The New Welfare

Before jumping into a new topic, here’s a link to a friend’s excellent article loosely related to my last post. Called “Facebook: A Turbulent Romance in Four Acts,” it’s definitely worth a quick read. Besides, Meredith is just one smokin’ writer.

At the risk of boring you to pieces, I’m going to share what I’ve learned about welfare reform in the past couple of months. Since health care reform is all the buzz right now, it seems a timely topic. And the more I talk with people about this, the more I realize how little most of us know.

In 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. While the bill brought about many changes for people on public assistance, the biggest was that it reduced the amount of time any one person could receive it to five years. You can go on and off, but once you’ve passed the five-year point, you can never receive it again. The name “welfare” was also dropped, at least officially. The subsidy is now called TANF, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and could explain why it never caught on among those of us who aren’t part of this world.

Under President Bush’s faith-based initiatives program, many religious organizations rose up to help fill the gaps created by welfare reform. Some of these lasted, but many are no longer around. The group we recently signed on with, Faith Partners, is one that has endured. Their strategy is fairly simple: partner “church people” with families who are working to get off of TANF. After taking initiative to sign up and complete ten weeks worth of classes, the families (nearly all single moms) are matched with a team who will begin walking with them as mentors. The team aspect is key.

The woman we have befriended has about 18 months of TANF left. She’s 30. She’s raising three kids and has a man who comes and goes from their lives. TANF, supplemented by Medicare and food stamps, provides (barely) enough to live on if she can prove she’s either in school or working. For the first three years, she says there was no accountability and the checks just came. Now that she’s down to 18 months, the pressure is ramping up—more forms, more questions, more people showing anxious concern for her. But people stuck in poverty have a very hard time planning ahead or thinking about the abstract future. They focus on what’s right in front of them, and that is usually so overwhelming that they often find it impossible to make any forward progress.

My sense of urgency for this woman is huge: Eighteen months to complete a GED and get through some college classes (ideally) so that she can find a job that pays well enough to support her family. I’m not sure it’s doable even if she weren’t dealing with the emotional exhaustion of a man who loves her only when it’s convenient, of a mother who just died an agonizing death, of three additional children lost to the state, of an adolescent daughter that she’s struggling to get custody of and trying to learn to parent for the first time, or a mouth full of false teeth that pop out every time she sneezes.

Life is hard for all of us. But I’m beginning to get some insight into America’s poor—even the motivated poor—and the slippery, uphill, marathon of a mountain they climb just to keep functioning every day. Yes, it’s often their own bad choices that put them on that path, but my eyes have been opened to how stuck they feel once they’re there. I may not do a thing to help my new friend, but she’s already helped me see the world from a whole different perspective.

Snack Nation

Snacks have become the American way. My kids eat snacks (or at least they want to) all day long. We are required to send them to school with snacks. We stash snacks in the car. We can’t watch a movie without them. Practical things like tissues and band-aids have been pushed out of my purse to make room for all the snacks.

I have a vague memory of eating Cheerios in church as a preschooler, and occasionally I’d be rewarded with graham crackers and milk when I was a bit older. When my mom went back to work when I was in junior high, every once in a while I would sneak in a bologna sandwich before dinner—and the guilt was nearly unbearable. Unless I’m remembering incorrectly, I believe I made it through my entire academic career with no snacks in my backpack. (Come to think of it, I didn’t have a backpack until college. Now my five-year-old manages one.) So why is it that my kids can’t seem to make it through the morning without snacking?

OK, easy answer. Frito Lay and Kraft have deep pockets and heavy influence.

But the snack culture that has exploded on the scene in the past twenty years isn’t limited to food. People want snack-size news (whatever they can grab from the ticker at the bottom of the screen as they’re flipping channels), snack-size education (get your online degree in just 11 weeks!), even snack-size marriages (Can’t we just live together and act married without all the heavy commitment?). And what about snack-size relationships? This is my biggest concern of all: Quick and easy relationships for people on the run! Light, easy, and conveniently packaged by social media sites for those who don’t have time to be bogged down by real emotions and deep conversation.

Don’t you just crave a real meal sometimes? Something you can sink your teeth into?

No doubt our snacking culture has contributed to our nation’s obesity problem. But I think there might be an even bigger problem lurking in the shadows, one that won’t surface for a number of years but that frightens the bejeebers out of me. What will be the societal impact of a whole generation of relational snackers?

Raising Men

Last night, my husband and I took our son to his first small-group meeting. While nine 10-year-old boys hurled ping-pong balls at each other in the basement, their parents, a little nervous and full of anticipation, talked about what we want from this group. The couple who pulled us all together described their vision: That we’ll all be a team—the boys and the parents—playing the game of life together. God is our coach and the Bible is our playbook. We’ll teach each other, cheer each other on, pick each other up when we fall down, and hold each other accountable along the way. The hope is that we’ll keep meeting once or twice a month from now through high school.

Like the other nodding parents, Kevin and I caught the vision right away. It wasn’t easy.

The squeals and thuds wafting up from the basement reminded us of who we’re dealing with. And if that wasn’t enough, later in the night, when we tried to sit them down for an inspirational pep talk, they were like popcorn kernels in a microwave. Smashing into each other and talking gibberish (or so it appeared to the parents), it was a little hard to grasp the potential that existed in that room last night. Several parents commented that we should videotape the wild hooligans and make them watch it when they’re high school seniors.

But if I tried real hard, I could imagine the nine decent, loyal, thoughtful, servant-hearted young men that will sit there in seven or eight years. Even more fun for me is imagining who they’ll be in twenty years. (Especially if I don’t think of how old I’ll be!)

At a time when a lot of parents are writing off their kids’ adolescent years, believing they have no choice but to surrender to culture’s influence, I feel so blessed to be part of a group like this. We are not raising boys; we’re raising men. It’s more than a cliched slogan. It’s the truth. We’re raising husbands and fathers who need to know it’s OK to step up and lead their families. We’re raising businessmen who need to understand what it means to be reliable, trustworthy, and persevering. We’re raising ambassadors for Christ who need to be courageous, hopeful bearers of light in a world that seems increasingly dark. We’re raising Truth lovers, who will not give in to the whims of relativism and “do-whatever-makes-you-feel-good” thinking. We’re raising men—and it’s as much an overwhelming responsibility as it is a privilege.

Is Happiness a Problem?

Happy people don’t love well or worship well. These are just a few of the things Larry Crabb has me pondering while I read his book Shattered Dreams.

“Happy people rarely look for joy,” he writes. “They’re quite content with what they have. The foundation of their life consists of the blessings they enjoy. Although they may genuinely care about those less fortunate and do great things to help them, their central concern is to keep what they have. They haven’t been freed to pursue a great dream.”

He goes on to say that when we are satisfied with “good” distractions—good health, responsible children, an enjoyable marriage, close friendships, interesting jobs, successful ministries—we never fully worship.

“Only broken people truly worship. Unbroken people—happy folks who enjoy their blessings more than the Blesser—say thanks to God the way a shopper thanks a clerk.”

I have long recognized the difference between happiness and joy. I’ve felt it in my own life. Happy is hearing my kids laugh on the way to the amusement park. Joy is walking with them through disappointments and trusting that God will use these to grow and teach them. Happiness is sharing a good meal and conversation with a friend; joy is being lonely but recognizing that it’s drawing me nearer to the One who is always with me.

So am I able to pursue deep-down, genuine joy when I’m consumed with my happiness? I’m not ready to say the two can’t exist simultaneously. And part of me wonders if this isn’t just a fancy way of pep-talking our way through life’s unhappier days. But as I read these words, my internal truth-o-meter flashed like the Vegas strip. When I think back on the best worship of my life, the times I felt God was so close that I could reach out and touch Him, it was at times of devastating loss. I remember when I was 17, looking out a hospital window the morning my dad died, watching the sun come up. It was the most beautiful sunrise I’d ever seen. I was all alone, yet I felt like God was hugging me through that sunrise. It was so real I could somehow feel it. I didn’t know Him then nearly as well as I do now, but I genuinely worshiped that morning.

That memory, as well as a few others, are enough to keep me from running away from brokenness.

Anyone else want to weigh in? I'd love to hear how these quotes hit you.