“It’s no sin to be poor, but it’s no great honor either.” I believe this is a quote from Fiddler on the Roof, which was based on stories by a Pulitzer Prize winner, Isaac Bashevis Singer.
Our society’s attitude toward the poor has always amazed me. Poverty is viewed as something people could cure “if they really wanted to,” or as something contagious that one should avoid the carriers of.
Our society delights in being superficial. Americans want to look prosperous whether we are or not. Hence, everyone is in debt to their eyebrows. We must drive good-looking cars, our children must wear the latest fad. Otherwise we will be ostracized from the Jones who are also in debt to their eyebrows.
Poverty, real poverty, is gut-wrenching and soul-stealing. It is having your children grow up without what they need, not what they want. It is choosing not to go to the Emergency Room and praying the chest pain is really indigestion.
I have never experienced poverty. I am a truly fortunate human being. I may not always have what I want, but I have what I need. I have food, clothing and shelter. Actually, I have far more than that. If I am short of money, it’s due to bad judgment, not a real lack.
I worked for nine miserable months as a welfare worker. I was in charge of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children checks and Medicaid, as well as Food Stamps for a few hundred clients. This was over twenty years ago and detail, such as names, were confidential. Still are as far as I’m concerned.
My experiences, at a job I disliked and wasn’t good at, are not the topic here. The topic is people in poverty. My clients were people who struggled for food, clothing, and shelter like the rest of us. In order to receive “help” from the system, they endured impertinent questions, long waits, and sometimes being treated like dirt.
Some were people who were temporarily out of a job and trying to make it through to the next. Some were mothers with children who cared for their children as well as they could under the circumstances. Some were grandmothers trying to raise their children’s children.
My elderly Food Stamp clients wrung my heart. Part of the qualifying process for Food Stamps was writing down a list of the prescriptions the clients took. Many of the elderly people took a fraction of what doctors prescribed. The clients were not irresponsible. They could not afford to eat and pay for their prescriptions.
My point in all this is that the poor are people like you and me. They have the same need of food, clothing and shelter that we do. They have the same right to be treated with respect that any human being does. I’m not even touching the medical care topic. It’s too loaded.
I have a friend who has a daughter with mental illness. Both my friend and her daughter are college-educated. Both my friend and her daughter are currently poor. My friend words, but she is at retirement age and doesn’t make much. Her daughter draws Disability and is on Food Stamps and Medicaid.
This is the luck of the draw folks. It can happen to anyone. The friend had problems anyone could have. Her daughter, a former teacher, didn’t ask to become mentally ill and unable to function. Family and friends help them out.
My friend drives an old car and fights to keep it running. She lives in a house that needs work, but has a tolerant landlord, which helps a lot. Ironically, she dresses well as her friends give her nice clothes. She has two jobs.
Her daughter is in her thirties and sometimes acts oddly or dresses oddly. After four years, the psychiatrists have found a medication that helps. The daughter goes to classes five days a week that help her and others like her.
