Bastardizing Our Children
It was a hot summer day. I was six or seven years old. Mom called me into the house and asked me to go to the housing office to pay the rent. As she handed me the money and rent statement, she said, “If they ask you if your father lives here, say no.” So I was off to pay the rent. As I entered the office and approached the counter, I became nervous. I remembered what mom told me. At the counter, I looked up at the office clerk behind the glass and passed the rent money and statement through to her. She took it, stamped the statement and gave it back to me as a receipt – no questions asked.
But this would not be the last time that mom would ask me to lie about pop. A few years later, I realized why mom asked me to do what she did. If pop had been on our lease, our rent would have been higher and our welfare benefits would have been much lower. The truth is that most people in the projects were living that way – they still are.
As a school administrator, I see applications for free and reduced lunch that list only one adult and one household income. Many times, I see forms that indicate a single parent or female head-of-household. In many cases, I’m aware that another adult, typically a father or stepfather, is part of the family. Is this cheating? Obviously. The question is: Who’s really being cheated? When children are told to lie about their parents’ domestic arrangements so that the family can pay less to live in the projects, qualify for food stamps, receive free health care, free school lunches and other government entitlements for the poor, we have created a cycle grounded in deceit and failure. Many individuals living like this may feel justified in cheating the system. In our household, pop’s disability income, the money my younger brother was pulling in running numbers for pop, and our welfare benefits should have afforded us the ability to live above the poverty level. However, as is often the case in similar households, most of pop’s income and the numbers money was reserved for pop’s vices – drinking and gambling. Therefore, poverty was our reality.
More than 20 years later, my mother continues to pay the price. Living out of wedlock – for the sake of qualifying for welfare benefits – disqualified her from receiving my father’s pension upon his death. This loss exceeds any amount of welfare checks.
In addition to cheating the welfare program, individuals and families may become familiar with other government entitlement programs that they can scam. The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program is one of these. Administered by the Social Security Administration, SSI provides supplemental income for disabled individuals. Many adults fake mental illnesses or health problems in an attempt to qualify for an SSI check. What’s worse is that many parents coach their children to fake these ailments so they can become eligible. The cash benefits that the child may be eligible for depends on the family income. By not reporting the father or another male provider on the application, they’re reporting a lower household income, thus maximizing the cash benefits.
Most families practicing this type of deceit perpetuate this lifestyle for themselves and for their children. This cycle of failure contributes to the breakdown of the family unit and promotes parents living out of wedlock. It keeps families in government-subsidized housing and discourages home ownership. And it leads to generations of bastardized children – children who lack good work ethics, children who look for shortcuts and instant gratification instead of setting their own long-term goals. It creates children who may not be willing to pursue higher education because they are not willing to invest the time it takes to earn a degree.
The fraud associated with these entitlement programs costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year. However, the cost paid by children raised with this deceit can be much higher, as they may never reach their full potential as individuals or as parents of the next generation of bastards. Change will only be possible if we replace entitlement programs that promote fraud and dependency with programs that promote family and education.
This is especially vital for those families that are truly in need of public assistance. Providing assistance must include a realistic goal of making the family self-sufficient. Viable employment opportunities that provide a decent living wage, along with accessible and affordable health care, must factor into the equation.
As for the cost to taxpayers, the fraud associated with entitlement programs for the poor does not come close to the cost of the fraud and abuse committed by other segments of our society. Tax fraud, tax evasion and “corporate welfare” cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, dwarfing any fraud associated with welfare and other programs for the poor. In addition to corporate welfare, corporate America also benefits from the fraud and dependency associated with entitlement programs for the poor. A generation of children – including an over-represented number from poor and low-income households – is being over-identified with behavioral, social, emotional and psychological disabilities and prescribed various “meds.” In the process, pharmaceutical companies are taking in billions of dollars each year. For the pharmaceutical companies, the labels that are put on these kids – such as attention-deficit disorder (ADD), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) – along with a host of other disorders, translates into big profits.
There appears to be little concern that giving these meds to children and adolescents may contribute to later drug or alcohol abuse. Prescription drugs such as Ritalin, Xanax and others often find their way onto the streets to become part of the drug market.
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