As I pointed out above, clearly not. There is a point where the awful solution of placing a child in care, is still better than the alternative. “Baby P” was clearly such and case and SHOULD have been placed in care according to current policies. The problem had nothing to do with the policies, as to who does and does not get places in care. but the way they were enforced by the social workers involved.
In fact by increasing the social worker’s work-load, by making them responsible for taking care of perfectly well-looked after children, who are in no danger of abuse, (but who’s parents just happen to be on welfare), you would just make cases like this more common.
Do you think so? I despair at the amount of column inches taken up by trivial, almost titillatingly vague reports of unusual deaths in the tabloids. Do people really want to read about that stuff?
How the hell do you know? My mom spent a good chunk of my childhood on welfare. The marriage didn’t work out, she wasn’t finished with her degree and she needed to some help getting back on her feet. She worked her ass off to make sure I was well-taken care of and my well being and education always came first. She didn’t drink or do drugs or beat me or even date. Most importantly, she loved me like crazy. My childhood was fine, thank you.
No. The reason why the state makes a crappy parent is love- or rather the absence of it. Babies who are not held die. Children who do not form a parental bond with someone get screwed up in ways that can’t be fixed. Remember that children through most of human history have been born to dirt poor teenage mothers. But we still made it through. Love is the most important thing when it comes to raising a kid.
Even Sven, I agree with you; if you look at my original posts in this thread, I wanted to get abused kids (not necessarily poor ones) out of homes where they aren’t loved and into homes where they are.
There is a huge difference between having a mother who was on welfare at some point and living with a welfare mother. If you don’t know the difference (and if your childhood was actually fine), then you didn’t live with a welfare mom.
Huh. I had no parental bond and yet I somehow managed to become a contributing member of society who is almost to the 15th anniversary of a happy marriage. I could also point out that until fairly recently in human history, children were raised in orphanages and board schools, yet the majority of the were not screwed up in ways that can’t be fixed.
Also, what makes you think that this particular sort of love you find all important exists in the average home where babies were created in order to get more benefits? Homes where the mothers can’t seem to be bothered with even knowing who the father is, who think sitting around getting welfare is the way to live. These are the homes I am talking about, not your mother who was married and I assume had some sort of income when you were born.
Errr,I suggest you research the results of the system of orphanages and poor-house that used to exist in the UK and US, and how it effected its victims.
Obviously the effects of boarding school were not as pronounced (after all you were still with your family for alot of the year), but still pretty serious.
Well, because children raised in these homes were my friends growing up. I grew up in a welfare housing project. 100% of my neighbors were families with children on welfare. How many people on welfare do you know personally? How many welfare homes have you visited? I venture you have pretty limited experience with the people you feel so free to speculate about.
The families covered a wide range. There were quite a few bad health stories, a few mental health cases, many children being raised by grandparents or other relatives, etc. Then there were some people who just couldn’t get it together, either because of drugs, alcohol, mental health, bad choices, etc. But in almost all cases, they loved the hell out of their kids. They didn’t always do the best job, but the love was still there.
Poor people are people, too. Subject to the same human emotions. And that means except for a few head cases, they love their kids.
Oh, brilliant. You go on and on about “welfare mothers” then, when presented with an actual case of a mother on welfare who was a decent, responsible parent and individual in general, you retort that SHE wasn’t REALLY a “welfare mother” at all, because she doesn’t fit your stereotype. :rolleyes:
Are there people who fit your stereotype out there? Absolutely. Do they represent the majority of people who use the “welfare” system at any given time? Absolutely not. And don’t demand a cite until you provide one in support of your contentions.
I make a statement, you disagree and then suggest that I do the research? Based on how you feel about whether or not children were screwed up? How does that work?
Well, lets see. I grew up in proverty and stayed there until I married my current husband at 35. I now live in S Cal where generational welfare is rampant. I am not speculating on anything, if for no other reason than I simply wouldn’t post about speculation.
Your friends lived with mothers who had children by multiple fathers and/or weren’t even sure who the fathers were? Your friends had mothers who had a baby every year or so, knowing full well that if the state/fed didn’t send them money there was no way they could afford to raise them? Did a majority of your friends end up in gangs, on drugs, pushing drugs, prostitutes? It is entirely possible that welfare families are different elsewhere - my experience is that sitting about expecting the government to raise your children leads to those children becoming criminals.
I believe I have been quite clear that I am not talking about poor people, nor the short term welfare user. Perhaps you are too sensitive on the subject to notice this?
It isn’t my stereotype. The classic “welfare mother” is the one that has children knowing she cannot afford to raise them, and usually does so to get more benefits. There are other terms for this sort of person, but they are not generally used in polite discussion.
Perhaps not where you live. Here we have people who get mad and riot when the government doesn’t want to give them free housing, food and money. We have large communities of government housing and squatters where the crime rate is unbelievable. We have schools where the child who doesn’t bring a gun, knife, drugs to school is unusual, and the child that finishes high school is celebrated.
But lets just say that we don’t have a majority of people on welfare having children. My ideas are not aimed at them. Anyone who is using the welfare system for what it was intended to be has no reason to get all heated up about anything I say. The ones that I am sick and tired of supporting are the ones that feel that simply because they exist, they are entitled to free everything. And I feel that if we break the family trend of this entitlement attitude by not allowing women to be paid to have children in poverty and squalor, we may see far less need for welfare and far less crime simply because these children weren’t raised to assume they didn’t have to be responsible for themselves.
The “classic welfare mother” is a stereotype, and since you’ve used it repeatedly in this thread, it might as well be yours. You’ve certainly identified yourself as being in general agreement with it. Did you invent it? No. But you promote it pretty energetically.
When the majority of mothers on welfare are NOT drug-addicted, promiscuous, lazy, neglectful, greedy and ignorant to the point of bearing children simply for the few extra hundred a month in benefits entailed, generational abusers of the system (and I argue that the majority are not), your use of that term as a general modifier of “mother” is erroneous and yes, offensive.
When presented with alternative views of “welfare mothers”, “welfare families”, ones who don’t fit your stereotype, you retort with "but they aren’t REAL “welfare mothers/families”. BS. They ARE real, and they more properly represent the norm that what you describe. Maybe you just need to look beyond your immediate area to see the wider picture. (as I have done, having seen it from both sides, living most of my years in relative prosperity)
Now, it may be that you are trying to use the term in a different, less literal manner than some are understanding it. If that is the case, and you mean to say “lazy, drug-addicted, neglectful, ignorant, greedy, generational abusers of the system”, maybe you should just do so, instead of using language which lumps everyone into one racist, sexist, classist stereotype. I know, doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but it makes for less confusion.
I was born in Houston. I spent most of my childhood in a pretty rough (meaning poor and Black with a high percentage of the population in subsidized housing and on other forms of welfare) area.
I’ve lived in a few deep inner city neighborhoods in my time (complete with the occasional scenic drive by shooting), so yeah, I think I’m fairly familiar with your general gist here. Yep, seen the crack hos with 5 babies by 5 different men, seen the generational welfare cheats driving caddies and with nicer cell phones and clothes than me, also seen the illegal Mexican immigrant women with 4 kids under 6 in tow and another in the oven waiting in line to get food stamps and health care. Never argued that such people don’t exist.
I only argue that they don’t represent the majority of those on welfare at any given moment, esp. now, and that to base your views on the issue upon a stereotype which represents the minority is faulty. “I do not think that word means what you think it means”.
You’ve said very clearly what it is you oppose, and overall I agree with the sentiment. Though the idea that just because a woman (or a family) has children while on welfare makes them abusers of the system is idiotic. Birth control fails, shit happens that can’t be predicted or prevented. Doesn’t automatically translate into “having babies to get more money/benefits”. Have you looked into exactly how much extra benefits a baby translates into? Be real.
Again, say what you mean and don’t resort to a stereotype which gives the impression that every mother on welfare is a fraudulent leech. MY mother was on welfare for a while when I was growing up. The rest of the time she worked full time and busted her ass to support us. (I was an only child, still am)
I have been on welfare a few times, despite working full-time in skilled professions for nearly a quarter of a century. I have 2 children, but neither was conceived or born with any eye to getting any or any more welfare:rolleyes:) So I should be penalized because our family business failed while I was pregnant with my second child and then my husband became disabled soon after? Yes, that WAS my cunning plan all along. OH, and then he died, and I got the BIG money, wooo-hoo! :rolleyes:
We were BOTH “welfare mothers” and neither of us fit the stereotype.
And FTR, I feel no shame in taking food stamps or unemployment as needed, or the SS benefits we get currently, considering it is MY/OUR money, paid in over all the years.
Well, yeah. Actually my best friend never figured out what race her father was! And yeah, quite a few of the families I grew up with have a half dozen kids with a different last name for each one. I don’t know that anyone had more babies to get more benefits- it’s really not that much more. But I do know plenty who had more babies because they wanted more babies. In many of these cases the mother was not quite all there in the head. I never knew any outright welfare cheats, but I did know plenty of people who had shady businesses on the side or who spent their money poorly.
Most people were short-termers, needing a leg up while they finished their degree or got promoted to the point where they could feed their family on their own. Some were long-term, but in almost all those cases there were major health problems or untreated drug addictions.
Most of my friends flirted with gangs at some point. Some got involved in drugs. Turns out my own baby cousin became a prostitute. But most did a few semesters in Jr. College before finding a small but steady job to take care of the families and start families of their own. Some of us finished college and have scattered around, doing various things.
Shrug, so? I don’t think I am promoting anything energetically at all, simply posting my opinions.
Yes, were that true it would be offensive.
So, that wider area. That includes the state of California and the state of Washington? That is where my experiences lie. As I said earlier, it is entirely possible that widespread welfare abuse is not happening elsewhere, but it is here.
Just to be clear, you are saying that instead of using the long “lazy, drug-addicted, neglectful, ignorant, greedy, generational abusers of the system” I should use what term? Also, if you are reading racist into what I say that is your problem, not mine. As for sexist - well, it is the mothers who have the babies and get the money and for classist, that can’t be avoided in a discussion on welfare, can it?
OK, so back in the day whenever it was you grew up, maybe the majority of the women on welfare were not having baby after baby. Do you think your experience during that timeframe in that place must be true for every where else?
It is a lot of money to folks like that, especially since they don’t just get more welfare they also get more food stamps, more ADF, maybe a bigger apartment and food stuffs aimed at the baby like milk and cheese. As for birth control fails and shit happens, well abortions & adoptions happen too. If she doesn’t want to do one of those then she can raise the baby on her own and not expect me to pay for it.
I don’t know what it is like elsewhere, but here we have federal, state, county and city agencies, supported by the taxpayer, all aimed at raising children born in poverty. Far too many of those babies are born because the mother feels she has the right to have a baby/ies whenever she wants and is unconcerned as to who ends up paying to raise it. Even the illegals who walked across the border to have their children did it knowing that someone else was going to pay to raise that kid. How many irresponsible families do I have to support? How many can I?
Again, shrug. If you can come up with a better shorthand term for mothers that pump kids out while on welfare, I’ll use it.
Apparently, just from what you say here, you didn’t wait to have your two children until you were in sound enough financial shape to be able to take care of them should the family business fail. Any other lifestyle choice you would have been told to suck it up, but if you have a child or six in tow, everyone jumps to help you out.
SSI is definitely your money, as is unemployment insurance, but I am sorry to hear that you feel not shame in taking food stamps or welfare payments. All the years that I lived well below the poverty level, I never expected anyone else to be responsible for me. But then, that is how I was raised.
So this is different how? They had more babies because they wanted more and they knew the government would send them more money to pay to raise them. How is having an unreported business on the side or blowing the money on things it isn’t intended for anything other than cheating?
