Family help: I’m tired of being labeled because I legitimately use food stamps. - Help.com

I’m tired of being labeled because I legitimately use food stamps.

Being a disabled single parent living (existing) on food stamps has dealt me and countless others who rely on this federal program as being stigmatized for using a plastic card to buy food.

It has been my observation that a large proportion of society attaches a stigma to anyone who uses the food stamp program. I’ve been involuntarily classified by society as lazy, uneducated, a drug addict, and yes, even a scam artist. There are several problems with this classification. Before I became disabled, I gained a college education, I worked 50+ hours a week, and the only thing I was addicted to was countless cans or bottles of Pepsi Cola.

My disability came on suddenly, and without warning. I went from having several thousand dollars in my bank account to nothing in a matter of months. My designer career wear disappeared and was replaced with donated clothes from local charities. I felt an inch tall if not smaller when I had to go to the welfare office and apply for food stamps. While I was prepared for the seemingly endless piles of paperwork and questioning, was I was not prepared for was I was about to get so scrutinized by society, that it almost made me want to cut up my card and never enter a grocery store ever again.

I dress respectfully because I deserve to do just as much as the person who works 40+ a week. I won’t dress in a potato sack to conform to society’s stigma placed on me. I buy nice clothes, sure…at Goodwill, Salvation Army and a host of other resale shops alike.

I have observed that many people think of people on food stamps this way:

1. All are lazy
2. All are fat
3. All are uneducated
4. All are on food stamps because of their own bad decisions
5. Many are out getting their nails and hair done and dress to the 9’s
6. All are using food stamps to buy drugs and booze, and cigarettes.

I hear this comment a lot: “Food stamps were meant to be a supplement, they are not to be a sole source of food!” I get $693 a month from Social Security Disability. Every month at least $600 of that gets eaten up on bills before I buy food. I’d like to meet the person who can feed themselves and two children on $90 a month. That money gets eaten up on day to day costs quite early in the month. There is no money left for food. That, my friends, is how food stamps become the sole source.

I also hear “People on food stamps should not be allowed to buy junk food” Junk food is cheaper than any gallon of milk, package of ground beef, and most fruits and vegetables. If you’re hungry, you’ll eat whatever fills up your stomach healthy or not, and it has nothing to do with poor eating habits. You get sucked into eating unhealthy foods because you need your budget to stretch you to the end of the month and into the next.

The next time you are at the grocery store (or perhaps you’re the cashier at one) and you see or meet a person on food stamps, consider this:

Could that be you in that person’s shoes a week, month, or year from now?

I used to think it couldn’t ever happen to me-but it did. Also, remember this: Never say it will never happen to you. You might find yourself on the receiving end some day, and it just might be that person whom you judged who will then be in a position to help you out.

Think about it.

This open post was written 1 year, 1 month ago | V/U/S: 328, 20, 8 | Edit Post | Leave a reply | Report Post

food, Month, Week, Society, Person, lot, Stigma, Stamp, dress, buy, food stamps, social stereotypes, Family (How Tags Affect Reciprocity)

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