I Was a Welfare Queen
By: Susan Kelley
Tags: Beyourself

When I gave birth to my son, I worked as a nanny so that I could keep him with me and didn’t have to pay for daycare. I was living in a low-rent apartment and cutting corners on everything imaginable. I’d wash our clothes in the basement coin-operated laundry and hang them to dry above the radiators in our tiny, third floor apartment. I was barely getting by and yes, I was on public assistance. Food stamps, but not public housing or cash welfare. I was employed and trying to dig my way out of what could be permanent poverty.

I was squeaking by. I was paying rent (barely) and I did not live lavishly by any means, but I figured when my tiny guy got to be two years old or so I would figure out preschool for him and college for me, and we would launch our journey together. There would be light at the end of that tunnel for us.

It was like something out of a Rom-Com, but there we were.

My son was still a tiny baby when fate stepped in and another young mother, one I had actually met in birthing class, invited me over to spend a day with her big, Italian family. I accepted. (Hey, a Sunday of free spaghetti, maybe some leftovers to take home, and some other people to hold the baby? Where to I sign up?) Almost immediately, as if I had a fairy godmother, one of the handsome single sons in the family was keenly interested in both me and my newborn son. It was like something out of a Rom-Com, but there we were. He soon asked his mother to babysit so we could go on a date. It was like nothing I could have ever imagined. You can’t make this stuff up. I thought it was true destiny.

So we started a life.

We truly enjoyed each other, the stars had aligned, I had found someone who seemed not to care that I had a newborn, and my plans started to shift from the idea of having a life with just me and my son to a life that could include a third person. I reluctantly, carefully, began to include this guy in our life plans. That is not to say that things didn’t move fast, because they did. We were young, and he was eager and didn’t hesitate to tell me he loved me and wanted to buy a house for us and to start a life. So we started a life. We became a family.

But I still had those food stamps.

We were not married. We were not “official.” My income status had not changed and my education had not changed and I was not on his insurance or a true part of his family. None of that was really different.

When we moved in together and I changed my address, I simply chose not to renew my food stamp application. To me, the matter was closed. We were a couple now. A family. He had a good job, a good income. I would continue to work part-time as a nanny, but my poverty status had shifted dramatically.

Hadn’t it?

Within another year and a half, we were pregnant. Because, remember, I had no insurance. I still had an under-the-table job as a nanny. I was still part of the uninsured population, and not his wife, just his girlfriend. We did not pay for day care, I just kept my son with me while I worked. I was a member of the invisible economy that pays no taxes on income, but also does not share in its benefits.

Since I had no medical insurance, I was not on prescription birth control. He used no other birth control method and neither did I. For my part, I knew that pregnancy was a risk. He seemed surprised when I turned up pregnant. Not angry, just surprised.

Now, we had a birth to pay for.

“You can go back on Medicaid, right?” He said.

I would have to, or the costs of prenatal care would be astronomical. I went to the welfare office and signed up again. This time, my pregnancy was an act of recklessness. Careless disregard. This time, signing up for welfare was unnecessary. He was a teacher in the public schools. It could have been different. It should have been different.

Along with the Medicaid forms, they sent me home with the paperwork for WIC (Women, Infants and Children), the nutrition support program for women who cannot afford to properly feed their newborns, and the forms for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), cash money to help pay rent and food stamps. I was to fill those out with the amounts of money I received from my employer, my rent or mortgage amounts, and sources of other income and assets. If I was below the income thresholds, I would qualify for some or all of those benefits.

There were myriad ways that I justified it.

He was pleased that I could get all of this money. Relieved.

I couldn’t argue against it. I only brought in $120 a week taking care of a 4 year old in our home a few hours a day. I didn’t feel like a huge financial contributor to the house. His rationale was that this would be a huge help to our overall budget. I was hurt, but he was right. Adding $300 a month to the groceries meant that we would eat steak, not Ramen, fresh vegetables, not canned. It meant that we could by actual cheese, not processed. There were myriad ways that I justified it. I kept going back to the singular moment when I bought cocktail shrimp with my food stamps to take to a New Years party because, frankly, prior to that I had been so thrifty that I had a pantry filled to the brim with oatmeal and canned goods. I looked like a doomsday prepper.

He had convinced me that it was justifiable to be in this relationship, have full access to his income, and yet fill out this paperwork as though I was all on my own. He massaged my thinking into believing that there was no reason not to agree that this was for everyone’s benefit. We would all be better off, and it was totally justified. Lots of people do it. There’s nothing wrong with it. We’ll be more comfortable.

I filled out the paperwork, stating that my “rent” was the equivalent of the mortgage payment. That my income was exactly what I earned. The numbers were, I suppose, mathematically truthful, except that I did not pay that mortgage payment — he did. I faithfully took the new baby for her blood tests to show that I was feeding her properly. I bought the items on the WIC list. The whole milk. The oatmeal. The cheese, the whole grain cereal, the vegetables. But I would have bought those anyway. I had been meticulous about feeding my son when I was a single mom, and I would have been meticulous about feeding my daughter.

We started a tradition of having steak and baked potatoes every Thursday night while we watched ER at 10PM after the kids were in bed. I’m not sure that is the sign of a family that needs food stamps. He bought season tickets to the professional football team that year, and the year after. I’m not sure we needed welfare money. Our kids went to parochial school, which cost not a lot of tuition, but it sure wasn’t free. I don’t think we were entitled to a food subsidy.

Just because we spent our excess on theatre tickets instead of a Mercedes doesn’t make us less culpable, it only made us less visible.

I know he knew it wasn’t okay because he didn’t admit to anyone that we were getting this money. I get it that there’s stigma, but there’s also a sense of right and wrong. There’s knowing that you asked your girlfriend to be what Reagan labeled a Welfare Queen. Admittedly, I wasn’t opening multiple accounts, or having third, fourth, fifth kids to get more money, and I wasn’t driving a fancy car, wearing furs and jewels, but is the depth of the deception worse if the intent is the same? I don’t think so. Just because we spent our excess on theatre tickets instead of a Mercedes doesn’t make us less culpable, it only made us less visible.

What’s the point of talking about all of this now? The money’s spent, the marriage is dissolved. For me, it is just reckoning. I know and understand that there are many mothers like me, many in far more manipulative situations. They are unmarried, yet tethered. The fathers of their children are gainfully employed, but willing to let them fill out paperwork that hides their ability to support, their obligation to buy groceries, their duty to provide financial backing. There are holes in our financial system that make it very, very attractive to families of all shapes and sizes that are open wide so we walk through.

WE walk through.

If I had been more assertive, felt like I had a greater stake or share, maybe I would have felt like I could say no, but it was enticing, easy to be convinced, that we were not doing something terrible, something so wrong. It was easier for 27 year old me to see that since I was not a breadwinner that I should accept the handouts of the government without question. Twenty years later I would have seen the moral deficiency and stood up for myself. That’s why I write this now. I lacked the financial freedom to say no then. I do not lack it now.

I was indeed taking advantage of the public welfare system. But I want to shed some light on the thousands of women who are painted so poorly. Some of them are doing it because they want to. Some of them are doing it because they don’t have much choice, because if they say no, their partner will point out that they are an ungrateful contributor to an unbalanced household.

And they will believe him.

If you are working to deal with emotional, physical, or financial abuse, reach out to the National Domestic Abuse Hotline or call 1800.799. SAFE.