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Sili Recio's picture

Did you see this powerful Washington Post article by a mom sharing her experience about using the food stamp program? This Is What Happened When I Drove My Mercedes To Pick Up Food Stamps

This speaks to being a mom, to paid family leave, and in general, to the way we view "poor" people and our ideas of how they should be defined--instead of who they are as individual people with unique lives and personal stories that deserve to be heard. This particular mom and her spouse were doing well, but then she had their twins who were born early and needed special care.

In just two months, we’d gone from making a combined $120,000 a year to making just $25,000 and leeching out funds to a mortgage we couldn’t afford. Our savings dwindled, then disappeared.

So I did what I had to do. I signed up for Medicaid and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

She learns a lot throughout that process, a lot of it emotional learning.

I love that at the end she speaks as to the programs that helped her get to where she's at now. And I loved this:

But what I learned there will never leave me. We didn’t deserve to be poor, any more than we deserved to be rich. Poverty is a circumstance, not a value judgment. 

Check out the article and tell me what you think!


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