Blynken, asking about a visiting handyman: "Why do you have to pay him? Why doesn't he worked for free?
Me: Because his time is worth something, and he needs to work so he can buy food and clothes for his family, and pay for the doctor and things like that.
Blynken: You don't have to pay for those things. We go to the doctor and it's free, and we get free food.
Me: You do not have to pay for those things, but somebody does. Where do you think your free food comes from? Somebody else buys it.
Blynken didn't answer, but I could see the wheels turning.
But there's more to the story. Those wheels, they turned so well that when his mom showed up and complained about the cost of a car repair and then talked about 20.00 she had to pay for school pics for Nod, Blynken told her she should have saved that school picture money for the car repairs. I wanted to cheer.
His mother indignantly told him that would not be fair, because she'd bought school pictures for Blynken when he was in school, and she bought them for the boys' sister (who lives with her the children's maternal grandmother), so it would not be fair not to buy them for 4 year old Nod for Head Start, and he'd been so excited about getting them done.
In her next breath I was invited to pay 6.00 plus gas for a 120 mile round trip to take her and Blynken on Nod's school field trip (there's no room on the school van for them) to an apple orchard. She's paying 18.00 just for tickets for the family, plus gas for them, but her car probably shouldn't be driven that far. If she'd just skipped those two things, she'd already be two fifths of the way to her car repair. Skip the amount she spends going out to eat each each week, and she'd be 3/5ths there in a week.
I declined the invitation to spend around 40.00 of my own money to take them on Nod's school field trip, in case you are wondering. I am, however, looking up apple orchards and pumpkin patches closer to home to see if I can take the boys to one for less.
Or we'll just go to Strider's parents' home, where they have a dozen apple trees and the boys can pick a few for free. The boys have already been permitted to pick blueberries and pears there.
Incidentally, in the last two weeks we have turned down a request to borrow twenty dollars, and sidestepped a really bizarre attempt to- and I can put it no other way but this- trick us out of forty dollars.
On this day, in front of a Blynken who was digesting the idea that people should pay for their own things and that somebody pays for whatever consumer good you imagine you are getting for free, his mom also lamented that she wasn't going to be able to drive to her mother's house (some two hours away) this weekend because of the needed car repairs, and I brightly chirped, "While that's a shame, on the bright side, if you were going to spend the money for the gas for that trip anyway, this way at least you can save that money and set it aside for the car repairs."
Daggers, my dears, daggers.
And she really is not unique in this 'why should I plan ahead?' mentality. My husband sees this at the grocery stores, when the first of the month when food stamp cards are reloaded by the gov't, customers flock in to the store, stocking their carts with chips, cokes, crab legs, freezer meals, frozen pizza (never flour, eggs, milk, baking soda, or bulk rice and beans). But the last of the month, the week before food stamps will be renewed? Those same stores are empty.What are they eating? We don't know. Incidentally, one of his stores gets 40% of their income from food stamps, one about 30-35%, one 25%, and one less than ten.
She is not the worst mother, the most careless spender, the most wasteful, or the most selfish of the people who live in her world, of the people who live in her subsidized apartments. Think about that when I tell stories that make you indignant. She's actually, I promise you, in her world, an absolutely stellar mother.
It makes me sad, actually, because if she could do as much as she has done to overcome her background (and as much as I let off steam here, believe me, she's done amazing things given the manure-ridden hand the government dealt her)- well, imagine what her life would be like, what she might have done, if the government hadn't set out to reward her for insolvency and irresponsibility and punish her for fiscal prudence?
The Welfare state has created a growing generation of grasshoppers who don't even speak the same language as the ants, and we imagine that this toxic product is called 'help.' I will never, ever understand the selfish and careless cruelty that allows one to feel self-righteous about this kind of 'help' (a 'help' one can pretend one is providing with effort as insubstantial as saying it's a good idea, or at most using one's pinky finger for clicking a box at the voting boot). I will never understand why those who hold these carelessly cruel beliefs about the Welfare system feel thus entitled to sneer at those who lament the very real crippling damage, both short and long term, this government poison causes.
But then, there's a very interesting thing I have observed about most of the people I know (I speak here of people I know in a face to face way, not my online friends) who believe we need more of this government poison and not less.
They seldom actually know any of the people they imagine they are helping with their huge sacrifices (by which I mean their insignificant efforts at pushing a button at the voting booth). They often are shocked to learn that one of the HM's grocery stores gets 40 percent of its income from food stamps, and what people mostly buy with that are convenience foods and those ubiquitous crab legs, but they are never actually informed by this knowledge- just shocked.
The majority, if not all of them, think we are nuts for doing what we do for Blynken and Nod. A couple of the most vocal of the leftwing among them have tried to talk us out of any further involvement in their lives. Pretty much every one of them has said something like, "I could never do what you're doing."
Now please do not misunderstand my point here. I am not criticizing those who don't do what we do. I get that not everybody can do this. I don't look down on those who don't/can't. It's a private decision and not everybody is even in a position where the opportunity is available, and we have the advantage of amazing Progeny who step up to the plate in a real way so this is a team effort.
However, there's something else I find incomprehensible in this long list of things I find baffling. That the sort of people who try to talk me out of having Blynken and Nod in our lives, who say, "I could never do what you're doing'(and always in the same tone and with the same facial expression I have when I say, "Chicken feet? I could never eat those,") are the same sort of people who imagine themselves as more compassionate, less selfish, more caring than those evil Republican, Tea Party, or Libertarian types.
I think they have confused smug for compassion.
God help Blynken and his generation. They are in a great, sucking field of government quicksand, and further government 'help' is only going to pull them under. God save them from this wicked world and its 'kindness.' (Proverbs 12)
Your comment about people not saving really hit a nerve. I know that it can be very difficult to put aside a little money, but what irks me the most is at School Start time and Christmas time, people are astounded that they are expected to have supplies/gifts for their children.
ReplyDeleteAt one time in my life, my income was drastically cut but I committed to saving $2 per paycheck (26 paychecks) per child so I would have $$ for their birthday gift ($25) and Christmas gift ($25). Times were so difficult, that even withholding that $10/paycheck was extremely hard, but to not be able to buy a gift for my kids would have been even more hurtful.
Recently a couple local agencies had school supply give aways and one woman with 4 kids complained because she didn't receive MORE. Seriously? Why hadn't she been picking up some pencils/crayons/notebooks at the Dollar Store each month instead of getting her nails done or paying for her cell phone (that she couldn't get off to hold a face-to-face conversation)? She was decked out in jewelry and nice clothes, make-up, etc. But she expected others to pay for her kids school supplies - and she'll be back at Christmas...
I think it's great to help the underprivileged but there comes a point that we have gone from helping to enabling. * Your own case in point with not watching the extra child. *
Right now the 'poor' can get free cell phones, free vehicles, housing assistance, medical coverage, child care subsidies, food stamps, plus Cash, etc. They get the Earned Income Credit (for this mother with 4 children who was already receiving all the above, she got over $10,000!! and went on vacation....) which they do not have to pay back and does not affect their ongoing 'assistance.' Shoot. Not a chance on God's green earth that I can save $10,000 a year.... While she said she couldn't buy her kids school supplies, she didn't have any problem spending $70 on a pair of sneakers for one child and thinking it was a 'bargain.'
It's hard not to develop a heart of bitterness toward the poor with these examples confronting us daily. The year after my husband died some police department called asking me for a donation to send poor children to the circus. I couldn't even afford to take my children. I turned down their opportunity to be 'generous' and 'compassionate.'
There are 'poor' who have earned the disdain of others. Then there are poor who are so very grateful that their eyes well up with tears when they receive something they desperately need and weren't expecting. I see those stories too - Unfortunately, the folks that are truly in need of assistance and appreciate it are the minority of the people on the rolls. In fact, they don't qualify for all the assistance because they are still trying to make it on their own without government assistance.
Thanks for letting me vent this morning. You don't need to post this. I just needed to get it 'out.' :)
I have nothing to say other than great post.
ReplyDeleteThey are never actually informed by this knowledge--just shocked.
ReplyDeleteThis is a key insight. I wonder sometimes how the modern age became so confident that ignorance is the source of most problems, and that knowledge will deliver us from them, when all the evidence demonstrates that the facts have absolutely no impact on most people's thinking.
I said pretty much the same thing you said (about the generosity of people who don't actually know the "poor" people they think they're helping) once, in the comments on a liberal blog (because I'm an idiot and do crazy things like that sometimes). The commenters made two things very clear in the way they ripped me up: 1) They really don't know these people. and 2) They couldn't care less if anybody is helped by welfare or not. Because real charity involves telling people "no" and expecting them to try to help themselves, and those things are mean, mean, mean. Also, they need to keep their own money and time, so voting for someone else to do the helping is the only act of charity that they are willing to perform.
ReplyDeleteI blogged about that annoying tendency of most people (not just political types) to "help" the poor by volunteering other people's resources instead of their own. I'll leave a link, if you don't mind the self-promotion. (If you do, just delete it.)
http://getalonghome.com/2010/01/three-stories-and-a-rant-part-1/
C'mon now, tell it like it is! You know, if more people do what YOU are doing for those babies, they wouldn't have to depend on government help. We complain about the situation, but what do we really do in our personal lives, one on one, to fix it?
ReplyDeleteAnother thought I had while reading your post - if 40% of profits in the grocery store come from Welfare programs (and I have to assume this is average?), then we are in a bigger pickle than initially thought. Consider. If we did away with food stamps, the immediate effect (besides the backlash from recipients) would be adverse for grocery chains. Which would effect suppliers. Which would effect producers. It would cause an enormous shockwave that sent out far reaching reprocussions throughout the entire industry. Taking away medicare and supplemental housing would probably do the same thing in those respective sectors, as well.
Over time, the economy would restablize itself as the money started flowing different ways, but it would make for a pretty rocky transition.
Ok, obviously my morning cup of coffee is working now, so I'll just. step. away. from. the. keyboard! lol
My husband and I feel the same way. I think it is such a good point about "painless" charity. Even people who give to charity with their own money often do it via a monthly standing order, so they still don't have to actually meet any of the people they think are so down-and-out.
ReplyDeleteOur family met/helped out a homeless lady recently, and it was such a learning experience for us. I live in the UK, and we have a similar welfare system to the US, but the thing that amazed me was that the system can create (or at least encourage) such dependence, but also then drop people through the cracks in other areas. The lady we spoke to knew all the benefits she was entitled to and all the numbers to call for help, all her rights - but because of other personal issues she basically wouldn't listen to what anyone was saying to her.
I'm not blaming her for that, because frankly if I were that lonely I would want someone to listen while I talked and talked and talked, but because she didn't qualify for a social worker's support, she was missing out on loads of things. The system meant that she was basically kept in the position she was in, on the very bottom rung of society.
To be honest, what that lady needed was a *friend*. Someone who knew her and would be firm with her, but also someone who was definitely on her side, and not restrained by government regulations about what they can or can't say and do. Someone who actually cared for her rather than an office bod who sees half a dozen smelly, cussing old ladies every day and has run out of energy to care about any of them.
With that in mind, as far as I'm concerned, even a monthly check in my church's offering box doesn't cut it.
*phew* rant over :)
I can agree with some of your points, but there was a time when I was young when my father was badly hurt and couldn't work and medical bills ate all my parents' savings (and they were and are savers; they hate spending on anything unnecessary and I learned my love of cheap organ meats from them) that the only reason my brother and I had food to eat was government programs. And I remember a time when I was young that my mother had to work multiple part-time jobs after being out of the workforce for some time to raise us and would come home absolutely exhausted and pop that proverbial food stamp frozen pizza in the oven and barely be awake long enough to tell us to wash the plates. (Though much more frequently it was peanut butter and the almost-turned fruit they put on discount and the occasional boiled egg).
ReplyDeleteWhen my dad was well enough to cook a little things were better--they bought ingredients and cooked cheap but good meals. And eventually--a long eventually--my mother got a decent job and finally my father was well enough that he got his job back (a better job, actually) and things eventually went back to normal. But I realize that there was a period of time that we subsisted on that "kindness". And I don't know what would have happened if we didn't get it, because before it was approved my parents, even my sick dad, would sometimes not eat so that my brother and I could, and once my exhausted mother got mad and screamed at me because she caught me sneaking food off of my plate and onto my little brother's.
So while I can shake my head at the people buying expensive convenience foods (and just stare at your post in awe of the idea of buying *crab legs*, wow, I wouldn't know what to say to those people even if asked) I do understand the convenience food thing, because I've seen that place. And even with their problems, I can't really put down the whole idea of the entitlements, because I think that they can be essential to helping responsible people get back on their feet when horrible things happen.
But they should not be a lifestyle. I'd agree that they can be and are abused, and that that abuse fosters a false sense of entitlement and desire not to work, and that more often they are used by people who maybe should get them for a time, but are used unwisely and as such don't actually help them in the end. And I wish that would be fixed, though I do not honestly know how I would go about doing that in a practical manner, even if I were in charge. But as to the question of the ill they cause or the ill they alleviate, I am not certain which is the greater evil overall. I do know how much they helped us, though.
Since you have figured how she is wrong in her thinking and exactly where then perhaps you should share with her this post, print it out and hand it to her. Maybe you already told her face to face, though, as you are writing about her and her children on a blog that does make a profit of some kind. Oh well, she probably already knows you are writing about her and her children and what you say about them. It's the price of your kindness.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I know for sure, once someone is on the dole, they are set up for judgment by many in our society as they can no longer decide what they will buy in the supermarket because that's how it is. You lose a kind of freedom when you accept these kinds of things. You lose a kind of freedom, it seems, even when you accept kindness. People will judge you and think they have the right because they are, after all, not in your place but they know how and what you should be doing. It seems like that. Someone always knows better behind your back.
"I think they have confused smug for compassion."
Yes, certainly, some do.
It is certainly a matter of prayer. I wonder, sometimes, if these types of people coming into our lives is for the reason of teaching us about real humility and compassion. Judge least not ye be judged, or something like that?
A friend of mine, who is the last person in the world I would expect to be against welfare (she was raised in foster care, was a single mom, and later worked with troubled teens (boys who had been convicted of crimes). So I was surprized to learn she was dead set against welfare. She says that welfare destroyed the African American family...that before welfare the NORM in African American families was father's that stayed with their wives and tried to provide for their children, even when that was difficult and opportunities were slim. Welfare rewarded single parent families with extra resources and denied those resources to families where the father was present and providing. That shocked me...and it does change my view of welfare.
ReplyDeleteHM, although I respect you and enjoy reading your blog, I must say I don't understand your politics at all.
ReplyDeleteAs one of those families that manage to squeak by on a single income, and not accept any form of government assistance, and have eaten rice and beans (and oatmeal...cannot forget oatmeal!) for what feels like FOREVER because it's what was cheap and plentiful, I want to thank you, thank you, thank you, for acknowledging all of this. Your readers and commenters too.
ReplyDeleteI know people (and because those people know my "name" out here, I won't name them) that accept all kinds of assistance--no! Accept is too mild of a word--demand all kinds of assistance--and then spend loads of money on high definition televisions, cable or satellite tv, primo internet packages...yet can't manage to pay the water or garbage bill. Their houses are stinking messes because they can't be bothered to clean, they are constantly buying new clothing because the old stuff is dirty--the list goes on and on.
I'm reminded of the The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe quote, when the children are visiting the Beavers-- "And the cloth on the table tho' clean was very rough." Although I tend to think of it as the other way around.
We cook from scratch, use the clothesline, budget our gas, grocery, and utility expenses (to the penny!). We have no TV. My hubby's cell phone is from his workplace (paid for and maintained by them--it's a requirement of his job). My only extravagance is the internet, and if we suddenly couldn't afford groceries or gas---it would go. Most everything in our home is secondhand purchased or secondhand from relatives. We do just fine...and we're definitely not looking for a handout! :-)
Anonymous 1- what don't you understand?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 2- You wouldn't be judging me, would you?
You also seem to have misunderstood the subject of the post- which is the Welfare state and how much harm it causes. The boys' mothers is a victim of that, not a cause.
Or do you not have a problem with the way the government creates a crippling sense of dependency and punishes people for being responsible with their money and rewards irresponsible behavior?
"do you not have a problem with the way the government creates a crippling sense of dependency and punishes people for being responsible with their money and rewards irresponsible behavior? "
ReplyDeleteI am Liz and I don't understand how the government punishes people for being responsible -- do you mean by taxes?
Ah, Liz, thanks for clarifying. No, I wasn't really thinking about taxes, although a case could be made for that, too. I was thinking about the boys' mother and the multitudes of others in similar circumstances. The government punishes *her* and others in her situation for being responsible and planning ahead, but rewards her for being irresponsible and for not saving. That really makes me mad.
ReplyDeleteFor a while it was cheaper for *her* to call an ambulance than to schedule a doctor appointment - the ambulance was free to her, driving to the doctor's wasn't.
I blogged about how the government's assistance is less that helpful here.
Also- she actually does not want her daughter with her mother. She wants her daughter with her. The state refuses to permit that, because the child has 'bonded' with the grandmother (yes, because the government refused to let her come home= it's a very circular piece of logic - the mother has *never* been charged with abuse - the only reason the child is with grandma is because the child has been with grandma, originally a temporary decision- she thought- of the mother).
Worse, it's the government's choice to keep her daughter with grandma, where grandma gets welfare and food stamps for the child, and the one time the mother got a job that paid over the table, the same government confiscated nearly her entire paycheck to reimburse them for the food stamps and welfare. That not only punishes her for responsible behavior (getting a job) but rewards her for not being responsible (not getting a job and taking money under the table are actually smarter decisions for her in her situation).
There are several situations like this- where doing the right thing, being prudent or fiscally responsible in her situation will cost her more money or services than continued government dependency does.
All the doctor appointments- the ones that several readers are suspicious about? There's nothing to be suspicious about- the dr. appointments are real. They are free (to her). She's doctor shopping to try to find a diagnosis that will earn her permanent disability status so she can have another source of government income. In her personal situation, it's a fiscally sound policy, so why not? What would be the moral reason for her not to do this? If you are conservative, it's obvious what the problem is. If you are liberal and labor under the delusion that government money is free money and she's entitled to it, probably not.