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Friday, September 23, 2011

The Long Road Back

As we drove by my children’s school I noticed a sign for joining the Girl Scouts. Wow I thought! Ariana would love to be in that, and so would Alison! I told my husband that we should let the kids join. Before he could answer I thought back to our two bedroom apartment that we share with our three children. While it is a step up from living with family, it’s still not the situation we were familiar with. As soon as the words join came out of my mouth, the thought of money came to surface. Sadly I knew that the girls couldn’t join because we were living on a tight budget. The only thing I could do was feel remorseful. I know this isn’t a big deal, but when you think about how much it really cost for Girl Scouts and the one main reason that we can’t do it is because of budgeted gas…you start to see the walk back a little differently.
The politicians talk about removing Obama, and they talk about the dreaded idea of taxes. However, why is it only the middle class citizens that are forced  to live differently? Why is it the middle class that was shot down to nothing. A lot of us are now living in poverty just because our government can’t seem to get it together. Their laws don’t protect us, yet they still want to bleed us. They complain about higher taxes while today families will get served with foreclosure letters. We have such a long way to go with no help in sight. I wish they could live in our shoes for just one day. I wish they could understand what it feels like to tell your daughter that she can’t join something because it’s 30 dollars and right now that means a lot of money.
Sadly a lot of us are on this road to get on our feet. We apply every day for jobs, we call the temp services to see if they have news. We do anything and everything just to try to bring in a little extra. We are the new poor. We are smart enough to understand what it means to do well in life, and we are smart enough to know that we have a long walk back.

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