VA: The Biggest Tragedy of the Welfare System
Jun 8th, 2007
(10 votes, average: 4.6 out of 5)
Loading ...To be honest, if I had foreseen the brouhaha this and this would cause, I might have skipped writing them. Not because I shy away from a good bitch […]
Original post: The Biggest Tragedy of the Welfare System
Well said V.
I was raised (along with two sisters) by a single parent on unpredictable child support plus the income from grading papers and tutoring. Mom often made our clothes and, as you predicted, it made us somewhat of dweebs :-P. We also raised a lot of our own vegetables in our garden during the summers. That is one of the best things we did really, healthy home grown veggies that you can take pride in are worth having even if you can afford to get them at the store. The bulk of our remaining food came from surplus stores and coops at massively reduced prices. I don’t think I saw a name brand breakfast cereal at home until I was a teenager. Hell, we made our own granola.
The point here is that our household income was tiny compared to the cost of our mortgage, but we always had food and clothes. Thanks for the reminders of how hard my mom worked to care for us when we were tiny.
“It’s fucking free and much better for their intellectual growth than endless hours of spongebob fucking squarepants.”
http://www.myroidtypecomics.com/otherpics/sponge.GIF
I have to say one last thing.
You and Myroid and fiends are the real deviants, sexual or otherwise.
This is from the eternal bachelor blog.
More complete anti-male shit from a corrupt government. All the Child Support industry is there to do is to keep the flow of money going from hard-working men to spend-happy women.
Why the fuck should us men have to pay for women’s children? After all, children do, in fact, belong to women in this society.
Women get to choose whether to abort the baby. They virtually get automatic custody. Fathers are not required officially, as single women can get IVF treatment. A ‘family’ is now a mother and her children, with a father as optional.
So, shut the fuck up about demanding men pay for ‘their’ children; they are not theirs!
It cannot be said often enough; children belong to women now. That’s the primary principle in defining a Matriarchy, which the UK now is. Hence women can damn well support ‘their’ children, not the dad - who is only referred to as such when it comes to taking responsibility - and not us taxpayers.
I’m soooooo glad I don’t have kids.
And to all the single women who are looking for handouts from the government, one question that should be asked is, “Why can’t you find a man to support you?”
Here is the answer as to why. Men are not going to enter into relationships with single moms when they are essentially neutered. This is an excerpt from an article entitled man shortage.
“The Battle of the Sexes has been over for more than a decade now, in case you’ve been busy watching “Law and Order” or “Ally McBeal.” Women won.
It was a slaughter. One side was Empowered, the other trussed and muzzled. The modest advances made by masculinity over the paltry last few thousand years now have been neutered. No aspect of the culture, with the exception of athletics and a little art, authentically reflect the needs and values of the masculine. Everything else – law, relational customs, education, commerce, communication – though fronted by men — are institutionalized to serve the feminine.
The new caste system in America is gender, with class running a distant second.
San Francisco, my city of residence during the Eighties, is the politically correct capital of the West, along with its near northern satellite Berkeley, and distant satellites Eugene and Boulder. Denigration of the masculine became an art in San Francisco during the Eighties, and The City was not the open, fun place advertised. It was, in fact, a hellhole for single masculinity, tolerant only if you were the correct gender.
I wish I had a buck every time a raging single female in San Francisco told me, “There are no single men in The City. They’re all either gay, married or losers.” Now I knew lots of available single guys, including myself. So this mantra translated was: “I can’t attract the males I want, therefore I will subtly demean all of them, including you. That way my problem becomes your fault, and I get to unload my dumptruck of psychic crap on you. You, of course — being male — are prohibited from defending yourself. That’s why we have laws, you know.”
It’s the same interpersonal strategy a three-year-old employs: I can’t Get My Way every instant, therefore You’re an Asshole.
Amazingly, these same females would become even more enraged because I wouldn’t ask them out. Talk about Not Getting It. By then, I was exhausted from two decades of feminist girlfriends. I’d run clean out of apologies for being born male.
Any chance comment in the workplace could easily cost me my job. It all depended on how any female within hearing range “felt” about it. Ditto for the universities. To varying degrees, they enacted “interpersonal behavior codes.” On some campuses, if I even looked at a female I was liable for disciplinary action, including expulsion. Again, it all depended on how any female “felt” about it.
Astoundingly, American females never stopped to consider what their agendas of complete control might have on my desire to interact with them.
Man shortage? Fuckin’ A there’s a man shortage. America rapes anything even vaguely masculine.
Sister, you’ve spent the last four decades codifying masculinity out of existence. You carry our balls in your purse, and now you’re infuriated because we don’t feel like having sex, much less a “relationship”? As recent census figures confirm, men spent the Eighties and Nineties backing away from women, and right now they are in Full Flee — not in vengeance, but in self-preservation.
Of course, it cannot be that males are simply avoiding females, out of disgust and very real fear. That is an unacceptable conclusion, not to mention inappropriate and offensive.
Despite confirmation by the last American census, Western cultures MUST pretend that nothing is amiss between males and females. To admit that males are desperately seeking escape from females and the neo-matriarchy is to admit that the West’s endless empowerment of females and disempowerment of males may not be the progressive, everybody-wins bonanza that was, and is, shoved down our throats each day.
As Ms. Restaurant Owner smugly asserts, the problem – as ever – is with men. This time, we are “taking ourselves too seriously.” Females and Western feminist cultures, as always, share no responsibility for the sundering of male and female.
As females were artificially awarded positions of power in the West, the pool of “acceptable males” from which to choose shrank drastically. As formerly middle-class males were divested of their jobs, kids, bank accounts, homes, and self-esteem by the matriarchate and its servants, women began to find the pickings falling somewhere between slim and none – and Slim didn’t leave town, either. He sleeps in its streets, under the very noses of his empowered sisters. He’s not feeling especially romantic.
American men are constantly told how fabulous and superior women are, how we should fall all over ourselves seeking female favor, how we should be pulling our brothers down so we can ascend the bloody man-rungs and win the favor of the Alpha Female. Buy my car and women will love you! Drink my beer and the babes will go ga-ga!
Same old game – males pay for “love,” and then are supposed to feel grateful and lucky. What kind of worm begs, mewls, and pays for “love”?
The “Man Shortage” – the lack of authentic masculinity in the modern West – is at the root of our cultural problems, especially amongst American boys. And no wonder. Manhood has been systematically denigrated, outlawed, and destroyed by the culture in the past half-century. The void of authentic masculinity is filled by gangs, suicide, violence, substance addiction, depression, and schoolyard shooters.
Hunker down for the long haul, ladies. Pickings are going to be scarce for quite a spell to come. The “Man Shortage” ain’t goin’ away. Men are goin’ away, and many have no intention of coming back. The Escapees will not meekly tiptoe back into the fold, begging forgiveness like the pathetic “Promise Keepers.” Many of the Escapees do not want relationship with you under any terms – even if you could break the addiction to your Rules, your privileges, your power. Which you cannot.”
So ladies, don’t like footing the bill for irrespsponsible, selfish, single moms. Welcome to the fucking club!!!! Repeal that sexist piece of shit law the Violence against Women Act, the one that allows a woman to file a restraining order if she just feels threatened. Until then, the pool of available men who might step in and care for these women (and teach their male brats what it is to be a man) is going to remain small.
…substance abuse and deep, deep psychoses inducing depression has kept me going for the past ten years. But then again, I promised myself I would never resort to violence upon others or myself…. I just figured that wouldn’t do anyone any good.
Though I have to say doc, even with all the substance abuse, depression, and psychoses… I tend to think it was mainly the lack of female companionship that turned me into a mere shell of the man I could’ve been. Hmmm…. Such is life.
Its not that masculinity has been neutered, but men are still shackled by masculinity, whereas women’s equal rights movement/feminism has allowed them to step away from femininity.
Because of that, women’s roles have been able to expand, where as our roles have still remained the same mentally. Not only that, but the “need” for masculinity amongst “the guys” keeps us from expanding. A good example of this is the “thug culture” where black men feel a need to show an image of toughness. And guess what? Those who’ve become successful are usually those who’ve been able to avoid that. Even in the entertainment industry, Ice-T has shed his “thug” status, and is now more mainstream.
But yes, there are plenty of laws that favor women. But guess what? If our gender wasn’t socially engineered to be “real men”, chances are those laws would never have been needed. Grow some balls, find a woman who isn’t a bitch, have kids and teach them how to be real men and not “real men”, and you’ll start tipping the scale back to a more even culture.
“I would never resort to violence upon others or myself”. Here we go again with another mangina who does not understand anything. If VAWA were repealed, a woman (or man), could still file a restraining order if she were threatened or beaten by her spouse. VAWA allows women to file restraining orders if she FEELS threatened. Look it up.
If you have not guessed yet, idiotic laws like VAWA hurt men and women. FWIW, almost half of all domestic abuse victims are men.
“Not only that, but the “need” for masculinity amongst “the guys” keeps us from expanding. A good example of this is the “thug culture” where black men feel a need to show an image of toughness.”
I am sorry, what planet are you from? The thug culture grew because of a lack of male leadership. 70% of all black children are born to single moms and last I checked men had no rights with child birth. The decision to bring a child into a fatherless enviornment rests almost entirely on the woman. Even when a couple has a child and is married, 70% of the time the party filing for divorce is a woman. And men need to change? Good mangina, good boy.
“Grow some balls, find a woman who isn’t a bitch, have kids and teach them how to be real men and not “real men”, and you’ll start tipping the scale back to a more even culture.”
Right, typical feminazi/mangina personal attack. I have a great wife, great son, and great relationships with both. I am furious that my son is going to grow up in a country where he is a second class citizen. I don’t hate women. I hate injustice and inequality.
This is from a woman blogger, http://awomanagainstfeminism.blogspot.com/. Put this in your sexist pipe and smoke it:
Twenty One Indicators of Systemic Discrimination Against Men
- The American woman by the 1960s lived in the nation with the world’s highest standard of living and owned 65% of the wealth in that nation.
- Feminists “felt victimized”, however, and convinced American women that they are “discriminated against”.
- Never have they been required to nor been able to produce a shred of statistical evidence to back up that claim.
- Twenty one key statistical indicators each illustrate how men have been and are being systematically discriminated against by government fiat.
1. WEALTH: Women hold 65% of the country’s wealth [Fortune Magazine]
2. CHILD CUSTODY: Women receive custody of 92% of the children of divorce and illegitimacy, and men only 4%. [Department of Health & Human Services]
3. INCOME: Men constitute 60% of workplace hours, work longer hours, work harder, and are more qualified, rarely file sexual discrimination or harassment lawsuits or take pregnancy leave, yet earn only 42% more than women [Dept. Labor]
4. SUICIDE: Men’s suicide rate is 4.6 times higher than women’s [Dept. Health & Human Services — 26,710 males vs 5,700 females]
5. LIFE EXPECTANCY: Men’s life expectancy is seven (7) years shorter than women’s [National Center for Health Statistics — males 72.3 yrs vs females 79 yrs] yet receive only 35% of government expenditures for health care and medical costs.
6. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Men are discriminated against BY DESIGN through affirmative action.
7. FEDERAL TAXES: Even though men pay 115% of federal income taxes women constitute 11% more of the voters.
8. VOTE: Because there are 11% more female than male voters, males have little to no influence on how the male tax dollar is spent.
9. WAR: Men, not women, fight and die in battle [Dept. Defense — Vietnam Casualties 47,369 men vs 74 women] while women sue the taxpayer when they have their butt pinched.
10. WORKPLACE FATALITIES: Men account for more than 95% of workplace fatalities.
11. MURDER: Men are murdered at a rate almost 5 times that of women [Dept. Health & Human Services — 26,710 men vs 5,700 women]
12. JURY BIAS: Women are acquitted of spousal murder at a rate 9 times that of men [Bureau Justice Statistics — 1.4% of men vs 12.9% of women]
13. COURT BIAS: Men are sentenced 2.8 times longer than women for spousal murder [Bureau Justice Statistics — men at 17 years vs women at 6 years]
14. JUSTICE SYSTEM BIAS: Even though the amount of the average “child support payment” due from women is half the amount due from men, and even though women are twice as likely as men to default on those payments, fathers are 97% of “child support” collections prosecutions [Census Bureau]
15. WELFARE: Even though men are the recipients of less than 10% of all welfare disbursements, men are required to refund welfare payments made to women.
16. SECONDARY EDUCATION: Even though zero percent of American 12th grade girls were able to correctly answer basic math and physics questions, less than one quarter of America’s secondary and elementary school teachers are men.
17. HIGHER EDUCATION: There are more than 200 all-female colleges for women and now not one single all-male college for men. 5.8% fewer men than women are enrolled in 4 year colleges, even though two thirds of those who score higher than 550 in SAT Math are males. In 1993 only 44.5% of college enrollment were men, and that figure has declined since then. Only 45.8% of of bachelor’s degrees were conferred to men in 1992, even though 98.2% of the top fiftieth percentile of the GRE are men, and ZERO PERCENT of American high school girls correctly answered 28 out of 67 TIMSS advanced math questions. Only 38.4% of private 4 year college students were men as of 1990, and this figure has declined since then.
18. LEGAL SYSTEM BIAS: 96% of physical altercations resulting in injury to a spouse occurs AFTER the date of separation. [Read: spousal abuse laws that pretend that husbands are dangerous discriminate against husbands when we know that only a very small percent of domestic violence is associated with them]. [Chadwick and Heaton, “Statistical Handbook of the American Family”]
19. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Even though study after study shows that women are the majority of the initiators of domestic violence, and 58% of the above mentioned physical altercations are initiated by the female, Congress passed the obviously anti-male VAWA and VAWA II.which are known would make the problem far worse. [Read: despite the fact we discriminate against husbands in protective orders, women still cause more than half of domestic altercations because they know they can get away with it].
20. CHILD VIOLENCE: Even though mothers commit 55% of child murders and biological fathers commit 6%, even though NIS-3 shows that Mother-only households are 3 times more fatal to children than Father-only households, children are systematically removed from the natural fathers who are their most effective protectors and men are imprisoned at rate 20 times that of women.
21. FAMILY BREAKDOWN: The US Surgeon General notes that divorce is more harmful to a man’s health than smoking tobacco, yet as much as $1.3 Trillion of federal expenditures accomplish little else than undermine family stability.
22. WOMEN PILOTS: Even though women pilots have an accident rate four times
that of men pilots, federal laws require that airlines risk the safety of passengers and hire women pilots anyway.
23. WOMEN DRIVERS: Even though the crash rate of women drivers is twice that of men drivers, and even though drinking alcohol increases the crash rate of men by only 5%, the majority of those imprisoned under DUI laws are men, and women are almost never imprisoned for their much higher number of non-alcohol-related crashes.
24. INCARCERATION: Even though feminists brag that 1.4 million American brides commit adultery, and even though women file more than 90,000 false allegations of rape, every year, only 99,000 of the 1.8 million Americans behind bars are women.
I guess I’ll just stick with “being another mangina who does not understand anything,” doc…
“Anything.” That’s quite an assertion to make.
That’s quite a chip you have on that shoulder. Do you take it down and polish it from time to time?
I’m more than happy to not understand a word of the essay above. Or to read it at all, for that matter.
Seriously, man, start a blog or something.
“Right, typical feminazi/mangina personal attack. I have a great wife, great son, and great relationships with both. I am furious that my son is going to grow up in a country where he is a second class citizen. I don’t hate women. I hate injustice and inequality.”
Actually, that was a general solution to your “problem”. Not saying that men aren’t systematically marginalized, but saying that its not a battle of the sexes issue. Its a general social issue.
It doesn’t matter if they were brought up without a male role model, because as the saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child”. The “thug culture” goes beyond just black culture, that was just an example. The rise of the mafia in the early 1900s is an example.
Your son (or daughters) will always grow up as a second class citizen, unless you’re in the upper class. That’s just how it works. And yes, you hate injustice and inequality, and you’re blaming all women for it, how’s that for justice?
So disagreeing with you that women are the only reason we’re in our current position makes me a mangina? That’s fine by me, I’d rather have a head in my mangina than a head up my ass. (Now that’s a personal attack.)
“It doesn’t matter if they were brought up without a male role model because as the saying goes, “it takes a village to raise a child”.
Right, we only need men for their sperm and their money and not to be fathers. We have plenty of men in our “village”. Have you seen the results of what happens to kids raised in the “village” compared to two parent homes? The “thug culture” arose from the “village”.
“Your son (or daughters) will always grow up as a second class citizen, unless you’re in the upper class.” I am sorry, what class were the boys from Duke in, and what class was their psychotic stripper accuser in? Dozens of men were at that party, and police and the D.A. took the word of one woman over the word of all these men.
And now the issue is over with, who is to blame? One man, Mike Nifong. We are supposed to forget about all the police officers who were in on this travesty, university professors demanding for these boys’ expulsion, and women marching with signs demanding these boys be castrated. At last count, two of the 88 professors who condemned these boys have apologized. And this lying destructive psycopath of a woman is left to live freely. She deserves our pity and not our contempt.
So disagreeing with you that women are the only reason we’re in our current position makes me a mangina?”
Here we go with the sexist attack again. I wrote 70% and you write it is only women. Sorry, most of Congress is male as is the president, and they passed and made VAWA law. I have said I have more contempt for manginas like yourself than feminazis. Your endorsement of feminazism (i.e. female superiority) is what makes you a mangina.
I know how you are olb. There’s an old timer who posts on the MRA blogs. When divorce laws in 1978 changed, and the government started screwing men out of their salary under the guise of “child support”, he fought for men’s rights. He said his worst opponents were not women but men. The only justice he got was when said men got divorce papers filed themselves, and those men changed their tune in a hurry. I know that writing here is not going to change anything for you. It is only when (and it is when not if) a woman or the government uses you for a whipping post that your attitude is going to change. Keep telling yourself it can’t and won’t happen to you.
“The “thug culture” arose from the “village”.”
Exactly, not from single parents, but from the society they lived in.
“I am sorry, what class were the boys from Duke in, and what class was their psychotic stripper accuser in?”
They’d be in the upper-middle at best, not upper class. Again, you’re missing the point. Chances are, pretty much anyone can, and would be treated as “second class” citizen, unless they were in the top 5 percentile of the world.
“I wrote 70% and you write it is only women.”
Only thing you wrote that was 70% was in regards to people being born to single mothers in black families. Also, that does not change the fact that you started calling me a “mangina” for disagreeing with your position that females have castrated the males. Find me a spot where I was endorsing feminazism. I have never said females are superior.
I believe I know how you are as well, doc. You’re feeling close to castration or are probably naturally castrated. You feel the need to lash out and be defensive because of that. Guess what? You’re just like 99% of the other “activists” out there, screaming their heads off and wanting others to change things but not willing to try to make the changes themselves, or do so in a calm manner.
Reading back entries/comments, all I have to say is you need to work out your problems. See a psychologist/psychiatrist.
If you are going to make such an idiotic statement like that last one, you should know which of the two specialists to see.
“Chances are, pretty much anyone can, and would be treated as “second class” citizen, unless they were in the top 5 percentile of the world.”
You don’t know much about the world. If you have a million dollars, you are in the top one percent of the world in terms of wealth. And each of these set of parents spent $1 million apiece on their boys defenses.
Besides, rich people are not treated better than poor people by the law. Yes, they can afford better lawyers, but they are also more prone to be sued in civil suits.
“If you are going to make such an idiotic statement like that last one, you should know which of the two specialists to see. ”
I think olb’s point is that he doesn’t know whether your problem is inherently biochemical, or if you got bitten by a big vagina when you were five, or both. Psychiatrists and psychologists are not all that different in that they both do “talking” therapy, but psychiatrists are M.D.’s who can prescribe medication.
Frankly, I don’t think either would do much good. Sometimes hatin’ just feels too damned good, right doc?
I agree that women have essentially removed masculinity from the family equation. The first message that a son born to a single-mother-by-choice gets from his mother is, “you’re not important.” She’s telling him men aren’t necessary to create a family, so why should men bother sticking around and supporting kids?
I worked on having a good, solid marriage and I must have defective kids, ’cause they NEED their father. I mean it. He is vital to their upbringing and well-being. I can’t imagine what they’d be like without him.
As for the justice system, it does still favor men in sexual assaults and abuse. How many child molestors and serial rapists have been released over and over, or let off with a slap on the wrist, so they could commit more crimes? Can you turn on the news just one day and not hear about it? We don’t take crimes against women and children seriously enough.
And medical research definitely favors men. Until a few years ago it wasn’t even known that the symtoms of a heart attack were different for women than men and that’s because every single one of the studies only included male subjects.
And many women can attest to different treatment in emergency rooms. I could go in with my arm hanging off and they’ll ask me, “are you experiencing more stress than usual?” That’s because they seem to think every illness a woman has is mental. My husband could go in with a hangnail and he’ll be meeting with a surgeon an hour later.
I just have to say that in regards to “who will take care of the kids while mother is working? how about the father?”
When I was young(like, before I started school and in the summers before I was too young to stay home by myself) my mother worked part time in the morning and early afternoon and my dad worked full time on a swing shift (generally 3pm til 11pm). Dad woke me up in the mornings for bagels and cereal and let me read his computer and hardware magazines that I didn’t understand, and mom fed me dinner, spent evenings with me and put me to bed. Like VA said, it cut down on time spent as a family but my parents didn’t want to put me in childcare and it was a temporary solution. It was a strain but a temporary one.
So it does indeed work.
So I have a friend on food stamps. She doesn’t make much, being a substitute special ed teacher may require a masters degree, but it doesn’t exactly put food on the table even when school is in session, but she is good at it, and there is a need for substitute special ed teachers on this planet, so I’m not about to tell her to go find another job or anything like that… She doesn’t have any children, but even so, she doesn’t make much. So she qualifies for food stamps, $3/day worth, or a little more than $1000/yr…
I make more than her, I’m a middle manager, if I disappeared tomorrow from this planet, it really wouldn’t harm anything at all, (although hopefully people would miss me.) Middle-management pays well, I own a house, I have a mortgage, I pay $10k/year in interest on that mortgage. And I qualify for a tax deduction for that $10k, and that lowers my taxes $3k-ish. And I don’t feel guilty about taking that on my taxes, everyone would consider me a fool if I didn’t… Do I need that $3k/year, does it keep me starving, would I not have been able to buy a house without it? Nope, not at all. It is nice, but it really isn’t very necessary.
So why is there a stigma on getting food stamps, if someone offered you free money, you’d take it too, right? So why are we standing around blaming people that get food stamps, for getting food stamps? Food stamp recipients are pretty small fry in the big scheme of things. There are plenty of people that made bad choices in life, but we should blame those people for making those specific bad choices in the first place, and not for the fact that they need to eat…
To Matthew: Why is there a stigma on getting food stamps? Because unlike your middle-manager salary, the food stamp money is taken away from other people at gunpoint (try not paying your taxes and see what happens). Food stamps may seem like small fry, but they’re symbolic of the welfare system as a whole, which along with similar social services take up a majority of the $2 trillion federal budget, dwarfing things like defense and infrastructure. And many people have a problem with this because these are not powers or responsibilities delegated to the government by the Constitution.
I’m not picking a fight, just answering your questions.
Wha??? First of all, social services isn’t the majority of the federal budget, even if you do count things like Veterans Affairs as a social service. But that is besides the point. If I pay $3k less in taxes because I have a mortgage, that is $3k less that the government has. If my friend collects $1k in food stamps, that is $1k less that the government has. In either case, that means the government has less money, and it has to make up that money somehow, (deficits are the current method, but that is besides the point.) $3k is more money than $1k, yet there is no sigma attached to the $3k, but lots of stigma attached to the $1k. Neither of those are in the constitution, although the first draft did say “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property” instead of “happiness.” But in in case, they are both benefits, and nobody shows up on your doorstep with guns if you fail to take them.
I swear now that this isn’t bitchy, but when I read this I felt compelled to comment.
I grew up in a small family of 5. My mom was a greedy bitch who spent all of HER money on what SHE wanted. My father busted his ass to bring home maybe 30,000$ a year that supported all of us, including my mother. The best thing that could have happened in my life was the day my parents divorced. The courts gave my dad full custody because my mother didn’t “Feel like” supporting her children. A year later, when my drunken mother mistook me for a person she had a grudge with and beat the shit out of me, I remained with my father while my siblings continued to maintain that my mother was a fabulous person.
But this isn’t about the bitch that would smack me around because I wasn’t tall and pretty like my brother and sister, this is a story about the amazing, magnificent person my father met when I was 13.
M was the best thing that could have happened to my family. My dad was broke and heading towards self destruction, but M made my family a unit again. So even though we were broke, no one begrudged my Stepmother for wanting children of her own. And from the time I was 14-17, my family grew from 5 to 8, with me as the eldest child. Did we have the money? No. But I got a job to help support my siblings, my father worked over 60 hours a week as a carpenter, and when he was home, M would go to work. Eventually, I made it into college, my sister gave the proverbial bird to my father, moved in with my mother, and the family of 8 became a family of 6. Yes, we had wic, and medicaid, but we also worked as hard as we could to remain a family that had food on the table and winter coats, something my fucked up mother could never do for us.
My father cried the day we recieved wic. We all did. It wasn’t that we couldn’t use it, but because M had to stand in line with the same women in our area that had 10 children, 6 in the system and 4 without even knowing who the father could be.
Things are different today, and my father tries to make it up to me, but in my opinion, there is nothing to make up. I respect the hell out of dad and M, because they made it work, and today they are raising one hell of a family. And my sense of work ethic is unheard of among my friends, some of whom don’t even have jobs. If I hadn’t learned early to work for what you need and love, I would be lounging around as well.
So maybe big families with little money isn’t ideal, but it was the lessons behind knowing what family meant to us and what it takes to keep it that made my life what it is now.