A Suburban Block

~ Laura

I haven’t blogged too much about our little suburban block since we moved here two years ago. My neighbors are mostly good people and never asked to live next door to a blogger, so I have respected their privacy. It has sometimes been tough to hold myself from writing posts about the goings on around here. Over the years, there’s been ample material for humor.

For example, two of my neighbors are presently engaged in the doggie poop war. One neighbor lets her two massive dogs take massive craps on her front lawn. The other neighbor is disgusted by their piles and has been googling medical websites to learn about diseases that are transmitted from doggie poop. Health inspectors have been called. There have been screaming matches in the street. Nice.

A real crisis is unfolding on the next block over. A troubled family is getting divorced. The three children are living on donations from the town food pantry. Restraining orders. Unemployment checks. Disability checks. Yesterday afternoon, they told me that their divorce was finalized, and the court ordered them to sell their house in order to pay for the lawyer fees. A former waitress, the mother has no hope of supporting her three kids on her own. She needs a hip replacement and doesn’t have a college degree. He’s an out of work electrician. Together, they were just holding it together financially. Now separated, they’re all going to be on welfare and food stamps for the rest of their lives. Who knows where they are going to live after the house is sold?

My inner commie feels like the system let them down. This family needed major intervention last year — medication for mood disorders, free childcare for the 3 year old twins, rehab, anger management classes, couples therapy. They needed a social worker to help them find services and fill out paperwork. Even though they weren’t a happy couple, happy relationships are a luxury for the middle class. The state should have helped them stay together for financial reasons. Because the state didn’t step in earlier, now they have a bigger mess on their hands. Everybody is going to be receiving welfare and housing from the state for a long time.

So, I’m mad at the inadequacies of social welfare programs in our country. I’m also mad at myself. Maybe I could have stepped in to help. Steve thinks I’m crazy; those people had too many problems. Still, it’s an oldest daughter thing. I always think I can fix things.

Published by Laura

6 thoughts on “A Suburban Block”

  1. Sometimes the system seems like a giant mess of holes for people to fall through. That’s tough, all around. And thanks for saying it’s an oldest daughter trait to want to fix things. (During my recent hospital stay, the woman across the hall coded, and the nurse called for help… it was all I could do not to rush to her. I have no medical training, was on some very nice pain meds, but still, my first thought was “Go help.” Some things you just can’t shake.)

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  2. I think it makes a lot more sense to get a lot of the family services you’re talking about from a church community, although unfortunately the sort of thing I’m thinking about exists mostly in Evangelical circles. Think Brad Wilcox’s Soft Patriarchs and the focus on getting men to put their wives and children first. The problem with state family services is that you can’t walk away from them, which is going to make families much less eager to invite the state to arbitrate between husband and wife and between parents and children.

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