BUT CAN YOU HELP?
Posted on 01/12/2003 12:30:41 PM PST by sinkspur
Here's a question to ponder: Are we too generous?
Let's mull that one today while catching up with Ann Love.
Ann is the young woman we have been following for the last few months as she tries to move from welfare to work.
Ann is 27 and the mother of two boys, ages 5 and 7. Their father is in prison for murder. Ann has lived in public housing and pretty much depended on government programs since they were born.
When we last visited with Ann, she had completed a job-readiness program and had gone to work in a South Dallas restaurant. But neither she nor the restaurant owner was very happy with things.
And sure enough, early last month, Ann was fired.
"I was so relieved!" she confessed last week. "That job just wasn't for me. They say you learn from your experiences, so now I know – I'll never work in a restaurant again."
Ann was in a jovial mood. Just the night before she had started another job-skills program offered by the STEP Foundation. And she learned that the top students would get office jobs next month at a mortgage-processing company.
"I'm going to get one of those jobs because I have confidence in myself," Ann proclaimed, perhaps to herself as much as me.
I didn't want to ruin her mood – or shake her self-confidence – but there was something ticklish I wanted to discuss with Ann.
Her restaurant job was at Lady Di's, owned by Diane Thomas. Mrs. Thomas grew up in Dallas public housing herself and knows all about hard work.
I had asked Mrs. Thomas why Ann wasn't doing well on the job. I didn't expect the answer I got.
"Too much has been given to her," Mrs. Thomas said. "She hasn't had to work for it. And when people are given too much, it makes them lazy."
Gingerly, I raised that issue with Ann last week. She seemed shocked. "So she's trying to say I'm spoiled? I wish!"
Well, I don't think anyone would confuse Ann Love with Anna Nicole Smith. But on the other hand, Ann has gone years without working and never once lacked the necessities of life.
I thought of that verse from Proverbs: "The laborer's appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on."
What hunger has there been to drive Ann on?
She certainly puts a high priority on providing for her boys. But as she had told me earlier, when talking about being fired, "My boys still had a good Christmas – a real good Christmas."
Indeed, they did. Thanks to the generosity of social-service agencies in town and one church, the boys were showered with gifts. Her oldest had asked for a jam box and got two.
Just for the sake of discussion, I asked Ann whether she would have worked harder at that restaurant job if she had known her sons' whole Christmas depended on her.
She thought a minute. "Probably," she said.
Are we too generous? Do we sometimes foster laziness?
"For some people, yes," Ann said. "But I'm not like that."
And she does make a case that she has shown initiative – in getting her GED, in taking computer training in the past, in starting job training again last week.
She said she would have been working all along if not for her son's illness. Her 5-year-old has sickle cell anemia. When he was younger, repeated sickness prevented her from working, she said. Now he's better, and she's eager to work.
Are we too generous? Sometimes so, it seems clear.
But maybe it's also that we are lazy in our generosity.
We let government give in big, blanket sorts of ways rather than working to meet specific needs in meaningful, personal ways.
And we find it much easier to give things than to give opportunity.
Ann is hoping for another opportunity. We'll see if things get in the way.
Self confidence is okay but you have to have skill, want/need to work, and make the effort to succeed. Sadly this young lady in the article seems to have self confidence and the ability to work the system only.
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