Taming of the Dude: One man's Journey with Jesus

Chapter 7 What dishwasher?

Chapter 7 What dishwasher?

Speaker Newt Gingrich says that what is wrong with the present system is not that people abuse welfare but that welfare abuses people.

Once you go on welfare it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case. You're scarred for life.

Jeannette Walls

The last quote is highlighted because as I write this book, I still feel the effects of welfare. It was not a free ride, but a necessary evil. As kids, we were constantly reminded that we were a burden to our mother and society at large. We needed to be overjoyed and appreciative that the government was taking care of us. We did not want the government to care for us, but we wanted our parents to care for us. They failed to do that, so we had to be on welfare. It was awful because if you had something nice, it was wrong. You were not allowed to have anything nice because you did not have money and the government was caring for you. The kicker is that I am a missionary today and I live by the support of churches and others. My sister likes to tell me that I just changed from one welfare system to another. It is one of the biggest challenges I face on the mission field. I still feel the guilt of spending money and having nice things. I know it is not the same, but these roots were dug in deep, and even today, they are hard to root out.

Growing up was not easy on welfare. My mom was clever and had a way of making the allowance go towards alcohol, cigarettes, and food, but we did not have a lot of money for extras. We did not play sports in city leagues. We were never going to be able to join a hockey team. The equipment needed to play was way out of the budget. Hence the reason why I fell and cracked my head in the teen years. We did not go out for dinner unless a boyfriend decided he wanted to have a pizza or some take out. We did go to the movies, but our grandmother gave us money to do that on the weekends. A rule of thumb in our house was: if you want something, don't ask because the answer was no. We learn to save Birthday money and Christmas money. Birthday and Christmas would be the only source of money for the year, so you had to use it wisely. We learn to shop at garage sales and thrift stores. We did anything to save money and make money stretch. We did not work, which seems like a good solution, but for some reason, my mom never went down that route. Instead, she went a different route of deception. My mom loved to make a living dishonestly. She loved the government money, and a lot of her life choices were centered around not getting off welfare. I do not know if it was the check that came every month that barely covered rent and food. Or if it was the large check she got every August to purchase school supplies and really ugly matching outfits for my brother and I. Or it might have been the free dental check-up that we got once a year, which by the way was a good thing because I have a lot of friends who never saw the dentist growing up( because their parents were not on welfare). My teeth are beautiful and healthy and their teeth are monstrous and decaying, including my wife's( and her mom was the head of the maternity ward at a very large hospital). So maybe my mom was blinded to the ills of welfare because of the benefits gained. It could also be that my mom was driven to have her perceived freedom and good life. If anyone had figured out how to screw over the government, it was my mom. I did not know everything that she was doing, but as I got older, I learned more about my mom's version of welfare. Some of her schemes were having her boyfriends as borders so that she could claim a tax benefit. She had her boyfriends buy things for the house so that it did not use welfare money or her money. And the best scheme of them all was working for her parents, but not being paid with cash, but with meat. She would work for her parents part-time, and at the end of the week, she would get groceries for her labor. My mom had a system, but her system would always come under fire every 6 months to a year when the welfare official would come to the house to check up on mom. The perceived freedom that my mom had come under fire on those days. We were on red alert and had to take an oath of silence on those days.

A typical visit would start a week before the actual event. Mom would start by hiding all the nice things that she had earned over the years from her boyfriends. She would put away all of her nice jewelry and any other objects that were small enough to store. The real challenge was the nice new TV, dishwasher, and wall to wall rugs. These were big-ticket items that mom had earned by entertaining her boyfriend. It still needed to be justified or explained, and for some reason saying that they were a gift was not the right answer. In my thinking, it seemed reasonable to say that her parents gave her the tv for Christmas, the rugs were installed by her landlord because the old rugs needed to be replaced, and the dishwasher was a Birthday gift. This, however, was not the direction my mom took. I am not sure of her explanations, but I do remember the day the official came. I was to stand post at the kitchen door. I was to stop the welfare person from entering the kitchen. If they needed a drink, I was to be ready to get it and get it quickly. I stood at the door next to the dishwasher which was hidden under a blanket. I am not sure if the official was slow or simply did not care about our dishwasher, but she never did ask what was under the blanket. If she did, I think I was supposed to say, "not a dishwasher, there is no dishwasher here." Instead, I stood alert and ready for any kitchen needs. As for the TV, I am not sure what my mom told the lady. For the rug, I think my mom apologize for how dirty the carpets were. The kids were playing in the mud and did not take off their shoes when they got home. I think that was the best she could do and she was banking on the fact that the rugs were brown that the lady would not question it. I am not sure if mom was alluding to the carpets as being white, because that to me seems way to big of a stretch that we had run around every inch of the house with muddy shoes. In any event, we survived the interrogation, for at least another year. In the subsequent years, we would hide the fact that one of mom's boyfriends had made a room in our basement for himself. She was not to know that someone was living with us. I cannot say that my fear of authority stems from the absolute fear/terror my mom experienced every time the welfare official made a visit or being almost charged with shoplifting at the age of 4, but those scars run deep. I still break out in a sweat crossing the border, or going through immigration, or having a meeting with my superior, or passing a cop, or cop car, or well, the list goes on and on. I think the saying, "there is no such thing as a free lunch" is true. We might have lived on free money from the government, but taking into account the emotional price, it was far from free.