According to the internet, I am a lazy, worthless piece of crap. Just wanted you to know.

I took WIC when my children were babies. I was 22 years old and had a set of twins. My husband walked out on me when I was pregnant, but since I "spread my legs" and got pregnant, then it was my responsibility. My ex-husband paid very minimal child support for a while and then quit altogether. My son, who was very sick, required a special type of formula. I couldn't breastfeed as I had given birth far too soon and never had any milk come in. My son had to eat. I took daycare assistance too. My paycheck didn't cover the cost of two infants being in daycare while I worked. Literally, the entire amount I made for the entire month wasn't enough. That whole "having twins" thing. Sometimes you can't help how many children you have. Maybe I spread my legs too far? Not sure.

I wanted to do better for myself and my kids so I took government backed student loans to pay my way through college. I'm still paying them back (at extremely low rates, thankfully), but I guess that was wrong too. Sucking off the government and whatnot. I got financial aid, which mostly ended when I married Jason. I was thankful for it while I got it. I worked full-time and I went to school full-time too. My first home was bought with an FHA loan. I faithfully paid it back as well, even when it was hard, even after I moved and didn't even live there anymore. Until it sold. I paid it back.

I'm thirty-eight years old now. I have a college degree and a okay paying job. I have a pretty house in a nice neighborhood. I'm "okay".

I volunteer at various places and from time to time one of those places is a local food bank. Every time I go there are a number of young, single women there with their children. We talk. They sing songs about Jesus that I don't know, but I sing along anyway. One of them had her son, her very very young son there, and he was helping me sort potatoes along with his sister, who was even younger.

"I like your hair," the little girl told me shyly, reaching out to touch me. I didn't mind.

"I like yours too," I told her.

She leaned closer into me, smiled, and whispered, "You smell like a rich lady. Why do you come here?"

"I'm not a rich lady, "I explained, not having a clue what a rich lady smells like. "I come here because I want to help out."

"Me too," she told me. "I like to help."

I smiled and told her how wonderful that was and how great it was that so many people want to help out. I heard her mom say to her, "We're so lucky, we have so much. We are here to help people who don't have enough."

I don't think she has what most of this country would define as "so much", but what a blessing, what a privilege to be among people like this lady and so many of the other ladies and men who are there, giving up their weekends to help other people.  Who understand that even if they don't have a lot, they could have less. Who are grateful for that.

Every day I see things online that are shocking and a lot of them are about people who take or have taken government benefits.


People like me. 

I know that people abuse the system. There are people who abuse anything, any system. The most blatant, flagrant fraud, waste and abuse of the government that I've ever seen in my life had nothing to do with an overweight lady buying Oreos for her children. I promise you that.

I never felt entitled. I was thankful, very thankful, for the help I received. I wanted my daughter to see that just because life sometimes hands you a bad deal it doesn't mean you give up. I didn't want to take WIC checks or daycare help. I wanted a conventional mortgage and to be able to pay my way through college with my own cash money.

I grew up with decent, loving, hard-working parents. We did not have a ton of discretionary funds, but we had a creek and a big yard. My mom sewed a lot of our clothes and my parents tended a huge garden. I didn't realize we were poor until later and I can honestly say it was never, ever due to my parents lack of integrity, initiative, and hard work. We were just poor.

My parents weren't lazy. They weren't worthless. They did not raise me to be worthless or lazy.

When my husband left me and I was alone trying to raise two children, I felt completely worthless. I felt like a piece of crap. I felt like no matter how hard I worked and how hard I tried I would never be able to be okay. I wrote down lists of dreams and wrote down dollar amounts of money I'd need to make, houses I'd need to own, and feelings I'd need to feel just to be okay.

It's hard. It's really, really hard. I imagine it's a million times harder for people who have no support, no decent loving hard-working family. Who can't imagine even dreaming dreams as big as the ones I dreamed. It's not just about how hard you work. It's also about believing you can. It's about having resources and opportunities and hell, just support. A lot of people don't have those things. A lot of people, like me, were so beaten down by life that they couldn't even see it. It's really easy to say, "Don't perpetuate the cycle!" but it's really hard when you are living in the midst of it, when you are so depressed it's hard to wake up in the morning, when you believe for whatever reason you aren't good enough and can't do it.

It's hard.


I am not lazy. I'm not worthless. I'm not a piece of crap. I wasn't when I was a single mom, I wasn't when I got WIC, and I'm not now.

Maybe, just maybe, the lady in line at the grocery store with the food stamp card is just exactly like I used to be. Broken down, sad, scared, and desperately in need of any kind of kindness.

I mentioned to a family member that I had been hurt by another family member's comments about single moms and how they should "keep their legs closed" and she said, "Oh but they didn't mean you".

But they did. They did mean me. That was me.


There are people, real people with real feelings, behind your words.

Real people just like me.