I'm Growing Old Too Young

Here's to the promise of glamorous living,
You must drink up now, cause it's all that you're getting.
If you haven't been tested, you certainly will,
And I promise it's going to kill.
All I can think of is how much I'd kill to be sleeping.
I'm squinting my eyes, my mind's drifting to secrets I'm keeping.

Nearly a year ago, I made a decision. School was coming to an end for the semester, and I wasn't going to sit in my house all summer. My friend was about to get married and move six an a half hours away, so she was quitting her small town cashier job. Because of this, I figured I'd apply. One of my best friends from High School worked there too, so at least I'd know someone if I was hired. I got the job, and in a month I will have been there a full year.

Before my job, I wasn't exactly a people person. I enjoyed being by myself, and I generally stayed home on the weekends, watching movies alone and reading. I just didn't get along with everyone, and I was okay with that, but I didn't realize how much disdain I had building inside me. At that point, I didn't want to socialize myself with anyone who didn't take care of themselves...because those people were gross.

My job has taught me a lot, and I think of it as a blessing. In a majority sense, my workplace serves those of whom cannot afford brand name products. In layman's terms: We get a lot of undesirable people shopping at our store. Sure, it may sound mean, but it's true. A lot of no-teethed, greasy-haired, "I Gots Muh LINK Cardd", needs-a-motorized-cart-to-get-around kind of people. For the most part, I'm over it. I ring up their groceries, type in the number to their Food Stamps card and hand them their receipt with a smile and a "have a nice day". But some days, I just want to punch a wall.

In our town of less than 10,000 people...everyone knows your business. (It's especially not hard to know your business when every customer tells me their life story, but anyway...) So, it wasn't long before I found out about John's situation. John is a guy who, at first, I didn't mind so much. Sure, his teeth were rotten out of his head and he smelled like who knows what, but he was pretty nice. His wife on the other hand, I wasn't so fond of.

Neither one of them work, but John does odd jobs and stays active by riding his bike everywhere. Together, they had 3 kids. The oldest was a boy, and I promise you...I felt so sad for him. I hate to say this, but my boss nicknamed him 'Porkchop", because he was so large. Keep in mind this little boy is probably 7 years old, and can only fit in his dad's shirts. He wears them like dresses because he can't fit in anything else. After him, they had a middle girl, and their youngest was a toddler who, because of their awful living conditions, had to be on oxygen 24/7.

After I had worked there about 6 months, I noticed John's wife had stopped coming into the store with her children. When I asked my coworker why that was, he told me she had her kids taken away by social services. I was surprised, but so relieved for those children. Turns out, she had "forgotten" to give her toddler oxygen one day and she almost died. She had to be flown to St. Jude's and everything. I thank the good Lord someone stepped in.

There are well...many things I can't stand, but three major things are: ignorant people, rude people, and horrible parents. John's wife, is all of the above. I feel I can't blame -too- much of the situation on John himself because he isn't home much, but he doesn't exactly get off scot-free, either. This family is on food stamps, which I can understand. I have no problem with food stamps in general, its the taking advantage of what you've been given that drives me up the wall. It's like what one of my customers said to me today, "These people on food stamps buy more expensive food than even I can afford!" Which is so true. I would be fine if it were healthier products that cost more money, but please don't complain that you don't get enough food stamp money when I just loaded a dozen boxes of little debbies and ten packages of hot dogs in your shopping cart.

Anyway, back to the story. John's wife would NEVER buy anything healthy with their food stamps. She'd buy the kids as much soda and candy that they wanted, and would always tell them to eat it up before their dad got home. Yeah, nice parenting. Not only that but...this family stunk. And I dont mean, "Oh wow, they smell like B.O." kinda stink...but as in, made your eyes water where you didn't want to breathe kind of rank. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. You can't claim "Oh, maybe they dont have money for the essentials..." Yes, they do. They just spend it on things they don't need, like soda when they run out of money on their LINK card.

In my eyes, these parents don't take care of their children, in the health sense, or in loving care. This is why their kids have been taken away. For a while, they could see their children in their new foster home a couple days a week, which I find perfectly good. The kids were being taken care of, and still got to see their parents on a regular basis. Good. Things were all right.

Then I came to work today.

John's wife was sitting on the bench by the door with her mouth wide open like always. (I swear I'm being truthful, not mean.) I clocked in and came back to the front to leave my drink at my register. John was being obnoxious as my coworker was trying to figure out their WIC transactions. Then I thought about it. WIC? (food for Women, Infants, and Children) Why would they be on WIC if they don't have their children with them anymore? I gave my coworker a strange look, and she didn't pick up on it. I waited to ask anything until they left. Once I was sure they were out the door, I asked, "Was she just doing WIC stuff? How can they be on WIC if they got their kids taken away?" She looked at me, rolled her eyes and said, "She just had another kid."

...what?

I can perfectly understand how she got pregnant, that's not the question. My question is...if she, just 6 months ago, was proven a non-fit mother and had her children taken away from her, why does she get to keep this one? I'm all for kids staying with their parents but she hasn't even proven herself enough to get her 3 other children back, and now a newborn is subjected to their style of living. Lord please protect that child.

Things could be worse, yes, I know that. At least John isn't abusive to the kids, or anything like that. He's a good dad, and I'm sure they both love their children very much...but the fact of the matter is, if you can't take care of them, someone else needs to.

I watched from the sidelines for years as my aunt became foster mom to two beautiful little kids. The first, was adopted by a new family, but not before Hayley had been abused and neglected by her mother and grandmother for far too long, and this was just with partial custody! The second, I'm sad to say my aunt passed away the day before she was going to adopt little Max, but he finally found a good home with my aunt's friend, Anita. But even in his situation, his mother signed away her rights to him at the hospital and just left him there, and his father didn't want anything to do with him...yet what did the court keep doing? Trying to give him back to his mother. His drug addict mother who never wanted him in the first place. C'mon, I know it's always best to stick kids with their families, but that's ridiculous. When you sign the papers, it's over. Or at least it should be.

This summer I'm hopefully going to be able to volunteer with social services, to get an idea of what really goes on in there. It's a corrupt world, and a corrupt system, but maybe in time I can make a difference.