American Dream: A Mother's Life Abridged

My birth mother, her motherc and sisters.

[This post responds to the desperate attempt by politicians to bash indigent mothers, a sad deflection away from the actual costly waste of white-collar crime. To use the most vulnerable as a scapegoat is despicable and predictable.]  

American Dream

George Carlin 1937-2008

My parents believed in the "American Dream" that if you worked hard and did the right things you would succeed. In recent decades, as George Carlin puts it, we've learned that "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." (RIP George)

The Dream has eluded me for my entire life. Apparently, I didn't work hard enough or do the "right things". Go ahead, tell me what you think.

Farmworker

My laborious career of hard work began when I was a child of eight years old. Together with my adoptive parents, and migrant farm workers, we picked peas during the long, hot summers in Half Moon Bay, CA. It took me a whole day to fill one crate of peas to earn $3.00. I suppose I wasn't motivated since I couldn't keep the money I earned; it went to my parents because we were poor.

Half Moon Bay

Please understand, this post is not me complaining. I learned long ago that it's pointless to complain. However, if my story can lend perspective to others, I'm telling it.

In my circumstance, the only manifested result that hard work got me was a sever case of tendinitis in my hands and arms alone with degenerative disc disease, leaving me disabled. (The good news, however, is thanks to technology and the State Department of Rehabilitation I can be rehabilitated - but that's another story.)

Domestic

Print by Edger Degas

My adoptive mother had me ironing for anyone who would pay me $0.10 per item, by age 11. She had already trained me, with a heavy-hand, how to clean the house, cook and buy groceries. When I was 14, my mother died and I began drawing a paycheck as a dishwasher, toilet scrubber, cook and cashier at a busy bus station off Hwy 80, just an hour north of Sacramento. I made $1.85 an hour.

Surviving my youth

High School Graduation

Despite my lack of privilege, and an abusive father, I was able to graduate a year earlier than my class --even after attending 13 different public schools. Till this day, my classmates in that tiny town still won't acknowledge me as part of their graduating class. Popular - I was not. But everyone knew me as "that girl who sings in the halls". The most common question asked of me was, "What are you?" They meant my ethnicity but I was a misfit, a loner, an outcast, and a stoner. My very existence annoyed them.

I began community college at age 16, while part of the foster care system. I was confused and abused. But my mother taught me many useful things before she died: survival skills.

Awarding winning photo by Teofil Rewers

At age 17, I became an emancipated minor, and dropped out of college to begin working full-time. I did a lot of hitch-hiking back then in between jobs but later I settled down to work a full-time job, a part-time job and was registered with three temp agencies -- simultaneously. I slept on the bus while traveling to and from work.

Wheels

Me and my bike

My first vehicle was a bad-ass Honda 550-4 with king and queen seats, butterfly handle bars and extended front-end. I may have been the only girl in LA county riding solo back then --at least I never saw another. I was young, attractive and believed I could do anything.

I married at 23, and together
we bought our first car. A year later, I had my son and returned to work when he was just eight weeks old. The man I married turned out to be like my father to my mother, violent. So I took my son and ran. We began a new life. As it turned out, however, it was hard to find a job with a toddler on your arm and no family or friends to help out. So I delivered newspapers for months, living like an animal, before someone told me I could get welfare.

Welfare, healthcare and childcare

By g0dot

Becoming a welfare recipient is a humiliating and invasive experience, right up there with being urinated on. In recent years it's become much worse. Frightened, traumatized mothers are fingerprinted and photographed as if it were a crime to be poor and they were just arrested for it. In Florida state the government now forces drug testing on applicants, and if you fail your family must wait three months to reapply.

[No Savings Found in Florida Drug Tests]

The last photograph of my mother

In my case I was able to find a decent job after using the welfare system for just four months. I had all sorts of advantages. For example, I had only one child and I was single, with no one holding me back or abusing me. I had a high school education and excellent communication skills. But most of all I had survival skills. My adoptive mother, who was 50 when I was born, lived through the depression raising two young boys with an abusive husband; isolated from family and friends. She taught me many skills to survive during hard times. I had the advantage of her experience.

For me and my child survival meant having a job with healthcare benefits. Healthcare was critical since my son had severe asthma. (Try leaving for work knowing your child can't breathe, HOPING the sitter will be able to do her job. JUST TRY IT!)  

Without health insurance, it is more responsible to continue receiving assistance if you have children. A parent who is without healthcare AND childcare simply cannot work if her children are too young to be left alone.

[Important note: The vast majority of welfare recipients use the system short term, even before President Clinton limited access to a two-year, lifetime maximum.]

The grind

As I continued to pursue the elusive "American Dream", working my fanny off full-time meant being away from my son 11 hours a day. As a result, he nearly died because I didn't notice his increasingly degrading condition. I was tired all the time and grumpy. There was no time for the loving care of a child. It was home by 6:00, dinner by 7:00 (while fighting with the homework situation), dishes, bath, bed, repeat. Saturdays and Sundays were for cleaning and laundry (some years I used a stolen shopping cart to push our clothes to the laundry mat), and grocery shopping for bargains everywhere.

After three years of missing too much work in order to care for my child -- my responsibility, I lost my job. I desperately tried to recover from this blow but to no avail. I had to return to the humiliation of welfare.

Homelessness

Poverty and homelessness

It was 1990, and I was pregnant with my second child, choosing not to have an abortion. My son was in kindergarten, and I became fearful that I would not be able to support my children, that they would grow up in poverty as I had. I found that the only way to have enough money AND a flexible schedule was to go back to school.

While carrying my daughter, and 18 units of coursework, the owners of our home took my money for an entire year but never paid their mortgage. That year, our Christmas present was an eviction notice. We became homeless. It wasn't my first time but it was the first time with children. My daughter was 10 months old.

Higher education, debt, and disability

My son and me at SDSU

It was over a seven-year period that I borrowed $67,000 to earn a BA and MA from San Diego State University, graduating with honors. I worked a few more years, and we almost made it until... I fell down the stairs and broke my foot, the summer of 2004. This event began a series of unfortunate events that ultimately led to using up all my savings, cashing in my retirement, selling my possessions of value and, finally, bankruptcy.

There was no way I wanted to return to the humiliating experience of being on welfare and having people falsely judge me. Now I live on Social Security Disability with no TV, stereo, home phone or any significant comforts --YET I still smile. I contribute in all sorts of unpaid ways. And I like myself. My children are successful because of the sacrifices I made, and the indignation suffered, which I could have done without.

Summary

So lets review: Two advanced degrees, 25 years work experience, unwavering determination -- yet poverty is still winning. The $67,000 I borrowed is now $146,000 and growing. It's unlikely that I'll ever be able to pay that off. It most certainly was not my intention to become injured or live my life in poverty. It just worked out that way. Still, I do not give up.

I know that I am a good person with much to contribute. The more people try to kick me to the ground, the more I rise - like the dirt they push me in. This stubborn human quality has kept me alive and young. (A significant amount of marijuana didn't hurt either. In fact, I would argue that it extended my life, helped manage depression, and offered my busy mind a way to focus its thoughts for creative good.)

 

Conclusion

Women with children, immigrants, and the disabled living below the poverty level are the most vulnerable in our society. They do not want you to see their condition. They are wrongfully ashamed because they are wrongfully judged. Avoid viewing at a "snapshot" of someone's life in a sad attempt to determine the quality of their character or worth to society. No one deserves that.

Long ago I learned that wealthy, comfortable people have little concept of the world that most of us live in. However, each of us would do humanity a genuine service by developing our compassion. Learn what life is like on the other side before the bottom falls out of yours, leaving you angry and disillusioned. Too many working families are one paycheck away from devastation and long-term poverty. Be your sister's keeper; withhold judgment of others. Money, possessions, and lifestyle doesn't make us better people, it only makes us appear to be.

[The article that inspired this post was published on April 16, 2012, by The Nation]
Tagline: Common Dreams Building Progressive Community 
Raising Kids Is Work? Tell That to Women on Welfare by Laura Flanders 

Related blog post: Happy 100th Birthday, Mom. The story begins...