Listen: true news of a welfare mother

Humanist, Sept-Oct, 1995 by Jodeen Wink

While going through a pile of my old writings, I developed a lump in my throat upon discovering how many of them were hateful pieces about living on welfare: poems; editorials; letters to presidents, governors, congressional representatives, Department of Human Services secretaries; letters to employment agencies and CAP agencies who contract to police various experiments in welfare reform; letters to women's organizations--all in hope that the world would change, that something I said or screamed would make someone some where wake up and listen.

I've written poems no one would publish, the tones too radical even for the radicals. It's just like my poetry professor said: "If you turn into one of 'those people' who sees a conspiracy against you in all of history, you're apt to lose many readers who would just as soon ignore as understand you." Unfortunately, he was right about one thing: the world is ignorant. But what he didn't say was that it's acceptable for politicians to see women like me as conspirators--the abominable breeders of national evil, worms in the fluff of the great apple pie--and to call us as much publicly in hopes of rallying citizens, sentiments, and dollars around them and their causes. My professor didn't mention that people continue to listen to the hysterical rantings of these politicians even though we've learned by now that Native Americans aren't really savages, Jews aren't really parasites, and blacks aren't really work animals; nor is it true that Asians value life less than anyone else. At least, we proclaim to have learned these things.

I have learned that it all depends on who you are. Get yourself elected to a government office and suddenly you can excrete your opinions onto just about anyone and they're obliged to wear the, mark, like it or not. But find yourself in one of the targeted groups and you suddenly discover a rope so tightly twisted around your neck that you can barely hear yourself speak, let alone expect anyone else to. My professor of poetry was never a woman on welfare, nor was he black or red or yellow or Jewish or Iraqi or pagan or anything but white, though I suppose he meant well.

I've been going through this pile of old letters, essays, and poems and basically they all shout the same thing: "Listen. I am a woman whose name is not `welfare recipient.' I am a woman with three children, and their names are not `welfare recipient' I am not a criminal. I am not any of the things you've been told I am. Listen. Listen. Listen!"

Nobody listens.

Tonight I'm about as well off as any woman on welfare could hope to be. I find myself in the state of Minnesota, and, as welfare policy goes, Minnesota is one of the few liberal states left in our union--such as it is. My rent costs only a little more than half my welfare grant, as opposed to all of it or more, and it's a decent place for the money--that is, nicely painted walls, level floors, bright windows in every room, clean carpeting, one big closet, running water, a toilet, heat in the winter, no leaks in the roof, no rain seeping through the walls, no stink, and no houndy neighbors as far as I can tell. It even has a reasonable backyard with a place for a garden. We have a phone for the first time in five years.

My plants are hanging all around the bright rooms. My calico cat is asleep on the sofa. There's a week's worth of food in the almost new refrigerator. I have a cook stove with three working burners and an oven that works, too. This is a big deal. Living in a place like this makes me want to get up in the morning and fix my hair, clothes, and face. I hold my head up walking down the sidewalk with my three beautiful daughters.

And I keep this new place so fresh-smelling, dustless, and gleaming. I shovel the cat's turds from the litter box and spray it heavily with Lysol. I'm constantly after my kids to pick everything up after themselves because I have this fear that, while I'm vacuuming the carpet or washing the dishes, there will come a knock at the door. When I open it, standing there will be one of those child-protection ladies and she will have received a call from some anonymous person who expressed their "concern" that my children are living in diabolical fish, with rats running across our floors, or that my kids have been seen running naked in the streets. Perhaps it will have been rumored that I am a prostitute or maybe that I'm so drugged up and drunk most days I can't begin to supervise them. (There seems to be an unspoken but socially agreed upon list of indictments--I mean, "concerns.") Perhaps the children will have to be removed for their own safety.

The child protection lady is very thin, with a sassy but tailored haircut. She wears gold button earrings, teal eye shadow, and a pale shade of frosty pink lipstick. She has no breasts that sag or rumple her straightness. She wears black leather shoes with on y a smidgen of heel and black cotton/polyester suit-pants under a camel-brown trenchcoat. She smells like Avon perfume: Topaz. This woman has no children, but she does have a master's degree and a nice manicure. If you're ever around the Social Services budding and you ask her male coworkers about her, they'll say she looks really hot when she goes out to the bars on Saturday nights. I try to imagine the shift--try picturing her in a racey miniskirt, dusky hose, and heels.