7-8-2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...n-i-drove-my-mercedes-to-pick-up-food-stamps/
This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps
Darlena Cunha is a former television producer turned stay-at-home mom to twin girls. She writes for The Huffington Post and Thought Catalog.
I grew up in a white, affluent suburb, where failure seemed harder than success. In college, I studied biology and journalism. I worked for good money at a local hospital, which afforded me the opportunity to network at journalism conferences. Thats how I landed my first news job as an associate producer in Hartford, Conn.
2007 was a grand year for me. I moved back home from San Diego, where Id produced Good Morning San Diego. I quickly secured my next big gig, as a producer in Boston for the 6 p.m. news. The pay wasnt great, but it was more than enough to support me. And my boyfriend was making good money, too, as a copy editor for the Hartford Courant.
When I found out I was pregnant in February 2008, it was a shock, but nothing we couldnt handle. Two weeks later, when I discovered it was actually they (twins, as a matter of fact), I panicked a little. But not because I worried for our future.
My middle-class life still seemed perfectly secure.
The weeks flew by. My boyfriend proposed, and we bought a house. Then, just threeweeks after we closed, the market crashed. The house wed paid $240,000 for was suddenly worth $150,000. It was okay, though we were still making enough money to cover the exorbitant mortgage payments. Then we werent.
Two weeks before my children were born, my future husband found himself staring at a pink slip. The days of unemployment turned into weeks, months, and, eventually, years.
In just two months, wed gone from making a combined $120,000 a year to making just $25,000 and leeching out funds to a mortgage we couldnt 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.
Thats the funny thing about being poor. Everyone has an opinion on it, and everyone feels entitled to share. That was especially true about my husbands Mercedes. Over and over again, people asked why we kept that car, offering to sell it in their yards or on the Internet for us.
But it wasnt a toy it was paid off. My husband bought that car in full long before we met. Were we supposed to trade it in for a crappier car wed have to make payments on? Only to have that less reliable car break down on us?
Thats how I found myself, one dreary day when my Honda wouldnt start, in my husbands Mercedes at the WIC office.
Weve now sold that house. My husband found a job that pays well, and we have enough left over for me to go to grad school. President Obamas programs from the extended unemployment benefits to the tax-free allowance for short-selling a home we couldnt afford allowed us to crawl our way out of the hole.
But what I learned there will never leave me. We didnt deserve to be poor, any more than we deserved to be rich. Poverty is a circumstance, not a value judgment. I still have to remind myself sometimes that I was my harshest critic.
That the judgment of the disadvantaged comes not just from conservative politicians and Internet trolls.
It came from me, even as I was living it.
We still have that Mercedes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...n-i-drove-my-mercedes-to-pick-up-food-stamps/
This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps
Darlena Cunha is a former television producer turned stay-at-home mom to twin girls. She writes for The Huffington Post and Thought Catalog.
I grew up in a white, affluent suburb, where failure seemed harder than success. In college, I studied biology and journalism. I worked for good money at a local hospital, which afforded me the opportunity to network at journalism conferences. Thats how I landed my first news job as an associate producer in Hartford, Conn.
2007 was a grand year for me. I moved back home from San Diego, where Id produced Good Morning San Diego. I quickly secured my next big gig, as a producer in Boston for the 6 p.m. news. The pay wasnt great, but it was more than enough to support me. And my boyfriend was making good money, too, as a copy editor for the Hartford Courant.
When I found out I was pregnant in February 2008, it was a shock, but nothing we couldnt handle. Two weeks later, when I discovered it was actually they (twins, as a matter of fact), I panicked a little. But not because I worried for our future.
My middle-class life still seemed perfectly secure.
The weeks flew by. My boyfriend proposed, and we bought a house. Then, just threeweeks after we closed, the market crashed. The house wed paid $240,000 for was suddenly worth $150,000. It was okay, though we were still making enough money to cover the exorbitant mortgage payments. Then we werent.
Two weeks before my children were born, my future husband found himself staring at a pink slip. The days of unemployment turned into weeks, months, and, eventually, years.
In just two months, wed gone from making a combined $120,000 a year to making just $25,000 and leeching out funds to a mortgage we couldnt 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.
Thats the funny thing about being poor. Everyone has an opinion on it, and everyone feels entitled to share. That was especially true about my husbands Mercedes. Over and over again, people asked why we kept that car, offering to sell it in their yards or on the Internet for us.
But it wasnt a toy it was paid off. My husband bought that car in full long before we met. Were we supposed to trade it in for a crappier car wed have to make payments on? Only to have that less reliable car break down on us?
Thats how I found myself, one dreary day when my Honda wouldnt start, in my husbands Mercedes at the WIC office.
Weve now sold that house. My husband found a job that pays well, and we have enough left over for me to go to grad school. President Obamas programs from the extended unemployment benefits to the tax-free allowance for short-selling a home we couldnt afford allowed us to crawl our way out of the hole.
But what I learned there will never leave me. We didnt deserve to be poor, any more than we deserved to be rich. Poverty is a circumstance, not a value judgment. I still have to remind myself sometimes that I was my harshest critic.
That the judgment of the disadvantaged comes not just from conservative politicians and Internet trolls.
It came from me, even as I was living it.
We still have that Mercedes.
Facebook
Twitter