I Should Have Stayed on Welfare
The ballad of a single, working mom
This summer, I broke my elbow. It was an innocent fall on a few wet leaves next to a recycling bin.
Since I started using ketamine to treat my depression and PTSD, I found myself reflecting on what positive this broken elbow brought to my life amid a separation, another move and financial hardship: it slowed me down.
The positive is it slowed me down.
As a single mom of two young children, I bust my ass everyday being everything to everyone in my life. It has brought me very little in return: the exception being the light and laughter of my children.
During COVID, I suffered panic attacks. During abusive bouts with the father of my children, I suffered from depression. Since I've become a mother, my direct supervisors have been mothers themselves, and I have achieved nothing in their eyes or performance reviews.
I earned my Masters degree the same season I gave birth. I earned positions in private schools so my girls could attend there for free.
In return, I was often overwhelmed. So overwhelmed, my mental health began deteriorating rapidly.
I was breastfeeding, potty training, isolating, teaching, learning, adapting, working, spending more than I was earning on students and classrooms, and all any adult in my life could say in return is that I was disappointing them.
I started working as a paraeducator this last spring. I work with one student who is nonverbal, autistic. My hours are six hours a day with no homework, no meetings, no prep time and no testing.
Six hours is exactly the amount of time my, now school aged, children are in school.
I have time for coffee in the morning. I have energy for groceries and laundry. Hell, I even started reading books again.
Growing up, my parents would criticize stay at home moms. In fact, I remember my mother commenting on losing respect for Roseanne because her character decided to stay home instead of work in a factory.
I ate those comments and let them sit in my stomach for 30 years.
Now, I am laying in bed during summer break, naked with a broken elbow and a bag of Gardetto's thanking God I am not at work right now.
It is not mentally or physically healthy to put yourself under that much stress. Looking back, I should have stayed at home with my babies and toddlers for the first five years- even if I was on welfare.
Thats right, I said it. I should have stayed on welfare.
I have been working since I was 15 years old. I've paid into the system. I've paid taxes. And I continue to wipe the asses of the rich.
I should have stayed at home during COVID and invested everything into my kids, instead of my employer.
While we are so eager to play our parts in the class war, I am no longer responding to the adults around me who audit my time.
I am healing.
People will use their words like whips. "What are you doing with all this time?"
I am not a slave. I am done trying to please people who offer nothing in return. Humans have grown far too accustomed to using people and things only to throw them away.
This summer, even with my broken elbow, I gave my kids a great life. We camped, we traveled, we went to summer camps under several scholarships, we slept in, we ate well, we learned how glass was made, how chocolate was made, how to sail and how to heal.
If I hadn't broken my elbow, I would be driving myself insane with side gigs. Instead I dated and met someone wonderful. It may be nothing, it may be everything.
I would not have time to find out if my body hadn't slowed me down.
In the end, my children and I will only have our experiences and each other. I will not let the peanut gallery define my worth by my income or profession. My worth as a human and as a mother remains what I contribute to my children and my community.
Last night, I watched Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama on the Netflix special "The Light We Carry". And as always, Michelle Obama gave me words to sit in my stomach for the next 30 years: "You can have it all, but not at the same time."
