Comments | jedimomma: Rules for taking public assistance

jedimomma

Rules for taking public assistance

Nov 13, 2009 13:09

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, mostly because myself and many of my friends are now on varying forms of state aid. Taking public assistance is a daunting thing to do, generally incredibly depressing, and just all around no fun. Many perfect strangers are happy to criticize you for your dependence, regardless of the fact that they ( Read more... )

rant

Comments 13

(The comment has been removed)

jedimomma November 13 2009, 20:57:51 UTC

Dude, you just made me snort coffee up my nose. =)

katuah November 13 2009, 20:03:32 UTC

You should repost this far and wide. May I?

Also, in re: #4, that certainly must include buying organic food. Gods forbid you buy something organic with food stamps when non-organic sugared fluff is so much cheaper.

We are lucky to have two lucratively-employed folks in my home, but my mother still complains about why we buy organic, because, you know, she saw some TV show where they "proved" that organic foods had pesticides, too, so why not just buy the cheapest thing you can find?

Still waiting for the paradigm shift....

jedimomma November 13 2009, 20:47:10 UTC

Totally welcome to repost, although if you do, do me a favor and repost it from my other blog at adaptinginplace.blogspot.com. That's my more "public" blog, I guess you could say.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the food issues. Right now I'm working on creating a class for using gourmet cooking techniques to stretch your budget. Sure, if you're poor you probably can't pay others to make you crepes or croissants or whathaveyou, but that's no reason you can't have them at all! Good food is not just a health issue, it's a dignity issue. My family deserves beautiful food, too, at least occasionally.

moonshineray November 13 2009, 20:59:18 UTC

we love home cooking everything. crepes at home are awesome ;-) and eating beautiful food at home from scratch is actually really cheap!

peskyaura November 13 2009, 20:40:59 UTC

I think a lot of those attitudes are leftover from the Depression-era folks - passing down the 'Get a job, loser!' vibe on to their kids.

Some of it is the same reason people are weird around folks with disabilities. Fear. It could happen to any of us, any time. That's scary, so they lash out and feel superior.

For myself, I'm sorry you have to go through this, and I love you more than five.

jedimomma November 13 2009, 20:59:06 UTC

Oh yeah, there's another "don't even get me started"--generational politics (which can be summed up for me as "the Greatest Generation and baby boomers can all go fuck themselves").

Fear is the mindkiller. *sigh*

Thank you for the love! =)

moonshineray November 13 2009, 20:58:09 UTC

My mother told me about growing up as a child in the early welfare days. Raised by a single mother with a dead-beat Dad (my grandpa was a drunk and womanizer), she told me about how she grew up eating a can of soup a day or sometimes every other day because there was no money even with her job, how her grandma would sit her down at her house and feed her an entire loaf of bread with butter... while the kids on welfare had steak and cashmere sweaters. Her mother wouldn't go on welfare, and while I felt the same as she did about why it was best not to, had I been in her position, I would have taken the welfare rather than suffer so deeply. That was why when all our savings ran out and our cupboards emptied and unemployment denied us the money I was counting on and one of the jobs Dave was going for turned him down, and there was nowhere else to turn and nothing else that could be done, we finally applied and were accepted. Today our cupboards will be full and we will not be hungry and will not have to eat the weird and unhealthy food ( ... )

moonshineray November 13 2009, 21:01:54 UTC

PS- another neat thing, the local farmer's markets are taking it too!

jedimomma November 13 2009, 21:02:39 UTC

Don't you love that?!

jedimomma November 13 2009, 21:47:45 UTC

Wow, your grandma was hardcore. I guess I've never really understood the "accept no aid at any cost" mindset. I mean, I suppose if one really believes that "anyone can make it in America" or something similar, then it makes some sense. But that's just not true, it never has been true, and it really really really really isn't true right now. If we're not willing to look out for one another, and help each other when we're in need, why are we living in a society at all? Is being an American only "I live on the same contiguous piece of ground as they do"? Do we owe nothing to each other? Even those who are doing well right now didn't bootstrap themselves--they're riding on the coattails of a rich country with all kinds of benefits ( ... )

plaidbrat November 13 2009, 22:29:57 UTC

Wow! You've hit every point. Wow. Brava!

It was hard for us to ask for aid (unemployment, medical for the kids and WIC), but, we did. I think it helps that my folks let my brothers and I know not to be ashamed to claim assistance. They had to go on food stamps a few times when raising us due to the nature of my dad's type of job.

We're under hard times right now, but, the aid is there to help us through the tough times to keep us and our children healthy. We'll have a very tiny Solstice/Christmas, but, we have a home and all of us are together.