In 1974, I was married and pregnant. I was a college student going into my senior year and student teaching. My life seemed pretty well ordered. We all have our ups and downs, and uncertainty prevails throughout our lives, but still, we try to move in promising directions.
In 1975, I had an infant and a demolished marriage. These things can happen, and happen unexpectedly. When they do, you deal with the reality that presents itself.
I could have dropped out of school and gone to work, but being so close to the end, that seemed a bad idea. Plus, I was on scholarship. Back in those lost, golden days, in the state of Illinois, if you were at a state university and kept up a good grade average, tuition was waived. I was an excellent student.
So I went on welfare. I had never done so before, unless you want to count taking advantage of the tuition waiver. Some people might count that, these days. I qualified for a small check (which included the child support collected by the state from my ex-husband) and food coupons (yes, actual coupons which you had to tear out at the cash register) and WIC. I breastfed my baby --- no formula to buy, and it was what I wanted to do. I used cloth diapers and washed them myself at the laundromat. I drove a $300 car as little as possible. It was no picnic, but without welfare, I would not have been able to finish school.
I graduated into a glut of new teachers and couldn't find a job. I worked in a restaurant/bar and in a factory. Throughout that time, I had a childcare subsidy so I could hold a job. After two years of assistance, I finally got a teaching job. I have been a productive citizen and educator ever since. I went on later to get a graduate degree. That child, nurtured on food stamps, WIC, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) grew up to become an emergency room doctor.
Was I a "Welfare Queen?" Nope. Did I need help through a difficult transition? YES!
The social services have been devastated by decades of villification and budget slashing. Programs that are lifesavers for people have been cut to the bone and beyond. Citizens who might, with enough assistance at the crucial time, become stable, productive, engaged members of society are ignored, punished, stigmatized, and ostracized. Children without enough to eat or proper healthcare, develop poorly. Parents driven to despair turn to drugs, crime, hopelessness, suicide.
The attitude that "I did it, so can you" has an implied undercurrent of ("you lazy bum, freeloader"). Those words are most likely to come from the mouth of someone who is afraid and resentful, or simply blind about their own place in life. It dehumanizes the "Other" and reinforces "Me and Mine". We hear it a lot in the public square right now.
Thankfully, I learned in my early twenties that making a plan doesn't mean I know the outcome. Every one of us is subject to the vagaries of life, and to think "it can't happen to me" is pure denial.
I was reflecting this morning, after teaching a class of people in their 80s, that I take for granted they will be there each Monday. I show up. They show up. We do our class and it's lovely. But given the circumstances, there is a good chance that somebody could be gone before next week, including me. How do we, at every stage of life, find the balance between planning and uncertainty?
We can't live tentatively, always wondering and cringing about the unexpected. That would be exhausting and crush the spirit. But we can't go about demanding a certainty that doesn't exist for ourselves or anyone else. There is a balance that the well-developed human has to live with.
I'll go back next Monday, God willing and the creeks don't rise, as they say. Hopefully my students will still be hale and hearty. But I know, just as I learned 41 years ago when my marriage blew up and I had to alter my course and ask for help, nothing is certain.
All I can do is be grateful for this moment. And that's enough for me.
