Two Year Old in Tow

Social Security Achieve

After spending the better part of a month chasing my tail around a government question. I stepped into my local DFCS office and got a two minute answer to a month long question. Which just goes to show you automated services are nothing more than the mans way of keeping your nickel, by laying off the people that actually know. While sitting and waiting for my turn at the window, a young Latina mother was getting assistance through a Spanish interpreter. While directly behind me was a young mother with her beautiful little newborn, with a two year old in tow.

After leaving the DFCS office I reflected for a moment about the scene I just observed. It reminded me of the hours I spent at another DFCS office not much different than this one. Where I signed my own kids up for WIC, food stamps, and on occasion a voucher to get my kids a Christmas present. I’m not sure if my kids ever mention about the hand-me-downs they were given or their great-grandmother leaving them money in her will for school clothes. You see I was taught to believe that charity was for the poor and the worthless. Never realizing that I was part of the working poor, stuffed with false pride and given a boogieman to look down on. Never realizing that I was the one labeled as a joke.

Now things are a little better, the kids are grown with families of their own. Now it’s just me, my wife, and our special needs son living comfortably in a nice apartment building. But sometimes old haunts overcome my soul. I get paranoid when money runs low or the pantry gets a little bare. Causing me to make rash decisions I shouldn’t make. But just like those two young mothers back at the DFCS office, you do what you got to do. In a country that enjoys giving lip service about doing good, when deep inside it really only cares about itself. Let’s take a moment and see how the other half lives. Quit judging and stop worrying about being taken advantage of. Charity begins at home, so open your eyes and look around.