Saturday, September 21, 2013

SNAP out of it!


We've all seen them. The women with their hair all done up and their acrylic (or gel) nails freshly done. The ones with gold jewelry and Coach purses. The women who look like they've got money flying out of their asses every time they hit the bathroom. You know, the ones that you wouldn't glance at twice or even think about disparaging them for what they have, if only they weren't ahead of you in the checkout pulling out that EBT card?

Yeah. Them.

We've all known of situations where someone is abusing the system. They have a boyfriend living with them and they don't count his income when they apply. They have money in the bank, but claim they have no bank account. They have someone paying all their bills, yet claim they don't. We've all seen it, we've all heard of it.



I'm not going to get way into numbers or percentages or studies. However, I will say that even though 46,670,373 people are on Food Stamps in this country, only an estimated 5 million receive unemployment benefits along with Food Stamps. A large percentage are children. Some are elderly. Accounting for all of that basically means that there's a slim chance the woman in front of you in line is scamming the system. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. It does. But the chances are good that she either has a job that doesn't pay enough, or she's a single mom, or she's a combination of the two. Or she's a stay-at-home-mom whose partner doesn't make enough.

I'm going to run with that last one for a minute. A lot of people get pissed off and say “Well, if she's a SAHM and they need to be on assistance, then she should get off her ass and get a JOB!”. Well, let's examine that, shall we?



The average cost of childcare is huge. Here in my state (which is by no means wealthy on average), it's approximately $8500 per year. And I consider myself lucky because in Washington D.C., it's over $20,000 per year.


Let's put this in perspective using my own situation. If I were to put my daughter in daycare full time, it would cost more than my fucking rent per month. I would need a job that paid me at LEAST $703 per month in order to just keep her in daycare. That's not food. That's not fuel. That's no extras. ONLY daycare. Working full time at a minimum wage job (which, let's face it, not many people get full time when it's at minimum wage. I'd get 25 hours if I was lucky), I would gross $1160 per month. Subtract for taxes (thankfully, Texas has no state taxes), and my take-home would be somewhere around $956 per month. Add in around double the fuel cost because we only have one vehicle, and there goes another $100. Oh! And lest we forget that most daycare centers do not do cloth diapers. So there's yet another $50 (at least). And let's not forget that once I'm working full time, I will be required to carry health insurance since I'm not married to my "baby daddy" and I can't be on his insurance. There goes the rest of my paycheck.


So, I would be working 40 hours per week, losing valuable time with my daughter and watching other people raise her for me...for nothing? In fact, the chances are good that I'd be paying out more than I'd be bringing in.


Nope. Fuck that. And in case anyone out there is wondering, NO we're not on any form of assistance. Could we use it? Fuck yes. But, $3 per month separates us from that woman in line tapping her acrylics on the counter.

Back to that. I don't begrudge anyone their need or desire to look nice and feel good about themselves. I try not to judge. So she has an iPhone? So what! How do I know she didn't get that as a gift? Ya know, it's not just middle class people who have birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Hell, I got a Windows phone for Mother's Day this year. I'm sure people would be looking me up and down if I whipped it out while using an EBT card. Not only that, but iPhones come in prepaid now, too. So how do you know she's not just buying refill cards to maintain it? How do you know someone else isn't paying her bill or buying cards for her as a gift? And furthermore, how do you know that her hair and nails weren't done by a friend or family member and that she didn't pay a dime for it? A lot of women who have cosmetologists in the family or in their circle of friends pay only for supplies (if that).


The other one I heard a lot: “That bitch was dripping in jewelry and climbed into an Escalade after buying her groceries on Food Stamps!”.


Again, poor people receive gifts, too. And the Escalade? How the fuck do you know it was HERS? I'm not defending people who actually abuse the system, but to look down on someone because they don't look poor to you is bullshit. You don't know each person's individual situation. You don't know if that soccer mom in the SUV just got laid off. You don't know if she had to quit her job to take care of a terminally ill child and so they're just living off of one income now. You don't know if the person who has an Xbox and a shit-ton of games bought it when they HAD a job. So, what, a person should give up everything they worked hard for because they've fallen on hard times? How would you feel if you worked your ass off to get something nice and then someone said you shouldn't have it because you ended up losing your job and have to be on assistance? Wouldn't feel too good, would it?



So here's what I ask of you. The next time you see the woman with the done up nails and hair, the jewelry, and the iPhone... smile. Don't begrudge her when she swipes that card. Chances are, she's embarrassed as shit and doesn't want anyone seeing her use it. That's right. There are people who are completely embarrassed that they can't 100% take care of themselves. So, instead of making snide comments like,“Well, I can't afford an iPhone and I work, why should she have one?”... smile. Her life maybe harder than you realize and you being a judgmental asshole doesn't help any.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Just make your own cake, dammit!

I cloth diaper my daughter. I also talk about it whenever I get the chance. Why? Because cloth diapers fucking rock, that's why.

I will freely admit that my reasons for using cloth had nothing to do with it being better for the environment (at first). Nope. My reasons were 100% purely selfish. I didn't want to shell out thousands of dollars on diapers. I also knew that there are so many cute diapers available that disposables couldn't even compare fashion-wise. Hello...put a cute diaper on my baby and a matching t-shirt, and she's freaking DRESSED. What mom wouldn't love that? I also love the fluffy softness of them and figured my baby would, too...but I'll be honest here: That didn't come to mind until I actually had them in my hands and was feeling how soft they were. I'm serious. I want underwear made out of this shit.



Only as I really started researching did I pay attention to the environmental implications and the fact that they're all-around better for my daughter. In the beginning, those things were far from my mind.



So yeah, I'll tell anyone and everyone about them if I'm asked or it comes up in conversation (it does...more than you'd think). But goddammit, I'm not going to judge you if you choose to stick with disposables. Cloth was my choice as a mom. Making that choice doesn't make me any better or “crunchier” than other moms.

I'm what I term as “wannabe crunchy”. I'm only crunchy in some areas, but not enough to be considered even remotely granola. I've been sitting in a bowl of milk for awhile (We're not talking almond, rice, or hemp, either. We're talking cow tit juice). So while I might have a little bit of crunch left, I'm mostly soggy. I really am. My baby has cloth on her butt, but it's washed in Tide. I'm a big advocate of breastfeeding, but my daughter drinks formula because my tits are just for decoration and not for function (and before you ladies in the Mammary Army harp on me about that, I tried EVERYTHING and was heartbroken that I couldn't breastfeed. I rented a hospital grade pump and became a fucking dairy farm every two hours. I took herbs. I ran the gauntlet of options. It just wasn't happening. This was my fourth go-round with the same results). I'm all for natural childbirth, but had all c-sections myself. I'm against circumcision. I think it's barbaric. But, guess what! Your sons' penises are not my business. I made my decision for my sons and that's all that really matters.

In other words, I'm the last person that's going to judge another mom for doing things differently. I don't think that any mom should judge another if her children are happy, healthy, and thriving. Why we feel the need to snipe at each other with comments of “Well, we do xyz because this supposed expert in this area said that we should...and I don't know why anyone would want to do differently, but (insert throwing of hands in the air) it's your child...” with the same tone as when someone is saying “It's your funeral”.

Why do we do this? I'm no psychologist, but I tend to think that we do this because we are secretly lacking confidence in our own decisions and parenting style. If we can sit there and pick apart what other moms do and how they parent their kids, if we can try to brag and covertly force another mom to do what we do, then it solidifies it for ourselves that we're doing good. We're doing the right thing. WE'RE GOOD MOMS.

But guess what, ladies. We don't need to henpeck other women who have the very same job we do. Stepping on others isn't going to get you a promotion in this “company”. We're all doing the same job. We're all trying to raise decent human beings (those of us that actually give a shit about that stuff...because, let's face it, not all do). And the fact that we care enough to worry so much about what others are doing in order to give us an ego boost shows that we ARE all good moms.

We're all bakers, mamas. This child-raising stuff is like making a cake (whether or not it's gluten free). Some of us preheat the oven first. Some of us grease the pans first. Some of us will take out all the ingredients at once and pre-measure them. Some of us will take them out as needed and measure right there. And then, some of us will do some mix of both methods. The end result is usually the same: A damn good cake. 


So quit criticizing others on whether they use regular milk or soy butter. Make your damn cake and shut the fuck up. :)

Flying Fat

A few days ago, I came across something on the Facebook page of a blogger that I follow. It was a conversation about overweight people on airplanes. This is a sore subject for a lot of people, overweight people in particular. I'll be 100 % honest and say that I'm overweight myself. And not just a little bit. I'm not going to get into numbers this early on, but suffice it to say that it wouldn't be out of turn for me to talk about this subject.


With that said, I personally feel that if a person is so overweight that they need to put up the armrest and they need a seat belt extender, then all airlines should charge them for two seats. This isn't discriminatory in the least. I don't feel discriminated against by airlines who require that passengers over a certain weight pay for two seats. If I want to fly, I understand that airplane seats are made for certain sizes. Anything above that size, and you're spilling over into your fellow passenger's personal space. Space on airplanes is cramped to begin with, let alone having a person two or three times your size hanging half their body into your seat that you paid for.


Someone on that Facebook page made a very good point. Most airlines charge you for bags that are over the weight or size limit. You're only allowed a certain size carry-on and a certain number of them before you have to check your bags and pay for that. The same rule should apply to passengers. If you're going to carry on more weight or a bigger size than what the seats and seat belts generally allow, you should have to pay for it. Everyone has the right to their personal space. Everyone. However, when your personal space must include half the personal space of someone else, then you're encroaching on their right to their personal space. You're invading it without their permission. They paid for a full seat. So did you. But, you're using part of the seat they paid for because you can't fit fully into the one that you paid for. How is that fair? In short, it isn't. Granted, some people have health problems that prevent them from losing weight or they take medications that cause weight gain. While I sympathize with their plight, it still doesn't give them the right to invade someone else's seat.

Put it this way: I have to pay more for clothes in a larger size because there is extra material that goes into making it. I used to bitch and moan about that. “What the fuck? As if being fat and being looked down on by society isn't bad enough, now we have to pay more for our clothing, too?!” Well, yeah. We do. If my one shirt takes as much material as two shirts of a smaller size, how would it be fair for me to pay the same price as someone who fits into the smaller size? What I don't think is fair is that most plus-size clothing is reminiscent of grandma's sofa circa 1970. I personally don't like looking like upholstery. I'm not one of the von Trapp kids and I would prefer not to look like my outfit was made from heavy drapery. That, however, is an entirely different blog post for another day.

How would we go about this? Just entering your weight isn't sufficient because what if your weight is in proportion to your height? Then you have to pay extra, even though you're not overweight? Perhaps a BMI calculator? Who knows?

My point in this whole thing is that we have to pay more to get more if we need more. We can't expect 100% equal treatment across the board. Things aren't equal. The proverbial (and literal) scales are not balanced. If we as overweight people want to be able to pay the prices thin people do, then we have one choice. Anything else just wouldn't be fair and, in my opinion, would be asking too much.