What if . . .

I would like to preface this post by saying that I wish NOT to offend anyone but if I do, I hope to offend all who read this with enough compassion for those who feel offended by others. I wish NOT to get into an argument about my stance and will NOT respond to any replies that would seem to invite such an act. 
Now, onto my story. . .
As you all are very well aware, I am on facebook. As anyone who is on facebook can ultimately figure out, there is a significant number of groups that you can be a part of and groups you can "like" for whatever reason. I have recently seen a group that supports the idea that those who are welfare should be forced to have drug tests. This absolutely astonishes me! I cannot tell you how much this offends me as a human being.

I often wonder about those that support such an idea. For those that do support such a notion, I ask you these questions and invite you into a world that you may have never considered.
Imagine you are married, college education and have 2 children. You and your spouse are working. You are basically living like any other "typical" American . . . house payment, car payment, utilities and probably the occasional credit card. You have realized that you may have overextended your means a time or two and probably are not putting enough into savings. Now, imagine for an instance that your spouse gets laid off - the one with the greater income AND family health insurance plan. Ok, great. Now what? Well, you have to have insurance - those kids really need it. Now, unemployment could be an option, but that is going to run out eventually right . . . and you still have to pay for insurance somehow. Well, another job is found but it is significantly less pay but you somehow manage to make it work. Whew! Well, how about a few months later, YOU lose your job and this time you were the one with the greater income because your spouse had to take a lower paying job to make sure that the family had health care - God forbid anything happen to any of you and you are without insurance - only making the bills THAT much more ridiculous! Ok, now what - AGAIN! Let's just say that you lose that job right after you or your spouse has added a third child to the family! Ok, so, you have a lot of bills that use to be sustained by the once decent income that you had. You are doing what you can to pay the bills but you have come to realize that whatever is out there for a job would be just given over to a baby sitter because of how expensive childcare is. In a tough job market, beggers can't be choosers but you have to make sure that you have a job that is going to MAKE you money, not lose it! Im not sure if many of you are aware of the fact that if you are working MINIMUM WAGE, and have 3 kids in daycare - you aren't going to be bringing ANY money home AFTER you pay for day care! So, now what are you going to do? Those kids have to eat. You can probably go hungry and hey, maybe you wanted to lose a few pounds anyway . . . starving isn't exactly what you had in mind . . . but you have to do something! After a couple months of going through your savings (remember you weren't too good at getting that nest egg built up . . .after all, you are YOUNG!) and applying at every conceivable decent paying job out there that you won't have to sign right over to the baby sitter - you are broke and have only one income and that is 1/4 of what you were making when the both of you are working. What are you going to do? What can you do? Sell the house? Sell the car? Move in with your parents? Your heart is breaking because no matter what you do, you don't have enough money to make it work.

What are you going to do? Do you suck it up and apply for welfare only to know that you have friends out there that think that you should be taking a drug test because of the serious series of unfortunate events in your life? How are you going to look your friends in the eye know how they are going to feel about you?
Because you have come to a VERY rough spot in your life and you don't know how else to take care of you and your family . . . what are YOU going to do?

Are you going to change your mind and realize that it COULD happen to you? Or, are you going to go on thinking that anyone on welfare is taking advantage of the system and rather than realize that some DO have legitimate reasons for the need, you just assume that 'one bad apple, ruined the whole bunch.'

What are YOU going to do?