Hurricane Katrina
KellyQ:
There's nothing wrong with receiving help when you actually NEED help. When my first husband left me, I was a stay at home mom with a 2 and 4 yr old, no income of my own. I had to apply for food stamps and to this day, (10 yrs later) it is the single most humiliating experience I've had. It's hard for me to believe that people not only willingly go through the system, they live off of it. I started doing temp. work at minimum wage, commuting over an hour each day to get to work, so that I could build up my clerical skills (I had worked retail previous to having children). Some people thought I was nuts. Half of my wages went to paying daycare and of course as soon as you start earning ANY money, the system cuts back your benefits. It's ludicrious because how does that actually encourage anyone to stand on their own two feet? Financially I would have been better off to stay at home with my kids and receive a hand out from the government. After 2 years of temp work I found a permanent position as an office manager for the company I now work for and was so thrilled when I could do without government aid. The system penalizes a person trying to actually get ahead. I do not begrudge anyone who receives assistance and needs it but it really burns me to see people who are more then happy to sit on their butts and do nothing to help themselves. Our government needs to do more to make people self-sufficient, including education and reasonable daycare.
edit: As for the Mormons that were mentioned in the above posts, I live in Idaho which has more Mormons per capita then any other part of the country, including Utah, which is suppose to be the "Mormon Capitol". I know exactly the right-wing, conservitive attitudes you were dealing with and it's not pretty. I apologize to anyone that might offend. I myself am a Christian but cannot get behind the kind of intolderance that the Right has so embraced.
veilchen:
Danni, you have been doing great, please don't rush it, it will do far more harm than good. The way you pulled yourself out of the mire is admirable, your daughter will be proud of her mom. As Kelly said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with people receiving help because they need it while they are trying to build or re-build their lives. You are young, you have managed (with your child's father) to build the basis of a good life for you and your little family. You are to be applauded.
After 22 years of marriage ended (it seems that I was married, but my ex-husband wasn't) and being a stay-at-home mom for 14 years, I too was thrown into the very scary reality of an unfinished education and no up-to-date work experience. I mananged to go back to University, get a part-time job, and raise my children. Luckily for me, my ex has always been a good father, and the child-support made it possible for me to stay off government help. I would have had a hard time receiving it anyway, I am not a U.S. citizen (by the time the marriage failed, we were back in the U.S., my ex is an American) Now I am a year and a half away from receiving my international license to practice, and I will go back home to do just that. By that time my youngest will be out of High School, she always liked Europe better anyways (no offense, please, this is not a slight to the United States of America and its population, just a personal choice).
Kristalrose:
Quote from: KellyQ on 2005 September 09, 19:13:09
There's nothing wrong with receiving help when you actually NEED help. When my first husband left me, I was a stay at home mom with a 2 and 4 yr old, no income of my own. I had to apply for food stamps and to this day, (10 yrs later) it is the single most humiliating experience I've had. It's hard for me to believe that people not only willingly go through the system, they live off of it. I started doing temp. work at minimum wage, commuting over an hour each day to get to work, so that I could build up my clerical skills (I had worked retail previous to having children). Some people thought I was nuts. Half of my wages went to paying daycare and of course as soon as you start earning ANY money, the system cuts back your benefits. It's ludicrious because how does that actually encourage anyone to stand on their own two feet? Financially I would have been better off to stay at home with my kids and receive a hand out from the government. After 2 years of temp work I found a permanent position as an office manager for the company I now work for and was so thrilled when I could do without government aid. The system penalizes a person trying to actually get ahead. I do not begrudge anyone who receives assistance and needs it but it really burns me to see people who are more then happy to sit on their butts and do nothing to help themselves. Our government needs to do more to make people self-sufficient, including education and reasonable daycare.
edit: As for the Mormons that were mentioned in the above posts, I live in Idaho which has more Mormons per capita then any other part of the country, including Utah, which is suppose to be the "Mormon Capitol". I know exactly the right-wing, conservitive attitudes you were dealing with and it's not pretty. I apologize to anyone that might offend. I myself am a Christian but cannot get behind the kind of intolderance that the Right has so embraced.
Now, see, you did it the right way. You found the system to be humilliating, you worked your rear-end off, and even though it wasn't easy and it wasn't fun, you got off of it. Many of the families I work with would just get pregnant again. And the "Babies Daddies" are always these drug-dealers, or hoodlems, or child molesters, or just lazy guys who have made it their life's ambition to be "Father of the Country". They actually create several families, never marrying any of the women. These women are always much younger, they have self-esteem issues, lack of education, whatever, that makes them easy targets. The guys then keep them pregnant and show up around the time these women have a check or have some groceries and they live off them and pretend to be the greatest guy in the world! When the money is gone, the food is gone, or they get bored, they go off to family #2, and it starts all over again. >:( >:( I wish this behavior was against the law!!
laeshanin:
Aint society grand, eh? But it is one we have created, all of us, as we play into the materialistic side of life. Those people on the lower echelons are wannabes. They see all the stuff they are not able to have (advertising, TV and whatever) or afford, and get to thinking they deserve those things by any means they can. Our money grabbing, oil guzzling, land destructive ways have bred a new scary variety of Homo Sapiens that don't care for anyone but themselves and can self-justify at the drop of a hat. A grow-your-own-sociopath generation... Special, huh?
Being on benefits is no fun, nor is single parenthood. I've done both (am still doing the latter), and have hauled myself up by my own bootstraps. Damn, looonnng hard work. I retrained, putting myself through Uni as a mature student, and eventually got my own house. My older daughter is off to Uni on the 24th, and my younger starts 6th Form College next week. You can do it, it just takes sheer bloodymindedness, and a willingness to graft your guts out. So good for you, Danni. More power to you.
ZephyrZodiac:
I think it may have seemed like I was criticizing the mothrs of the 8 kids, but it was really mostly the men who want to father kids but don't want to be a father in the real sense that I was mostly critical of. And the women are generally so down-trodden and besotted that they will tell all kinds of lies so the Social security people never find out who they are so they can force them to contribute to their children's upkeep.
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