Classic Women

This morning, I was told a heartbreaking story about a woman who I wish women and people in general (read: Americans) would be more like.

Our staff photographer shared this with me about his mother: She was raised during the Great Depression, had her mother die at age 6, and her father passed away a few years later while he was holding her as she slept. She married, had four boys, and was pregnant with a fifth boy when 3 days before that fifth boy was born, her husband was killed in a car crash. She then took care of five young boys by herself for four years before remarrying, and all without ever receiving welfare assistance from the government.

Amazing. I know so many people come across horrendous and unspeakable hardships in life, some worse than this, but it proves something that I believe and have said before. People in America are not the same kind of people that they were back then when people knew that no matter what happened, they had to make their own way in life and had enough pride in themselves to do what was needed to provide for their families, mostly because that was how they were raised, or because that was before welfare was available.

Not only that, but back then, women in particular were classic. They were classy. They cared about their appearance and their modesty. They cared about, well, being a woman. They did their hair everyday, wore makeup and lipstick, and wore nice clothes to do even the most mundane of things like picking up the newspaper from the driveway. They took pride in their appearance and who they were. Sure the opportunities for women were not the same as they are now, but just because we began to receive more opportunities and freedoms didn't mean that our gender needed to lose and disregard what being a respectable woman was about. And so many have done just that. I look at women in America today and shake my head. What's sad is I don't even have to give any examples of a lot of women today, because you know exactly what I'm talking about. They've just completely let themselves go and have lost that pride that women once had. I don't know why it changed so or what changed, but I've always thought it would be great to go back to how it was and just keep the same opportunities women have today. I'll even say that I wouldn't mind wearing dresses and skirts everyday.

Jay (our staff photographer, who was the fifth boy and never met his father), showed me a picture of his mother. And his mother was just the kind of woman I was talking about. In the photo, she was 17, but her appearance was that of a woman. She looked classic.

Her story also highlights the time in our country where people weren't dependent or manipulative of the government welfare system. I know there are people who legitimately need assistance, and that's fine, I'm all for that. But there are also people who are legitimately playing the broken system and remaining dependent on it simply because they can and they want to. Along the way and throughout the years, people have lost their pride in themselves and have settled. I blame a lot of that on welfare. There was a time when people went on welfare because they needed to, and then they decided that what they received was good enough for them and liked not having to do anything. Therefore they didn't and remained on welfare. And over the years it has continued and has been passed down to generation after generation. They lost respect for themselves and lost the will to provide on their own, and in many cases, have used their welfare checks for drugs, alcohol, and who knows what else.

The system is broken, and it has broken so much and so many in our country. It's extremely depressing to me. If people who are on welfare that legitimately do not need to be would gain back what they lost or were never taught, things could become so much better in America than they are now.

Society has just lost so much of it's richness throughout the years and what it means to be an American. I know it's important for humans to evolve, otherwise we wouldn't have things like cell phones or computers (!), but some of the ways we have evolved as a people and as a nation has made us lose so much.