Saturday, November 2, 2013

Mouths to Feed

The reduction in S.N.A.P. benefits (otherwise know as food stamps), has been all over the news in the past few days. We've been told that in order to keep government spending under control, the best course of action is to make sure hungry people get even less to eat. Seems logical, right?  I mean, people love a free handout, and if you give them food for free, they're just going to abuse your generosity and keep coming back for more.

My atheist group volunteered at the local soup kitchen this week. It was the first time I'd ever done so, and the experience left me with an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. With all of the political talk about the "takers" just trying to get a free ride, I would have thought I was going to witness all kinds of happy people enjoying their free dinner that they didn't have to work for.

But you know what I saw instead? Quiet people with their heads down, eyes averting ours, clearly embarrassed to be there, quickly eating as much as they could and then promptly leaving.  There wasn't much conversation between the people there, and no one seemed thrilled to be eating dinner at someone else's expense.  Maybe they were just laughing on the inside.

You know what else I saw? Kids. Lots of them. And babies too. Turns out children are totally dependent on whatever their parents can scrounge up for them to eat. Meanwhile, my own child was in the back room watching videos on my iPhone while eating half of what was on his plate and then saying he didn't want the rest because he didn't like it. He wasn't rude about it. He just didn't like it. And he knew that if he was still hungry later, he'd be able to come home to a warm house with a fully-stocked kitchen.

It just about killed me to see all of those kids, and the parents who were doing their best to care for them. I can't imagine not being able to feed my kids. I literally can't. I try, but I start to feel sick and have to stop imagining it.  I'm fortunate. Not because I'm smarter, stronger, better, or more hard-working than everyone else; just because of sheer dumb luck and circumstance. And my kids were fortunate to be born into my family, even though they didn't have any say in the matter. They're not better or more worthy of love than any of the kids at the soup kitchen. They're just luckier.

To suggest that we need to reduce the amount spent on food assistance because the people who are getting it don't "deserve" it is ignorant at best and cruel at worst. I have heard so much venom lately coming out of the mouths of people who've probably never been legitimately hungry a day in their lives.  The poor in this country have become political pawns, and the messaging that "they're just taking your hard-earned money" has been very successful.

You know who I think doesn't deserve my hard-earned tax dollars? Oil companies. Corporations that pay their employees minimum wage. Sports stadium owners. I can think of a thousand other places to cut money that don't literally leave children to starve. But then, hungry children can't vote, so it's easier to just ignore them.

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