This was six years ago, but you don’t forget that kind of experience. It makes you recognize that the poor person of today was me yesterday and may be me tomorrow, or you.
My family was in dire straits, my husband was having a hard time getting a full- time job, and I had a baby and just could not in good conscience give him over to a stranger to raise. I did not find those virtues in the face of the social workers at Job and Family Services. What I did find there was the source of stress that would age me over the next 6 years so I would look well past my youthful 28 years old.
The welfare office is a cold place, where people scrutinize your entire life and shame you by their every action and intonation. They do not have any type of connection with the people they help, and you are shuffled to another social worker before you can build a relationship. It is a cold place, and that is where the scorn begins. That was certainly how I felt.
Once you are out in the world with your life line of cash assistance or a food stamp card you are subject to the stares, the glares, and the resentment of those around you.
My family was in dire straits, my husband was having a hard time getting a full- time job, and I had a baby and just could not in good conscience give him over to a stranger to raise. I did not find those virtues in the face of the social workers at Job and Family Services. What I did find there was the source of stress that would age me over the next 6 years so I would look well past my youthful 28 years old.
The welfare office is a cold place, where people scrutinize your entire life and shame you by their every action and intonation. They do not have any type of connection with the people they help, and you are shuffled to another social worker before you can build a relationship. It is a cold place, and that is where the scorn begins. That was certainly how I felt.
Once you are out in the world with your life line of cash assistance or a food stamp card you are subject to the stares, the glares, and the resentment of those around you.
You can read online what people think of welfare recipients. They should be sterilized for the good of the country; they should subject themselves to drug testing; and damn it, they shouldn’t be able to buy steak with their food stamps!
You also find out a few more things while you are on food stamps; once you are there you are stuck. If you make just one dollar over the amount you are allowed, you are cut off with no warning. You have nothing then and everything you worked hard for starts slipping. Eventually you are either forced to cut back hours to get back on the food stamps so you don’t have to pick between food and electricity, or you eventually lose everything and are forced back on them again.
There are also realities within the system, like lazy caseworkers, or burnt out caseworkers, who hold people’s lives in their hands. The enmity they feel towards the downtrodden has secured in their hearts a cold place where they detach themselves from reality and allow families to go hungry for a month or more while they wait on approving their applications. And God help you if they lose your paperwork, because then you are blamed for their mistake and the entire process has to start over.
An individual or family has to deal with a hurtful attitude in a maze of uncaring, bureaucratic snafus while they are on welfare, as if being poor was not enough of a hardship.
This system is a symptom of what is wrong in America. America no longer has a heart, for that surely is how it feels.
Surprising right? Normally when you hear people advocating for welfare it is because they want to help the poor, and the children, and the elderly, but is that their whole intention? I have watched America for quite a while as a citizen of this country, and I have come to the conclusion that people support welfare out of guilt and not much else. Guilt is what motivates the charity rather than love. Guilt because you are too busy doing wine tasting, or socializing, or jogging at the gym, or a myriad of other privileged social activities that means you are too busy to go help.
America has lost her charitable spirit and that includes everyone in the political spectrum. They take the lazy way out and advocate throwing a few tax dollars at a poorly run system to only people at the very bottom of the muck pit.
So how do we fix this? Well, Charity begins at home. You have to start small if you want to save the world. You have to start in your heart. You have to quit disparaging the poor. Everyone does it in his or her own way. Whether you are looking down on the inner city ghettoized minorities, or the poor white folk of the south, when you do that you are part of the problem. If you are thinking ill of the black girl with three kids and each having a different daddy, or looking down on Earl with his beer and pizza sitting on his porch and cleaning a shotgun, you are a part of the problem.
So grab the problem out by the root. Take that pity you feel and make it compassion instead. Quit thinking your tax dollars are helping; that alone is not a long-term answer. Those tax dollars are simply sustaining them in perpetual poverty. Start by doing little things. Smile at people you see with the food stamp card, or heck even anyone on the road. Start saying “Hello” and mean that smile as a wish for a great day.
There are thousands of ways to help people in the grasp of poverty, but our society is too far beyond the big changes that need done. So just start with trying to find true love for people, true compassion, true caring. It cannot be found in a protest sign, it cannot be found in a wad of cash, and it cannot be found in legislation and taxation.
Compassion can only be found in your heart, and can only be shared through personal action. For me it is the action I try to take every day, the first step not putting in my mind that the poor person I see is “less than” because in that person I remember me and worry it might be you, because I care.
You also find out a few more things while you are on food stamps; once you are there you are stuck. If you make just one dollar over the amount you are allowed, you are cut off with no warning. You have nothing then and everything you worked hard for starts slipping. Eventually you are either forced to cut back hours to get back on the food stamps so you don’t have to pick between food and electricity, or you eventually lose everything and are forced back on them again.
There are also realities within the system, like lazy caseworkers, or burnt out caseworkers, who hold people’s lives in their hands. The enmity they feel towards the downtrodden has secured in their hearts a cold place where they detach themselves from reality and allow families to go hungry for a month or more while they wait on approving their applications. And God help you if they lose your paperwork, because then you are blamed for their mistake and the entire process has to start over.
An individual or family has to deal with a hurtful attitude in a maze of uncaring, bureaucratic snafus while they are on welfare, as if being poor was not enough of a hardship.
This system is a symptom of what is wrong in America. America no longer has a heart, for that surely is how it feels.
Surprising right? Normally when you hear people advocating for welfare it is because they want to help the poor, and the children, and the elderly, but is that their whole intention? I have watched America for quite a while as a citizen of this country, and I have come to the conclusion that people support welfare out of guilt and not much else. Guilt is what motivates the charity rather than love. Guilt because you are too busy doing wine tasting, or socializing, or jogging at the gym, or a myriad of other privileged social activities that means you are too busy to go help.
America has lost her charitable spirit and that includes everyone in the political spectrum. They take the lazy way out and advocate throwing a few tax dollars at a poorly run system to only people at the very bottom of the muck pit.
So how do we fix this? Well, Charity begins at home. You have to start small if you want to save the world. You have to start in your heart. You have to quit disparaging the poor. Everyone does it in his or her own way. Whether you are looking down on the inner city ghettoized minorities, or the poor white folk of the south, when you do that you are part of the problem. If you are thinking ill of the black girl with three kids and each having a different daddy, or looking down on Earl with his beer and pizza sitting on his porch and cleaning a shotgun, you are a part of the problem.
So grab the problem out by the root. Take that pity you feel and make it compassion instead. Quit thinking your tax dollars are helping; that alone is not a long-term answer. Those tax dollars are simply sustaining them in perpetual poverty. Start by doing little things. Smile at people you see with the food stamp card, or heck even anyone on the road. Start saying “Hello” and mean that smile as a wish for a great day.
There are thousands of ways to help people in the grasp of poverty, but our society is too far beyond the big changes that need done. So just start with trying to find true love for people, true compassion, true caring. It cannot be found in a protest sign, it cannot be found in a wad of cash, and it cannot be found in legislation and taxation.
Compassion can only be found in your heart, and can only be shared through personal action. For me it is the action I try to take every day, the first step not putting in my mind that the poor person I see is “less than” because in that person I remember me and worry it might be you, because I care.
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Editor's Note: Samantha Torrence is a mother of four children, and caring for a younger sibling as well, while her husband serves in the military in the Middle East. She brings, as our guest for this article, a refreshing, honest appraisal of a personal experience to enlighten the rest of us on how we need to treat the least of us. This young woman's talents and good heart are reflected in her choice of topic, and Green Heritage News welcomes her contribution today.
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