Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Ass-U-Me

You know what happens when you assume?

I got this comment in my previous post:
In your previous post, you said that your family income is low enough to qualify or WIC. Does that mean that you will be supporting this pregnancy and this child on public assistance? Perhaps in this day and age when so many of us are putting off having children for many years until we can responsibly and consistently take care of them, some people are expressing their frustration that those who continue to bring more children into a taxpayer-assisted family are moving those who choose financial responsibility further from that goal. When you have the public pay for your choices, they may feel that they have some right to comment on them as well.

That said, I certainly wish you a healthy pregnancy with good outcomes for both you and your son.


It seems Christie B has assumed a few things.

First, WIC is not like food stamps or welfare. WIC is a supplemental food program for pregnant and breastfeeding women (for the first year) and for "at risk" children who fit the income requirements for the first five years. The income requirements are MUCH higher than for food stamps or welfare. Also, my husband and I have paid in thousands of dollars in taxes over the years, as well as each of OUR parents paying in tens of thousands (my father in law most likely hundreds of thousands) of dollars in taxes for programs we never used or needed. I homeschool my children and they don't use ANY public education resources. We have private health insurance. We own our own home, with a standard mortgage through a private bank. We own two cars and a 15 passenger van free and clear and pay payments on a third car. Other than the car and the house, we have NO other debt (all credit cards are paid in full every month). I dont' feel one lick bad about accepting $100 a month in food through a government program.

As I ALSO said in my previous post, my midwifery and my husband's preaching income is just enough to cover our medical expenses, his 1% retirement contribution and our TAXES. You know, those things that are supporting the WIC program. We pay into that. I also pay taxes on my midwifery income, at the self employment rate, and my husband pays self-employment taxes on the housing allowance we receive from the church. In other words we ARE taxpayers! We're not exactly sitting on our subsidized porch, collecting our welfare check and guv'mint cheese and popping out a kid every year.

Maybe the most important thing I could say is that it is not us who provides. Psalm 127 says,
127:1 Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.


We give all credit to God to be able to provide for our children. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and is not too stingy to share. We give back a full tithe of what God has given us to support this family -- that He has ALSO given us.

1 Timothy 5:8 says:
But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

We take this very seriously. These are strong words from scripture, which we firmly believe is the inspired Word of God.

We have prayerfully considered each child, each time with as much of a plan in place as man can make for their provision. Anyone can lose their good "fortune" at any time. The couple that have "put off having children for many years until they could responsibly take care of them" may find themselves out of work at 8 months pregnant. It happens.

So that's what I have to say about that.

7 comments:

Stephanie said...

HUzzah!!! Good for you, I 100% agree! :-)

Nosy people who assume too much are always so annoying :-P

Lizzie said...

Well said.

Jessica said...

Hahaha!!! THANK YOU for saying this!!!

MamaOnABudget said...

You're awesome! Way to go putting her in her place and explaining real life to someone who didn't deserve the courtesy you offered.

Umm Muhammad said...

I'm a long time reader but have never commented before. By the way, I am so glad you chose to make this blog public again!

I agree with you 100 percent as well. Very well said. You really never know what will happen, when I got pregnant with my first child, my husband had a great, well-paying job, we lived frugally any way, and had private health insurance. Halfway through the pregnancy, we found out I had incompetent cervix so I was just hoping to make it to viability and then I started with PTL at 26 weeks (thank God, the pregnancy was prolonged quite a bit from that point with hospital bedrest and anti-contraction meds). From 20 weeks on I was on complete bedrest and needed help which my dh could not give for a job where he worked from the morning until 9 pm, only to come home and fix us dinner and clean up. In addition to that, it turned out our insurance was a way crappy plan and we were paying so much for every hospital bill, not to mention if the baby was born early, the insurance likely would have reached its max and we would have been in a lot of trouble with medical bills from my pregnancy/labor plus all the treatment and help the baby would have needed had he been born at 26 weeks. So, my dh had to leave his nice job, switch to one with more flexible hours and MUCH less pay, and I got medicaid to cover my bills. I know a lot of people would judge us for that but you really can't until you've lived the situation for yourself (and lets not even get into the fact that many of the other countries offer FREE healthcare and government benefits to moms).

People also don't take into account religious beliefs very much either, as I am from a religion where we don't believe in birth control (except in medical or emotional necessities, but money is not considered a reason because we trust that God will provide for us and He does, of course!) so I know a few people from our community who have gotten a lot of negativity and insults from healthcare professionals for getting pregnant with another child while still on medicaid despite the fact that we are all tax-payers, homeschool, pay our rents and bills with no assistance, buy cars in full cash with no debt owed (we don't do interest), and don't even use credit cards and do not have any debt.

BTW, do you have an email I can send to, I wanted to ask a question but think it may be a little to much personal info on myself if I post it here in the comments?

steph said...

Amen!

Niki said...

YES! And it's surprising how nobody seems to know that WIC was started as a way to legitimately shuffle around surplus (overproduced) government-subsidized farm products. So the US government farm subsidy pays for too much milk and grain to be produced, and that's why it's what you get through WIC. WIC isn't, and has never been, a welfare program; it's an older government stimulus program.