Day before yesterday, I found out that one of my friends and her husband are going to have their third baby. When I first got the message that she left on my answering machine, which was, "hey it's me, just wanted to let you know that we just took a pregnancy test, and we're going to have baby number three", I didn't think too much of it, except oh my goodness, I would never even dream of having two kids that were as close in age as her two youngest ones are going to be. However, my thought process didn't go any deeper than that. At least not right away...
As I was on the phone with Chandler night before last, I mentioned to him that I had a headache. He says, "well, here's something that will either make it go away, or make it worse. Have you checked Facebook in the last couple of hours? Her status on here says..." It was at that point that I stopped him, because I knew exactly when he was going to say.
"Yes, she called me and left me a message about it earlier."
Although I wasn't intending for it to, those few brief thoughts about them spawned into a two-hour and 20 minute conversation about how pathetic I think it is that I'm working my ass off to try to come up with a way to eventually pay for a degree that in the end is probably going to cost me someone in the ballpark of $40,000, and yet there are people out there, disabled or not, that feel it necessary, and are proud of the fact that they spend all day sitting on their asses eating junk food, and having kids, so that they can leach off the system. In the cases that I've seen, that's all that's happening, nothing more nothing less! Last time I checked, if you received public assistance for a child, you should be using that money to make sure that the child's needs are met before your own! You know what though? That really isn't just the recipient's fault. It's just as much our government's fault for allowing them to have that money on a card, and no way of tracking how it's spent.
I also think that there are many people out there who believe that having three or four children is the easiest way to get paid to do nothing. I mean, let's face it, if you have three or four children, and then you go to your local economic assistance office explaining to them that you can support the children that you have, chances are that after a few simple questions, and maybe an hour of your time, you're going to be qualified for at least some sort of public assistance. Do I think that the entire process of applying and obtaining public assistance is far too easy in a lot of respects? Absolutely I do! I think that for a long time we've been too busy trying to appease people, and make people happy, and not make them work for what they want or need, or be financially stable enough to take care of a child. It's kind of the idea of, "hey, it's here for me to take advantage of, so why not?
Here's why not! The fact is that there are those of us who want to make a living for ourselves, and don't want to have to say that we're dependent on the system to support us! That's pretty difficult though when there's no money left for the government to pay people like myself in order to better ourselves. Nope, instead it's all going to people, who in my opinion, have absolutely no desire to do any better! Here I sit living on $800 a month or less, and trying to find a way to become a productive member of society! How the hell does this scenario seem fair? Those of us who want to make ourselves productive members of society get punished when we try to do just that, while so many others are sitting on their asses, popping out babies, not really giving a shit whether they become productive members of society, let alone whether or not they can feed those babies! If you ask me, that's a little fucked up, not to mention completely and totally unfair!
For me, the bottom line is this: each and every one of those people who are currently sitting on their asses, not really caring whether they become productive members of society or not, don't need to try and apologize or make excuses for their situation, because then the end, all they're doing and wasting precious oxygen that they're probably going to need to put toward some other strenuous task like running the remote control! Why do I consider their apologies and excuses a waste of oxygen on their part? Well, because, I will never accept any of them! All apologies and excuses in regard to this subject will always remain UNACCEPTED as far as I'm concerned! 