THAT WELFARE RUINS POOR PEOPLE!
The Republicans and Newt Grinch started that rumor that WELFARE was like feeding cockroaches and would make the place a mess. They said Public Aid defeated the purpose as nobody ON WELFARE could every figure out the job marketplace ever again after receiving it. As if MARGARINE would dull the mind!
Does Welfare make the recipient weak? No more than coffee does. Which means, to some level it CAN. If you live on stimulants for years and don't eat nutritious food, suddenly you quit your java, you are wrecked!
The danger period for the AFDC mother is that touchy moment when the end of the dole comes. Did that mother get herself up to speed in a cottage industry? If she did, no problema. And if her head was on her shoulders, that was what she was using the state for--- a start, a leg up. Time to make her daycare biz contacts, her baby sitter contacts, her catering for parties with a group of her slumdwelling gal-pals who could go to the ritzy side and make ten grand a nite!
In the good old days, Welfare meant something. The Mom could stay on it while she raised the pups. She was kicked off the dole when her youngest student child graduated high school. That made sense. That child was liberated into the system with an education! No driveby bullets in him,cuz Mom watched him after school got out.
Today, after Clinton's gutting the welfare system, (cuz he was hard wired into goose step with the Republicans), TERMINATION comes promptly upon completing a measly Scrooge-ish two years of receiving public aid. No matter how many babies/ students you have,-- Mama, you're on the street! Get a job! Spend your entire wage on daycare for those four or five infants and starve!
The end result of the new GRINCH WELFARE SYSTEM is that at no time can a loving MOM stay home with the babies. You have to study some job skills full time or get no dough! And when you are geting some cash or food stamp aid, they make you clean freeways so that they can fire the costly city workers with their unions and pay you minimum wage. So the current welfare picture is NOT a lush picture. It's very slim pickings while it's active.
SO does PUBLIC aid make a woman dependent? The current conditions would be so strenuous that I doubt our recipient could relax for a second. She'd be under great duress.
So that statement that falling off welfare is tough when you're used to public aid is very much like an analogy to coffee, (a SURVIVAL substance that makes you extremely nervous, it's very costly so at times you can't even buy the stuff. And you know you will feel desperately horrible when it is removed and it can be taken away at any time).
When the dole is gone, suddenly you have to see what your own energy level is. If you've never worked 8 hrs in your life and suddenly have to feed infants, get them to daycare, take public conveyances to a 9 to 5 job, the end of the dole is hard on the welfare recipient woman. It is a life threatening injury. AS FOR welfare being hard on THE CHILDREN ? My feeling is that kids who see a Mom doing the welfare thing, (waiting in the waiting rooms of public offices, in food stamp lines, day in day out,) would never want to be on public aid. It is the ugliest scene you can imagine. Rooms of wailing babies, sad-sack pregnant ladies. It is a nightmare. However, Clinton told us that such children can become aid-junkies themselves, that there's a danger of a child getting the welfare culture in his head.
Didn't happen for my kids. First off, I once or twice let my kids see that Welfare Hell Waiting Room. But they were all under 6 yrs of age and didn't really know where we were. From then on, I let them see a mother at home, running a home-based cottage industry (fortunetelling,) 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. That's what they saw yet none of them learned palmreading, tarot and astrology. They went to junior college, got a trade, one son apprenticed plumbers, electricians and became a guerilla contractor.
Having those movie stars and society belles come to my living room office and get their futures deciphered, gave me enough extra money to buy food. Their parties gave me big doggy bags to share with my kids, things they'd never eaten like shrimp, lobster, pastries. That was fun. It was also necessary. The food stamps that the County gave us were NOT enough to feed me alone, much less my four children and me!
Here's how welfare happened to me. I watched too
much Lucy/Desi and traveled to Mexico and married a Spaniard who looked
just like Desi. In my seven years living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico,
I gave birth to four fabulous healthy and clever and lively kids. Only
this Desi POPPED you in the ribs with his fists when he was
irritated. Often in the face! Not on the honey
moon but after 7 yrs of marriage he did. I had four full time maids, at
the end there and knew I was leaving, I began to practice washing dishes.
One day after he broke my rib (I was two months, pregnant,) when he went
to the capital Mexico City to do biz, (we lived in provinces,) I packed
and left. Drove for six days and six nights until I got to L.A. again.
Came back to America as a single mother with 4 kids. Welfare said 'sorry, no funds until you're separated from the guy for 90 days. We like to force women to go back". I said, "Not going back, no way Jose" and I slept on the floor of a friend's garage for 90 days. Then I got welfare and rented a 3 bedroom cottage, big fenced garden in back, $250 a month, nearly my whole check.
From then on, I worked at home with my cottage
industry, which was ASTROLOGY. My kids never saw me leave the house. I
went everywhere with them in tow. They saw me giving wealthy ladies their
star readings, charging clients a few ten dollar bills (I was 15$ an hour
then,) dollar bills which enabled us all to go out and
get some serious food. I was, of course, banking
my money under the mattress where welfare couldn't find it, as they look
at all your bank accounts carefully. And they always ask you, 'did you
make any money this month?" I'd answer. "HOW COULD I DO THAT? I'm at home
with four babies!" You think I take in laundry? I'd look them in the eye
as if they were crazy.
In truth, I was also typing for authors, screenwriters,
once even got a job doing a page one rewrite, of a script for Menahem Golan
for 5grand. But the regular cash was in untraceable $20 dollar bills. Occasionally
I'd sell an oil painting, or sell some of my tie dyed upholstery fabric.
I'd read hands at the Renaissance Faire six weekends a year, Do parties
maybe one a month. I would work industriously from dawn to dusk, or leave
the kids for a few hours, go off reading palms at posh parties, bringing
the kids home chopped liver pate, and doggy bags of food
they'd never seen. I was the queen of slipping
party food into my purse! I learned to line purses beforehand with foil!
And hit up the servants at party's end for 'ribs for my dogs.'
And every summer, I would live out at the Renaissance
Faire grounds as an official Renaissance Witch! (on weekends only, with
the kids in my tent) the whole family in Renaissance costumes while my
kids poked the
woodshavings outside BEER stands for dropped
quarters, finding a small fortune in coins I might add, while MOM got 3
thousand in cash each yr.
I'd do the Faire six weekends every summer, doing readings 9am to 6 pm for those months...and made an extra 3 thousand a year. But hey, I was getting a whooping $230 to 320 monthly welfare check from the state which didn't pay half of my L.A. rented cottage rent! Sure, I got some food stamps as 'aid,' about a third of what it cost to live and eat in LA. What welfare does to one is turn them into a raving CHEAT, but I never shared this fact with my kids. Ever.
While I never earned much on welfare, even though
I was doing l5$ a hr readings, on these small but steady earnings, I'd
venture to say I was the only welfare recipient who took my kids on budget
flights to Acapulco,
stayed at a native hotel, not tourist, fans on
ceilings with lizards crawling walls....but still it was Acapulco!
When my youngest son left high school, the dole ended, I raised my fee to 25$, and began to double down on typing. That was hard! The rest of the United States' poor people earned $2500 a month, were considered poor, tops I could earn was $1200.
Today all four of my children have cottage industries
of their own. Oldest (Miguel, ) is a wedding
photog in Oahu, Hawaii, very lucrative as there's a big
wedding industry there. He is totally stuck on tropical living. THE TROPICS
we visited as kids definitely went to his head!! He bought a home for 180k$
and it went up to a half mil! He and Cathy, a CPA, just had their first
baby, FELICIA. 
Daughter Paloma lives in NYC. She started her career as a BOOKKEEPER for chic Beverly Hills personal managers. Movie stars threw their homes open to her when she travelled, but she hated the work. She caught an embezzler employee and boss Neal Levin said 'get your CPA take over for me when I retire,' she longed for the arts however and quit Neal a year later, to become a pro photographer. She worked for Michel Comte doing celeb shoots, then became a photog in Hollywood, did an album cover, actor portraits, worked for a big professional Photo Lab PARIS PHOTOS, (works strictly with Ad agencies, magazines,) a place right near our rented home, where she grew up. She was the counter girl to the fashion industry as a client rep. Carrying high tech instructions to the developing lab. Her work with COMTE showed her NYC. HOW are ya gonna keep them down on the farm once they've seen PAREE? She moved to NYC, worked for top Portrait Photog Gal for years up on the ritzy upper east side, then started her own biz, out of her apartment in bon marche RIVERDALE the ancient Jewish part of the BRONX. She has no BIG RENT for a STUDIO, and no walk in customers. She commutes 20 min by sub to Manhattan to do shoots. She is running essentially a cottage industry as a baby and pet photographer as BIG APPLE BABIES.
Second son, Demian is a guerilla contractor being an electrician, plumber, carpenter, house and kitchen remodeller. He is working daily, booked steadily and at way under the going rates. He's going for his contractors license, is married with two daughters.
Baby, Luis Jr. first had his own messengering business MERCURY MESENGERS, then became a landscaper and will soon live with me on our faux farm, (another rented home), this time in the Valley, 20 min north of L.A. in the NORTHRIDGE quake area, low rents there.. With inflation, we no longer can kid ourselves that we can afford pricey L.A. If my landlord were to die, his son would sell the house, I'd be up shitcreek without a paddle. So this Bohemian, unclocked by the IRS lifestyle is rigorous, uncertain, vulnerable to hits. You rent, you don't OWN PROPERTY. So all you contribute at life's end to the grandkids are wise ideas.
Let me tell you how the dole ended for me. It was about twenty years ago. The last kid hit a certain age which was welfare AFDC cutoff ....graduating high school. (This was FAT TIMES, in those pre-Newt Gingrich, more opulent days, now adays you're off after three yrs on the dole no matter what age your kid is.) I suddenly had to make the full amt req'd to live in LA w. no more public aid. And I did it. I raised prices from l5 to 25$ for an hour reading, living in the big city another decade before leaving to live in the cheaper valley. Never once did I or any of my children consider working for a big corporation.
The government should reinstate welfare as it's a drop in the bucket compared to the money they spend bombing Iraq And Afghanistan so that the US Oil-o-garchs can steal all the third world Oil leaving other countries starving. And, it's a good investment in the future. Every smart, well- nourished, hard working, tax paying citizen contributes to the economy. Much more than his care and feeding during his childhood entailed or cost.
An industrious parent, creatively working at home to supplement the state check is a good sight for poor chidren. The at home mother can show her brood that one can be independent of public aid with ingenuity, resourcefulness and clients. 8 hrs a day at one's desk, sewing machine, painting or making handicrafts ---that's what puts food on the table.
The welfare recipient looks at the end of the
dole as a cement wall heading toward them at 80mph but it's an illusion.,
One can just get ingenious and make the extra amt the family needs when
the dole goes, IF ONE WERE
BUILDING a cottage industry from word one. Many
articles on how to create a home based business at the LEGACY
WEBSITE.
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