We Must All Contribute Our Share

Dear Jennifer: I have never written to you before, but your column on work (Dec. 31, 1995) touched my inner core. I am going to send copies to my grown children to reinstate the glory of work and pass it on to their children.

- Sincerely, Ann

Dear Jennifer: You are justifiably self-satisfied in having reached a level of true “calling” in your work, but you gave short shrift to those who have not been so fortunate. The nature of our culture is that most are denied such fulfillment.

Sometimes, the only way to gain an exit from mean work conditions is to remove oneself from the occupational mainstream. This takes great courage and sacrifice. The term “entitlement” has a meaning that should not be regarded lightly. Please do not forget that some of us, as James Kavanaugh once wrote in memorable verse, “… are men too gentle to live among wolves.”

- Respectfully, Abe

Dear Jennifer James: In your column you said that you didn’t understand people who preferred welfare to earning the same amount of money working. My daughter worked but found she lost money. Food, clothing and gas cost more when she had to be at work, and her youngest cried when he had to go to day care.

With welfare, you receive a check and you stay home with your children. She can drive the oldest to school on bad-weather days, be there when he gets home, cook for them, supervise their play and kiss their hurts. You can raise them the way you want them to be raised.

Jennifer, you are a mother, which would you prefer for your children?

- Sincerely, Lynn

Dear Readers: Most of those who wrote about my column on work assumed I meant only work that you are paid for. I had hoped to convey “work” as a much broader concept. Much of the work on personal interests, home or community has only a psychological reward. Sometimes we do things to pay the bills that we wouldn’t do in a perfect world.

I was celebrating, in my column, that for the first time in my life I was working at what I loved.

Work comes in many forms; many of us aren’t suited for business or a large bureaucracy. If you are an artist and it doesn’t pay, then art may be your pleasure work and something else your paid work. If you are a writer, you will have to develop a simple life or hold a second job. I couldn’t live off writing.

I don’t think the deciding factor in lifestyle is luck. I think it is recognizing your interests, talents and values and balancing them with the economic realities of the world you live in.

I believe “entitlements,” paid by public funds because you do not do paid work, require reciprocity when possible. If you do not work outside the home because you have children and cannot create a decent life without welfare, then what can you do to contribute?

Can you baby-sit for one more child so someone else can work? Can you help maintain the public housing you live in? Can you organize activities for those who live in your community?

What are you going to give back, other than your own family’s existence as good citizens? I believe it is wrong to take from the community and not give if you are physically or mentally able.

I do believe I have been fortunate, but I didn’t think it was so great when I was a single parent working as a fry cook, a waitress or cleaning chicken cages.

If I had stayed at minimum wage maybe I wouldn’t be writing this column, but I believe I would still have a garden, a decent place (probably shared housing) and that I would pay my own bills.

I know it’s harder now to make ends meet than 10 or 20 years ago, and I would seek “entitlement” if I needed help. I would also seek independence.

What would I want as a mother? I’ve thought carefully about my answer because I know I must seem self-righteous. I would want to work at almost anything rather than set a model for my children that others would pay their bills. I wonder what our country would be like if all healthy single mothers, who wanted to be with their children, decided that someone else should work?

What does it do to one’s sense of self to tread water instead of struggling to get somewhere safer? Isn’t it just as wrong to demand that those with more success give to you, so you will not have to work at something you dislike, as it is for them to refuse to share their wealth with those truly in need?

Entitlement is a question of circumstances, values and choices. One of these choices is whether you are willing to work hard - or not.

- Jennifer

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Jennifer James The Spokesman-Review