Who Would Swap Places With a Mom on Welfare?

One topic consistently offends readers of this column: single mothers on public assistance--especially ones who do not conform to the stereotype of what a welfare mother should be.

Last week, I told the story of Barbara Lewis, a 47-year-old mother of four, who just graduated from USC. Scholarships paid her way through school. Welfare paid her rent.

In August, because she has received a Ford Foundation grant, she will no longer be eligible for welfare. In the fall, she begins working toward a doctorate in English at USC. The Ford money will see her through three years of study and living expenses.

To me, this is a success story.

To others, this is a travesty.

“I just read your column about Barbara Lewis,” said one caller. “Are we supposed to admire this woman? What about people like us, who have worked hard and never gotten anything for free? Do you know what we pay in taxes?”

A letter from a Hollywood couple lauded Lewis for her achievements, but was tinged with similar bitterness:

“We were not subsidized by the government. We have never received any county assistance. We were born in California so did not migrate here to receive a free college education paid for by California taxes.

“We are self-employed and always have been. We are in that tax bracket, through just plain hard work, that pays the highest taxes. Our children had no choice. They went to state universities. We couldn’t afford USC for them . . . . The government didn’t offer to support them and pay their living expenses. We haven’t been given a free ride. We have had to work and pay our own way or do without.

“Congratulations to Ms. Lewis. We just wish we had it so good!”

I would not say Barbara Lewis has had it so good.

She has been a maid in a private home, a tire builder for Firestone, sold real estate in Philadelphia and worked as a temporary employee in Los Angeles. She has worked hard.

I asked her if she felt guilty accepting welfare.

“Of course!” she said. “You feel guilty because you feel like you are living on the county and that’s such a disgrace. It has a way of demoralizing you, especially when you think of the way that people talk to you simply because you are poor.”

To the people dismayed by the support she has received from taxpayers, I would pose these questions:

Would you change places with her?

Would you like to wash clothes in the bathtub, travel everywhere by bus or foot, live with rickety furniture in an apartment that rattles every time trucks drive by? Would you like to see your 8-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son slithering up the driveway as they arrive home from school because someone outside is shooting again?

It is true, Lewis did not have to be on welfare. She could have earned $7, or maybe $10 an hour as a clerk-typist somewhere. But she never could have hoped to become a college professor. And this is her dream.

“Take a good look at the California economy and tell us what opportunities will be available for a black woman 50 years of age with an 11-year-old daughter to support when Lewis is ready to enter the job force--damn few, I would predict,” wrote another reader.

That was the kind of message Carol Delaney got, too. A single mother who went on welfare when her ex-husband stopped paying child support, Delaney returned to graduate school, but dared not count on becoming a professor. That was too much to hope for.

To qualify for the fellowships that paid for her University of Chicago tuition, she had to attend school full time. To attend school full time, she had to receive welfare. And to shop for groceries, she rode a bike two miles to the store, even in winter.

Today, Delaney, 51, has been teaching at Stanford for five years. An assistant professor of anthropology who specializes in issues of gender and religion, she’ll be considered for tenure next year. Recently, she bought her first car.

To those who would complain about welfare mothers getting a free ride, Delaney replied: “They don’t realize the enormous amount of discipline it takes. It is difficult enough to be a graduate student--married or not--even more so when you have a child.”

And while others may have spent their lives working and paying their taxes, they have also built assets. Such has not been the case for women like Lewis and Delaney.

“I’ve lived 20 years of my adult life below the poverty level,” said Delaney. “I never had those years to build up equity. And you never get over that feeling of having to go hand to mouth every month.”

Clare Pastore, a staff attorney for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, finds it short-sighted to resent welfare mothers for attending college at public expense.

The philosophy of our welfare system is that “it is the responsibility of the state to help people get ready to enter the permanent work force,” she said. “It is not only humane, but cost-effective to make that investment in women. In their first year or two of working (after college), they will pay more in taxes than the state paid them in a whole year.”

But Kathleen North, director of public affairs for the state Department of Social Services, said higher education is not the goal of our welfare system. She said the state’s aim is to get welfare mothers working. Period.

Since 1985, most single parents on welfare have been required to undergo job training with the goal of becoming self-sufficient. Higher education is simply not part of the formula, she said. (The department, however, may not force people who are on welfare to drop out of college for job training.)

“There is no such thing as a dead-end job,” said North. “That’s erroneous thinking. Any job will give you valuable work experience.”

Barbara Lewis and her children spent three weeks at the Salvation Army the winter they arrived in Los Angeles. During their stay, they were selected as a model family and trotted out for a wire service holiday feature. Their photograph, with the caption, “This fatherless family will spent Christmas at a Los Angeles County mission,” ran in newspapers around the country.

A Texas man began sending small sums of money and clothing. Lewis was grateful for the help and called to thank him. He kindly offered to pay to send her to school.

“What do you want to do?” he asked Lewis.

“I want to teach.”

“Well, I don’t want you to do that ,” he said. “I want you to be a nurse. “

That attitude, whether expressed by the county, the taxpayers or a well-meaning stranger, is what women like Barbara Lewis and Carol Delaney have had to overcome.

“If you want to help somebody, help them do what they want to do, not what you think they ought to do,” said Lewis. “I get so angry when I think about that, because that’s the story of my life.”

There was a time, back in the 1930s, when it started, that welfare was designed to be a way single mothers could stay home with their children. Their place, we believed, was in the home. Over the years, our philosophy has shifted. Now we believe that the goal is for women to work. The major obstacles, of course, are day care and job skills. As Lewis and Delaney have shown, they can be overcome.

Yes, there are people on welfare who will never get off, people for whom welfare is one long free ride.

But I think the ones who dream of a better life--and find a way to make it happen--deserve our respect, not our disdain.