Sometimes the way this country works just baffles the crap out of me.
I am a stay-at-home mom. Like other women in my area, I have weighed the cost of daycare with my potential to earn and realized that daycare for my 2 kids would be more than I could ever bring in on my own. I'm lucky enough to be married to a successful man that is traditional in his beliefs that the mom should stay with the kids at home. That played well with our finances and he has never ever made me feel badly for choosing to leave the workforce to care for the kids, in fact, he argued with me about doing it earlier - he wanted me to leave when I was pregnant and I wanted to stay as long as possible.
Anyway, I do bring in a small paycheck doing freelance writing while the kids sleep. That means I'm on the computer a lot and like everyone else in the free world, I'm addicted to Facebook. Unfortunately, it seems that people feel the need to over share on Facebook to the point where I want to just reach through the computer and shake them.
Is there no shame in this country anymore?
The latest thing that has set me off is a former high school friend who is now married with 2 kids with 2 men. Fine. That's her choice, no biggie, right? Unfortunately, she feels the need to divulge her financial information as well. She's a photographer who gets paid in cash or paypal. By the tone of her posts I've gathered that only paypal payments are reported for tax purposes so that she can receive certain benefits she feels she couldn't otherwise afford for her children, like school lunches and healthcare.
Most recently, she has put up a post saying how frustrated she was that she couldn't get any answers about camp. She got vouchers from the state so her kids could go for free and shock of all shocks, nobody wants to help her. She can't understand why. Perhaps because a paying person cuts a check for $2K and moves on with life while the state person gets a voucher worth $1K and it takes $500 worth of paperwork and man hours to redeem it.
You really can't complain about something that's free. Do people not understand this anymore? Why do people feel entitled to everything for free and then they complain about the quality of the freebie or the level of service?
Meanwhile, I'm sitting here working from home while watching my kids trying to figure out if I can afford to send my daughter to 2 years of preschool or just one. The answer: Just one. Why? We have student loans. My husband had to go to school to get his job. I went to school as well, though I have less loans than he does. We get hammered with taxes, we live in a house that's underwater and I don't think we will ever ever pay back student loans. We cut where we can and we make hard choices like sending our kids to one year less of preschool than their state-assisted peers are getting. Does that mean my kids will have less of an advantage in life? I honestly don't think so, but if it does at least their kids will get a free ride anywhere they want.
I'm just sick of scraping and struggling because of student loans and not seeing my husband ever because he works while other people complain on Facebook about how their freebie isn't good enough. This is bull. We need to cut all non-essential programs like free camp and people on free insurance plans need to start paying a damn co-pay. Do you know how much that would help? Even a $50/month family plan would cut down on the costs of the free state health insurance programs. Sure, if you're not making anything you can't pay it and shouldn't pay it, but if you are making money you should pay SOMETHING. It's about pride. Teach people that taking for free is OK and you'll have a nation of takers. Make people feel like they've earned it by paying - even it's a little bit - and you'll have a nation of workers.
It's not a hard concept to master and it would make my Facebook jaunts much more pleasant.
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