This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps
or as renamed by the Blogger
Unfuc#ingbelievable
By Darlena Cunha July 8 at 12:00 PM
Darlena
Cunha is a former television producer turned stay-at-home mom to twin
girls. She blogs daily at http://parentwin.com, and writes for The
Huffington Post and Thought Catalog. She’s been published in
McSweeney’s, The Feminist Wire, and OffBeat Families, amid dozens of
others.
(Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)
Sara
Bareilles played softly through the surround-sound speakers of my
husband’s 2003 Mercedes Kompressor as I sat idling at a light. I’d never
been to this church before, but I could see it from where I was, across
from an old park, abandoned in the chilly September air. The clouds
hung low as I pulled the sleek, pewter machine into the lot. But I
wasn’t going to pray or attend services. I was picking up food stamps.
Even then, I couldn’t quite believe it. This wasn’t supposed to happen to people like me.
* * *
I grew up in a white, affluent suburb, where failure seemed harder than success.
In college, I studied biology and journalism. I worked for good money
at a local hospital, which afforded me the opportunity to network at
journalism conferences. That’s how I landed my first news job as an
associate producer in Hartford, Conn. I climbed the ladder quickly, free
to work any hours in any location for any pay. I moved from market to
market, always achieving a better title, a better salary. Succeeding.
2007
was a grand year for me. I moved back home from San Diego, where I’d
produced ‘Good Morning San Diego.’ I quickly secured my next big gig, as
a producer in Boston for the 6 p.m. news. The pay wasn’t great, but it
was more than enough to support me. And my boyfriend was making good
money, too, as a copy editor for the Hartford Courant.
When
I found out I was pregnant in February 2008, it was a shock, but
nothing we couldn’t handle. Two weeks later, when I discovered “it” was
actually “they” (twins, as a matter of fact), I panicked a little. But
not because I worried for our future. My middle-class life still seemed
perfectly secure. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to do that much work.
The weeks flew by. My boyfriend proposed, and we bought a house. Then, just three weeks
after we closed, the market crashed. The house we’d paid $240,000 for
was suddenly worth $150,000. It was okay, though — we were still making
enough money to cover the exorbitant mortgage payments. Then we weren’t.
* * *
Two weeks before my children were born, my future husband found himself staring at a pink slip. The days of unemployment turned into weeks, months, and, eventually, years.
Then
my kids were born, six weeks early. They were just three pounds each at
birth, barely the length of my shoe. We fed them through a little tube
we attached to our pinky fingers because their mouths weren’t strong
enough to suckle. We spent 10 days in the hospital waiting for them to
increase in size. They never did. Try as I might, I couldn’t get my
babies to put on weight. With their lives at risk, I switched from
breast milk to formula, at about $15 a can. We went through dozens a
week.
Photo courtesy of Darlene Cunha
In
just two months, we’d gone from making a combined $120,000 a year to
making just $25,000 and leeching out funds to a mortgage we couldn’t
afford. Our savings dwindled, then disappeared So
I did what I had to do. I signed up for Medicaid and the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.
It’s
not easy. To qualify, you must be pregnant or up to six months
postpartum. I had to fill out at least six forms and furnish my Social
Security card, birth certificate and marriage license. I sat through
exams, meetings and screenings. They had a lot of questions about the
house: Wasn’t it an asset? Hadn’t we just bought it? They questioned
every last cent we’d ever made. Did we have stock options or pensions?
Did we have savings? I had to send them my three most recent check stubs
to prove I was making as little as I said I was.
On
top of this, I had to get my vitals checked and blood work taken to
determine whether I was at risk of improper nourishment without the
program. It’s very bourgeois. Not. But I did it.
* * *
Driving to the WIC office the first time was scary.
It wasn’t an office, like I’d thought it would be. It was the basement
of a dreary church. We sat in disused pews, waiting to be called for our
coupons, which would get us some tuna, some cheerios, a gallon of milk,
baby formula.
Using the coupons was even
worse. The stares, the faux concern, the pity, the outrage — I hated
it. One time, an old, kind-looking man with a bit of a hunch was
standing behind me with just a six-pack of soda, waiting to check
out. The entire contents of my cart were splayed out on the conveyor
belt. When he noticed the flash of large white paper stubs in my hand,
he touched me on the shoulder. I was scared that he was going to give me
money; instead he gave me a small, rectangular card. He asked me to
accept Jesus into my heart so that my troubles would disappear. I think I
managed a half-smile before breaking into long, jogging strides out of
there, the workers calling after me as to whether I still wanted my
receipt.
That was one of the better times.
Once, a girl at the register actually stood up for me when an older
mother of three saw the coupons and started chastising my purchase of
root beer. They were “buy two, get one free” at a dollar a pop.
“Surely, you don’t need those,” she said. “WIC pays for juice for you people.”
The
girl, who couldn’t have been more than 19, flashed her eyes up to my
face and saw my grimace as I white-knuckled the counter in front of me,
preparing my cold shoulder.
“Who are you, the soda police?” she asked loudly. “Anyone bother you about the pound of candy you’re buying?”
The woman huffed off to another register, and I’m sure she complained about that girl. I, meanwhile, thanked her profusely.
“I’ve got a son,” she said, softly. “I know what it’s like.”
* * *
That’s the funny thing about being poor. Everyone has an opinion on it, and everyone feels entitled to share. That
was especially true about my husband’s Mercedes. Over and over again,
people asked why we kept that car, offering to sell it in their yards or
on the Internet for us.
“You can’t be
that bad off,” a distant relative said, after inviting himself over for
lunch. “You still got that baby in all its glory.”
Sometimes,
it was more direct. All from a place of love, of course. “Sell the
Mercedes,” a friend said to me. “He doesn’t get to keep his toys now.”
But
it wasn’t a toy — it was paid off. My husband bought that car in full
long before we met. Were we supposed to trade it in for a crappier car
we’d have to make payments on? Only to have that less reliable car break
down on us?
And even if we had wanted to
do that, here’s what people don’t understand: The reality of poverty
can spring quickly while the psychological effects take longer to
surface. When you lose a job, your first thought isn’t, “Oh my God, I’m
poor. I’d better sell all my nice stuff!” It’s “I need another job.
Now.” When you’re scrambling, you hang on to the things that work, that
bring you some comfort. That Mercedes was the one reliable, trustworthy
thing in our lives.
That’s
how I found myself, one dreary day when my Honda wouldn’t start,
in my husband’s Mercedes at the WIC office. I parked gingerly over one
of the many potholes, shut off the purring engine and locked it, then
walked briskly to the door — head held high and not looking in either
direction.
To this day, it is the single most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.
No
one spoke to me, but they did stare. Mouths agape, the poverty-stricken
mothers struggling with infant car seats, paperwork and their toddlers
never took their eyes off me, the tall blond girl, walking with purpose
on heels from her Mercedes to their grungy den*.
I didn’t feel
animosity coming from them, more wonderment, maybe a bit of resentment.
The most embarrassing part was how I felt about myself. How I had
so internalized the message of what poor people should or should not
have that I felt ashamed to be there, with that car, getting food. As if
I were not allowed the food because of the car. As if I were a bad
person.
We’ve now sold that house. My husband found a job that
pays well, and we have enough left over for me to go to grad school.
President Obama’s programs — from the extended unemployment benefits to
the tax-free allowance for short-selling a home we couldn’t afford —
allowed us to crawl our way out of the hole.
But what I learned
there will never leave me. We didn’t deserve to be poor, any more than
we deserved to be rich. Poverty is a circumstance, not a value judgment.
I still have to remind myself sometimes that I was my harshest critic.
That the judgment of the disadvantaged comes not just from conservative
politicians and Internet trolls. It came from me, even as I was living
it.
BLOGGER'S NOTE: If she is looking for sympathy, she won't find it here. "Their grungy den" - you were happy to go there and get something free. It was your grungy den too. And personally, I don't think you should have been able to get a penny - not one WIC slip. When REAL poor people ask for help from the government, the first thing they are asked is, what do you have and who are you related to - which is the seque to "sell that, and go live with them."
Where were your parents? Where were his parents? Did they know they had grandchildren? Why didn't you pack your bags and head back to that "white, affluent suburb" until your husband got a job? Why did you choose to take limited resources from people who REALLY need them, from people who have no other choice? I hope it wasn't so that you could write this story.
