The Stigma

I've been debating for a while now whether to post/vent about this. I've come to the conclusion that it's my blog! I can write what I want! If you don't like it, you don't have to read it ;)

The Welfare Stigma.

I hate it. I'm sure most of you knew/suspected that our little family received assistance - sounds better than way haha! - while we were going to school. I don't want to get into the whole, "Well, don't have kids while you're in college then!" thing. Meh. Probably wasn't the smartest idea, but I believe when and how many children a couple decides to have is between them and the Lord. I also believe welfare programs are designed to help those in need, even if those in need are college kids who decide to throw a couple kids in the mix. I always felt the need to defend myself in some way when using my food stamp card or talking about it with someone. I still do, actually! And you'll see them throughout the post.

My defense was always, "Well, we are trying to better our lives. We will graduate. We will get jobs. We pay our taxes. Blah. Blah. Blah." So, we bettered our lives. We got educations. We got jobs. We pay our taxes. And, now for a semi-vent, we make $300/year too much to qualify. Yes. Per year, not per month. $300/yr does not buy food for a family of 4. Now, why it's only a semi-vent: Ever since we've been on assistance I've disliked the fact and looked forward to the day when we could be self-sufficient. Reason: the stigma. I loathe the welfare stigma. It's there for a reason, but I did not feel like we were a part of that reason, not completely. In some ways, yes, but I still feel too guilty to get into that part ;)

I'm sure many of you have seen the memes and the posters. "If you can afford beer, drugs, cigarettes, manicures, and tattoos - you don't need food stamps or welfare" or "I went to sign my dog up for welfare. They said he's not eligible. I said he's lazy, unemployed, and doesn't know his daddy. He gets his check next week." Albeit slightly amusing, they cut those of us that did get the occasional manicure and bought pretty nice gifts this year with tax returns. I can try to spin it a number of ways, but bottom line is we could have lived with much less. We could have gone without a lot of things. Welfare was never intended to be a career opportunity, and we never expected it to be. But the memes. I hate them. I really think we should just get rid of them. They only make those that need the system feel badly. And those that abuse it, well, do you really think they're going to change because they saw a poster on Facebook??

In my opinion, there are two classes of people using assistance: Those that splurge once in a while when they can (tax returns, birthday money, etc.) knowing the fun will come to an end when they no longer need assistance, and those whose lifestyle is a splurge with no intention of becoming self reliant.

This issue became hard for me as I started working. In Rexburg, more than half of us that were pregnant were also on Medicaid. If you were a student, you had to have primary insurance, so Medicaid was actually secondary for most (and $168,000 in NICU charges later, I'm glad it was!!). Many going to school with kids were on food stamps. I personally didn't see a whole lot of chronic system abuse at BYU-I, not to say there wasn't any. And... I am in NO way saying that I think everyone I see in the clinic on Medicaid is abusing the system. I'm fully aware that we still live in a college town. Aaaand.... I really try very, very hard not to judge anyone in the clinic. However, I do see the occasional person that could fit the stigma - I won't go into detail. Now, whether they really are abusing the system or not isn't even the issue to me. I know there are those out there that do, hence the stigma. But just the possibility of it being someone I'm taking a blood pressure on hits close to home. And at that point, it feels almost as if we are being punished for being honest. I've always been super honest on our forms, and now that we make $300/year too much to qualify, we are scraping up $575/month for daycare.

Times get tough. I get it. I'm glad we have a welfare system in place. But I think it needs an extreme makeover! We were receiving so much more than we really needed each month in food stamps. We would have done just fine on half. So we built up our food storage and we would buy food for friends (shhh!). If the government cut everyone's allowance by just $100 it would help our national budget immensely! Food stamp living is comfortable! We would always have enough for treats, soda, seafood if we wanted... It needs to be restrictive, in my opinion. Welfare shouldn't be comfortable. You shouldn't be able to buy soda, cakes, and individually packaged sugar rushes. This, I believe, would help our national obesity crisis. When you only have a certain amount of money to spend on food, and it's limited, you don't buy copious amounts of stuff like that. Well, hopefully not. And the drug testing! That needs to take effect everywhere asap, I think. That is one poster I fully agree with: "You should have to pass a drug test for a welfare check if I have to pass one to earn it for you." P.s. I agreed with it while on welfare, not just now that I have a job haha!

Well, there's my rant since I was on a writing kick ;)