Pass Not Ye Judgement Here

   The soon-to-be-hubs and I (that's right folks, I'm officially not only married soon-to-be-divorced but also soon-to-be-hitched-again ;) Put that in your pipe and smoke it) went on a double date recently with one of my girlfriends and her new beau; An old friend of hers from childhood that she had recently reconnected with.  I had talked to her about a week before this double-date happened about how she shacked up with this guy for nearly a week, in a cabin, got snowed in.  Come on, you get the point right?  Things had been going quite well.  They really had a lot of chemistry and a real connection.  They shared a lot of things, including a somewhat dry sense of humor and a little bit of a twisted kinda state-of-mind (not in a bad way!).

   So the night comes that we have our date, dinner at a local bar/restaurant that Mark and I used to work at, then bowling at a little bowling alley just outside of town.  Dinner was fine, my friend, let's call her Jane, and her beau, we'll call him John, seemed to be getting along fine.  At one point after we had finished our meal, I pulled out my phone and showed "Jane" some pictures of our new terroris- I mean - Puppy (more on that later).  Then "John" pulls out his phone and is showing me some little e-cards and political funnies about anti-gun-bans and what not.  Pretty much Anti-Obama stuff in general.  While I don't always agree with these little posts I see splattered all over my Facebook News Feed, a lot of times I will share them or pass them along to friends because they are humorous or because I know that friend will find it to be true and would appreciate it.

   Anywho, we decide to leave, but we're going to stop by her house for a short before leaving to go bowling.  When we get there, "John" starts making lots of comments about welfare, comments about food stamps and medicaid and "Obama Phones".  Example:  "I outta quit my high paying with benefits job so I don't have to pay my own bills anymore" or "Too bad I work, I could get me ______ from Obama."  At this point I notice my dear friend getting a little tense.  See, here's some background:  She is a single mom, her ex (who is a close childhood friend of mine for probably the last 15 years) rarely has steady work, tends to be a bit of a screw-up, and isn't much help in the financial department.  She got lucky a couple years back and got a job working at a local business that her uncle owns.  She makes decent money, she pays her own bills, she keeps her house and her car in great condition, her child always looks nice and is well-bathed and well-groomed (let's face it, I'm from the country folks, you don't see this stuff a lot, especially in a single mom), and she always managed to eat healthy and exercise.  She is responsible, she works hard, but she's doing it alone.  Jane gets a small amount of food stamps each month.  Jane's son is on Medicaid.


   Apparently, earlier before dinner, they had got on the subject of government assistance, and finances.  John suddenly went from charming and sweet to obnoxious and condescending.  He basically turned up his nose at the kind of money she is making and tore her down for needing a little bit of help.

    So now my point;  Why is this such a bad thing?  There are people out there who are abusing the system- Selling their foodstamps for beer and cigarettes, using their welfare checks for drugs, living off the government for their entire lives because they're lazy and would rather work the system than make an honest living.  I get that.  But there are also people in this world, like my friend, who work hard and take care of their families but sometimes it's just not quite enough.  Sometimes, people need help.  Ask anybody who has ever been an addict, who has ever been depressed, who has ever been down on their luck or suffered a loss, needing help does not make you a bad person.  It does not make you weak.  It makes you human.

   Would you rather see a single mom out there busting her ass at a job 5-6 days a week and getting a little assistance from the government, or a woman raising her children with a man who refuses to get a job and just living off of welfare and being entirely dependant on assistance from others?  It's not the same thing, and yet they are both judged equally by so many.

   "How about you take your judgements and your big paycheck and your guaranteed overtime and shove them up your ass?" I wanted to tell "John" after I heard the full story.  I mean, how dare he treat her differently than he had for over a month because now he knows that she is on government assistance.  Sometimes, people just need help.  And if you are not one of those people, that's fantastic.  It really is.  But if you are that person who needs help, in any way, don't let people who are running their mouths tell you what you need or don't need, and don't you dare let them make you feel like you are somehow below them.  You are a good person, and being able to reach out for help when you need it takes an amount of strength that not everyone in this world has.  Hold your head up high, and shoot for the moon, because "even if you miss, you'll land among the stars".