot of courage. And in the end, she triumphs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

You'd think it'd take a while to go from "given-every-opportunity, spoiled-in-every-way... middle-class housewife... to homeless single mother," but Kennedy did it in less than a year. Just some "bad judgment calls and wrong decisions," and a smart young former Senate page and promising college student found herself, at 25, living in a station wagon with her three young children, making pots of ramen noodles at campgrounds and showering at truck stops. Oddly enough, once readers learn the details, the story of Kennedy's downfall goes from being unlikely to horribly plausible. Her parents couldn't cover her tuition, but she couldn't get financial aid unless she was independent or married. So she married her boyfriend, got pregnant, dropped out and had two more children. Meanwhile, on a back-to-the-land kick, her husband moved the family to rural Maine. His neglect almost killed one child, so Kennedy left him and took the kids to a small coastal Maine town. Finding waitressing work was simple; finding affordable child care or an apartment that a landlord would rent to someone in her situation was impossible. So Kennedy improvised—lots. While the details are fascinating, they'd also be quite depressing if it weren't for the subplot of Kennedy falling in love with a co-worker. Indeed, her romance with this hunk absolutely hijacks the homelessness story—but readers will be too engrossed to care.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Kennedy recounts how she metamorphosed from a carefree college student into a homeless 24-year-old with three children by making some "bad judgment calls," the first of which was marrying her boyfriend to be eligible for financial aid. Three children come in unplanned succession, her back-to-nature husband moves the family to a rural cabin with no electricity, and his negligence nearly kills their daughter. These are the catalysts leading to Kennedy's double life: she looks normal enough at the pub where she waitresses, but she and her three children are sleeping in their Subaru, showering at a truck stop, and boiling Ramen noodles on a campground grill. Unwilling to confide her desperate situation to her parents, she finally saves enough for the first month's rent and security deposit on a small apartment, an impossible accomplishment for so many homeless people, as Kennedy elucidates in her compelling epilogue, which lays bare the economic causes of homelessness, and describes agencies to which she could have turned for help had she been less stubborn and better informed. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143036785
• ISBN-13: 978-0143036784
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #709,670 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am the author of 14 books, nine of them about parenting issues, 2 memoirs and a novel. I am the unschooling mom of 7 kids, ages 2-19, and love to live, learn and work on our 40 acre homestead and sled dog kennel in Northern Wisconsin. Visit Mish online at http://www.mishahogan.com.

I love to travel and speak to different groups on how to live on less, unschool your kids, and deal with homelessness.

In my almost 40 years on Earth, I have been a waitress, bartender, nursing assistant, tour guide for Ben and Jerry's, restaurant owner, farmer, dog musher, bread-baker, and page in the U.S. Senate...a few other things too.

My publishing credits include: FamilyFun Magazine, Family Circle, Redbook, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Salon.com, Brain, Child Magazine, NPR, and many other publications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Can Happen to You, February 28, 2005

By 

Barbara M. "Barbara" (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America: My Story (Hardcover)

I have just finished Michelle Kennedy's excellent memoir "Without a Net" and am planning on giving it to friends to read, especially the female ones. Bad decisions happen to everyone and Ms. Kennedy honestly writes about her bad decisions and how they led her and her 3 children to living out of their car. The United States, being a country that is wealthy, has just as many people who are hungry and "living without a net" and Ms. Kennedy writes a powerful story. For those of us with roofs over our heads and food on our tables, we should be extremely thankful.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth a read, March 15, 2007

By 

Barb Mechalke (in the lovely Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America: My Story (Hardcover)

I was really curious about how this mother of three with a middle class up-bringing ended up homeless and living out of her car. But she pretty much spells it out for us...it's one bad decision after another and a TON of foolish pride.

While I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done what she did and have maintained my sanity I'm not so sure that what she did was what a good mother would do. I understand that she felt she had to but given that that was her thought process I think maybe there is something not quite right with her thought processing. I think she was really really lucky the way that things turned out for her in the end. And lucky for her that no one reported her to child protective services.

I didn't understand why she didn't go to her parents for help, she never gave any indication that they were anything but caring parents. I also thought it was surprising that she couldn't have found some resources to help her when she was homeless.

Bookwise...I thought it was a quick and easy read and if you want to know how she ended up living out of her car it's all in there.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This book drove me crazy, July 8, 2006

By 

GadgetChick - See all my reviews

This review is from: Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America (Paperback)

Like many other reviewers, I found the author's passitivity and willingness to blame "the system" for a situation she squarely chose to put herself into maddening. Ms. Kennedy doesn't finish college (mistake #1). She has three kids in quick succession, stays home with them, and never makes an effort to get any kind of skill training for herself, or get a job, even though she knows her marriage is rocky - she just keeps depending on her husband for support, knowing the bottom could drop out at any time (Mistake #2). She passively sits by while her husband makes some incredibly stupid decisions that she knows threaten the economic survival of her family (Mistake #3). She then sits around blaming her husband for his inability to take care of the family rather than getting off her duff and doing something herself that will bring in income (Mistake #4).

Then she ends up homeless and makes her kids live in the family car, because she's too proud to ask her family, or social service agencies, for help. She gets a series of menial jobs and makes her kids stay in dangerous and threatening situations so that she can make an attempt at earning a living. The worst part? This isn't a "down-and-out mom makes good by pulling herself up by her bootstraps" story. Ms. Kennedy's way out of homelessness and poverty isn't hard work - it's latching on to yet another man who will support her, and having another baby.

As a feminist this book made me sick. Women ending up without resources to support themselves is absolutely the reason why the feminist revolution occurred - to give women options so they can earn a living and not end up living out of a car with their three kids. Instead, the author makes poor choice after poor choice and then seems to blame society for her dire situation, rather than herself. The bottom line is that no woman, in this day and age, is helpless to help herself and her children out of a bad situation. There are social service agencies, there are job-training programs. You do not have to rely on a man for support unless you choose to. Ms. Kennedy chose to travel the path of passitivity and inaction, it wasn't chosen for her. There are some major Cinderella Complex issues here, that Ms. Kennedy chooses to overlook. The answer to poverty isn't having baby after baby with no means of supporting them other than relying on whatever guy you're hooked up with at the time, it's getting educated and learning some skills so you can earn a decent living.

I can only hope that young women in dire straits reading this book don't think their only way up and out of poverty or homelessness is latching onto a man. Because that isn't true. Women today have many options besides the "have a baby so your man will stick around to support you" scheme. It's a shame Ms. Kennedy couldn't have created her own story about success without having to resort to that tired tactic. I don't recommend this book to any strong woman who has pride in her ability to create a future for herself through hard work and effort. Because that's not what the author did.