Chapter 4: In Which I am Frustrated With Judgmental People

Chapter 4: In Which I am Frustrated With Judgmental People

March 16, 2010, 9:39 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

I found out this weekend that my re-application for food support was accepted, which was a huge, giant, enormous relief. I don’t earn enough money to purchase food and pay my bills at the same time, and the VISTA program prohibits any additional forms of income, so without food stamps, I would really be up a creek.

Which is why when I read an article like this one on Salon.com, I get really frustrated! Yes, I choose to use my food stamps to buy healthy, fresh foods. Sometimes I even buy organic ones if the regular ones don’t look very fresh.  Since the point of the program is to allow people to purchase food and stay healthy, I can’t really see what is wrong with buying fresh fruit instead of fruit roll-ups.  I also purchase dried beans, rice, flour, and oats and cook nutritious food from scratch. I don’t do it to be a “trendy hipster,” but to be healthy and eat food that I think tastes good. Maybe my notions of what tastes good are informed by growing up eating fresh, healthy food from my mom’s garden, but that hardly makes me an “overindulged slacker” as one of the commenters on the article wrote.

I just don’t understand why people judge each other for the choices they make, but I find it to be especially irksome in this instance. I take my benefits and spend them in the way I think will best feed me for the month. I always keep in mind that this money is not some hand-out, and I try to spend it responsibly. Do I buy the occasional chocolate bar? Of course I do, but I try to keep indulgences to a minimum. If I choose to eat beans for a week so that I can also afford to buy a bar of high-quality chocolate, why should anyone care?

I am conscious of the fact that I am not the “typical” food stamp user, but if my income qualifies me to receive them, why should I be judged for coming from a middle-class family and having an education? Yes, my parents paid my tuition in undergrad, but I also had scholarships. All of my graduate degrees were paid for by a combination of scholarships, assistantships, and student loans I took out myself.

Should my high level of education mean that I should be earning enough to NOT qualify for food stamps? Believe me, that’s my goal. I chose to do a year of service with AmeriCorps for many reasons, not least among them with the intent of establishing myself in the non-profit sector, and gaining valuable work experience. When my term of service is ended, I hope to find a job that will pay enough so that I no longer need to rely on food stamps to feed myself. I eagerly look forward to the day when I can pay my own way, and I see this blog as a valuable tool to help me get there.

Luckily, the primary people in my life are smart enough to understand all this, and certainly haven’t made me feel like I am ripping off the government. Unfortunately, my food support case worker has lectured me for “taking money away from people who actually need it.” I guess this is just my silly way of saying, I do need it, and please keep your nose out of my business. The End.

6 Comments

6 Comments so far
Leave a comment

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI