My Life as a Welfare Brat

In the reading, "My Life as a Welfare Brat," Larstella Irby begins with her experience debating with two women on the Oprah Winfrey Show about welfare. The two women, Linda and DellaMarie, believed that they were entitled to the government assistance that they were getting, but Irby on the other hand felt that government assistance should be viewed as a last resort rather than an alternative lifestyle. She then confessed to them that she also used to be on welfare and explained that the welfare system discourages job finding and brings about a "take-what-you-can-get" attitude.

The points that Irby brought out to the two women on the Oprah Winfrey Show about welfare and any other type of government assistance are probably the views of all tax-paying citizens. Not saying that all recipients of government assistance take advantage of the system, but for a lot of people that is usually the situation. Like the two women, Linda and DellaMarie, many women feel a sense of entitlement, as if they automatically deserve welfare. During her  as a welfare brat, Irby tells about how she would sell her MediCal stickers for extra money. This is one of the main ways people manipulate the system and make it harder for the people who really need government assistance to receive it. This scheme also helps to prove the notion that the welfare system discourages finding jobs because it it easier to sell their benefits to others.

During the show with Oprah, Irby states that it not just the women that use the system. She says that men leave their families because they know that government will pick up the slack where they left off. I believe that if a man is willing to leave his family, he really does not care whether or not they are taken care of. I dont believe that men walk out their families with the mentality of, "They will be okay because the government is going to provide for them."

As her life as a welfare brat dwindled to an end, Irby identifies Pastor Fred Price as the most influential person in her life. His sermons really motivated her change in lifestyle. In one particular sermon about welfare, Price told the congregation, "The government is not your source, God is your source." I think if people had an inspirational and motivational person in their lives, they would want better for themselves. When you are surrounded with people that are in the same situation as you, doing the same things that you are doing, its hard to see life any other way, but when you find someone who is doing something productive, it pushes you to want to change and do the same.