I grew up seeing all these ladies on welfare, not working. They had their kids all dirty, walking around with no shoes. But my mom took care of us. It wasn't a lot. But she was out there working for it.
Ivory now works at a senior citizens home in Galveston, cleaning rooms.
In the past, she has worked at a hospital cafeteria and at Kentucky Fried Chicken, oftentimes bringing back some food from her job to feed her children at the end of the day. I'm sure they wanted better out of their lives. I told them that they had to go to school and try to make something out of their life. And that's why they probably didn't give me any problems. They knew what they had to do.