They have these credit card things now, but the shame is the same...(repost)

[zorah]

So you are in the grocery store, and you are being Good Welfare Mom.
Bargain shopping, buying generic. Lots of beans and rice, lots of
veggies in season. No fruit unless it is apples - they are cheap. Lots
of leafy greens to make sure you all get your iron and your vitamins.
Good, healthy food. Nothing pre-made - you have to cook everything
yourself if

Comments

[liminal_space]

All I can say is at least you had the means to feed your child -- so many of my friends just didn't quite qualify for food stamps so they didn't have the luxury, however small, of choosing between ice cream and eggs. Their shame came from having a child wonder, aloud, why they were having bean sandwiches for dinner. Again.

Food shouldn't be such a struggle to find. It breaks my heart.

[zorah]

Yes - your reward for moving up the social ladder and getting a job, finishing school, etc is that they cut you off long before you can actually make ends meet. From state insurance with full coverage, I went to being insured by my work - with a $2000 deductible, which was 1/6th of my income total. So I actually could not afford my health care once I got off welfare. Way to incentivize staying on the dole...

[mammaopal]

I have this memory of standing in the fruit and veggie section with cweth, trying to make our $10 stretch as far as we could while still affording milk and eggs. I kept taking fruit, once piece at a time over to the scale, weighing it and putting it back. I was explaining to Cweth out loud that we shouldn't get 3 pears, but instead get one pear, one banana and one orange. That way we'd have some variety.
This woman overheard us talking, walked up to us, thrust a $20 bill in my hand, squeezed my shoulder and said "get some more fruit for your family, dear". I burst into tears. It was just too much for my little heart to handle.

We don't have food stamps here in Canada. Just the food bank, where most of it is rotten or expired.

[zorah]

My professor and a retired military back-to-school classmate conspired to drop off a total Thanksgiving Feast on my porch the first year I was a single mom. I was so overwhelmed with how strongly they wanted me to be able to stay in school and finish my degree.

Of course now, you can't get welfare and be in a 4 year program. Or a 2 year program, for that matter. Why educate us so we can get jobs that will actually get us OUT of the system? Instead they educate us for jobs that will never pay enough for us not to qualify for food stamps and medical. Never made sense to me.

[i_dread]

For every shameful food purchase you make, comes a sliver of freedom and fresh air by stepping in your own shoes and demanding to be able to chose your own fate.

Sometimes cooking everything fresh doesn't fit anyone's schedule. Fuck the watchers who judge. I get food stamps, I buy steaks, and sometimes TRUFFLES. LOL. Yes, TRUFFLES the pigs snout out. It's my mouth, it's my gullet and when I wipe my ass, society won't know the difference.

But I will. It tasted damn good.

[zorah]

And cheap food is unhealthy food, so in the end, the gummit ends up paying for the shitty diet they encourage us to have anyway because we are dependent on them in our old age with the diabetes and the cancer of the colon and the heart disease!