Carrie

My 42 year old friend is broke after 2 weeks after getting her checks and has no money to feed the kids or any cigarettes or soda. She isn’t a bad person but had a mother that was mentally ill in the 50′s and hooked up with colored men and had 5 daughters from different fathers who never paid support. Her parents disowned her because they were white and prejudiced and she was on her own and in and out of mental hospitals. Joyce was raised on the Welfare/Section 8 system but moved out pregnant and young just to get away from her sick Mom. All 5 sisters followed suit. Joyce has just barely kept a roof over her kids heads that are now 10 and 15. She needs to move again because her apartment is too dirty for the landlord to keep her. I asked her why her and the kids don’t keep it clean and she says she is lazy and the kids won’t clean. Section 8 is trying to find her another place and I want to help her learn how to do a basic monthly budget. She says she wants my help but we will see! I told her we are going to pay the rent and your utilities first and that is the golden rule. If you always pay your rent and utilities first half your problems are solved. Then we are going to go out and buy you 4 cartons of cigarettes for the month instead of a pack at a time. Also she will buy enough cases of Pepsi to last a month instead of spending 1.50 for each one at the corner store and tell the kids it’s for her and to stay out of it. Her kids are borderline obese but the son plays football and the daughter is going to fat camp this summer paid for by the state. I think they just don’t eat regular meals and eat a lot of sugar and starchy foods she gets at the food pantry’s. The kids could get food stamps but she is over by 8 lousy dollars and if she would get her bills together and go do a spend down she would get food stamps every month but never keeps her paperwork organized. She is going to try and do it this month, I hope so. I keep telling her 400 in food stamps is like 400 dollars really.

It seems so simple to me to fix her budget but if she is too lazy to hang onto her bills and go to apply to get ((400 dollars)) in food stamps to feed her kids… How hard can that be? I would do anything for my kids who are now grown and out on their own. Why don’t these Mom’s care enough to do the basics? Do they not know the basics or is it just laziness? Maybe by showing her that she will have a months worth of cigarettes and a months worth of Pepsi at home and all her bills paid in full will somehow motivate her to do this for the kids so they can eat better and be healthy. If not for the kids then to make her life easier. I mean she has all day, every day to sit around smoking and drinking soda! I just don’t get it but I want to help. She is a nice person and I have known her and the kids a long time. I’m sick to death of seeing them struggle.. and for what? Pepsi and Cigarettes surrounded by sloth.

I think it’s a shame the kids just end up with nothing more to aspire to then welfare and Section 8. Her son who is gifted wants to go to MIT and has a 3.8 average at school and football scholarships but he worries about his Mom and I don’t know if he would leave her. I really hope he does because he could have a good life with his brains and talent. There is so much more to life then making babies to get a section 8 apartment or a baby the right shade of light brown so you can have a designer baby. My friend thought her son came out too dark. She told me it is because she is half black and half Portuguese and the father was full black. So with her daughter she found a light skinned black man who had a white mother and made sure he was the baby daddy. She seems pleased that her daughter is light tan colored but what good is it if she is never going to make it out of the system? What good is it that she has no relationship with her father and she was not the product of a loving relationship. These kids don’t know what a Dad is for other than a sperm donor. Then if she learns to be lazy from her Mom I doubt her shade will matter at all.

Sorry to go on so long. I am hoping maybe this one piece may help her plight a little. Then she can show her kids how to live on a budget which is just simple math but it is so necessary. I learned it in school and taught my kids in high school. BTW, I am white but never went to college and worked hard as a single Mom. I was on welfare when my son was born and got off it two years later after trade school. I wanted my kids to have a good life and I wanted more for them then a project. It was hard but seeing my kids today made it all worthwhile. Kids basically live what they learn growing up. I believe that because I am a lot like my parents and my kids a lot like me. I don’t deviate far from my morals which I got at home. I live in a mostly white state but they abuse the system too so I don’t think color matters as much as your upbringing.