LETTERS: HARD WORK WILL PAY OFF

To the editor:

I have been in Cape Girardeau since I was 5 years old. My mother raised seven children and worked a lot of jobs. She was always around to guide us the right way. She is gone now, but she left us the values of life. There were no welfare or food stamps back then. What she put on the table we ate. We didn't say we want this or that.

We learned if we wanted something we had to work for it. Nothing was handed to us on a silver platter.

When I was in high school, I had to write a speech on welfare and people working. Back then they were going to send single mothers to school and train them for a job. They were going to pay for daycare. A lot of single mother went just to get the welfare department off their backs. A lot went to get away from their children. The government wasted the money, because the single mothers didn't go to work.

If a child is growing up and all she hears is that if she wants a check just have a baby, then the pattern has already been set. That child will grow up and repeat what she had heard. Babies are having babies. It comes a time when the pattern and lifestyle have to be broken. A person has to want that pattern broken.

I have been on welfare before because I needed it. I wanted more in life. I went back to school and finished. My mother and teachers kept telling me I could do it. A child has to have encouragement from parents.

Schools teach our children about safe sex. If it feels good, do it. Just do your own thing. Well, they have been doing their own thing for a few years. Now it has gone too far. The government is trying to do something about it. You cannot change something overnight that has been going on for many years.

The single mothers who are trying to make a living for their families are trying to come out and be counted. The government wants to cut off everything every time someone reports a welfare mother is working. Sometimes they haven't gotten their first paycheck. That discourages a person.

To all the single mothers who are working, going to school and taking care of their children: You can do it. You can make it work because you want to.

MARIAN WALKER

Cape Girardeau