You know what sucks?

I am currently unemployed and raising two little kids. My husband works not one, not two, but three jobs. Two are less than $8.00 and hour and the other is $9.00 an hour. None of those jobs is full time. He has been searching all year for full time employment and it's non-existent for someone like him (relatively unskilled). He's hardly home since he is always working. Take today. He worked 9am to 5pm today. He just walked in the door and will quickly eat dinner before taking a nap and then heading out to work from 10pm tonight to 6:30am tomorrow. Tomorrow, he will go back in to work at 5pm until 10pm, sleep a little and get up at 4am to go to work at 5am.

I lost my professional license because I was unable to pay the license renewal fee. I can't renew until the end of 2014....and I won't be able to renew unless I have a certain number of continuing education credits, which I can't afford (to attend conferences, lectures). I've tried get work outside of my field and people don't want me because they are afraid I will eventually leave once my license is renewed. I am also a poor candidate because working around my husband's hours is near impossible. My son has some mental health issues, nothing too serious, that make finding adequate childcare difficult. And it's unaffordable anyway.

We are on food stamps that never seem to last all month despite the fact that I primarily cook from scratch. We barely make rent and needed Catholic charity help with that recently. We're overdue in electricity, unable to afford rent insurance, and we have medical and dental bills out the ass. God knows how we'll afford heat this Winter. By some miracle, my husband and I are covered under Medicaid at the moment, in addition to our kids. None of my husband's jobs offer insurance.

And it sucks. It's hard enough to live this life. But day after day I read and hear comments about how people like us are takers. We are sucking on the government titties. We are mooching. We are lazy. We just expect hand outs. I have Congress people talking about how it's not that hard to be poor. Politicians vote against families like mine. Christians tell me God helps those who help themselves....and we're obviously not working hard enough to secure God's mercy. People tell me, "well, you just need to go get a job." As if it's that easy. And of course I am sinning by using the internet right now. Being poor, I do not deserve internet time....or a car....or food.

There is so much judgment out there for people like me and it's sponsored by and supported by our wonderful Christian politicians. It sucks.