Summay And Response

3 Pages 809 Words

In a publication of her piece “From the Welfare Rolls, a Mother’s View” in Newsweek

Magazine in August 1999, the author Elyzabeth Joy Stagg describes her personal

circumstances that led to her need for public assistance. Being one herself, she also

expresses her feelings and her point of view on the topic of welfare moms.

“From the Welfare Rolls, a Mother’s View” by E.J.Stagg touched my feelings and made

me change my perception of welfare moms a little. Stagg states that most people believe

that welfare recipients simply don’t want to work. And I have to agree with her, people

who have a job tend to think this way. But there are also people who fit into that category.

For example, I have an aunt who is going to be 40 this year. She has five children from

five different men. She dropped out of school when she was 14 and she has never had a

job for more than two weeks. She says she doesn’t like to work. On the contrary, Stagg

makes a different impression. As she proves, there are people on welfare who desperately

want to work to earn some money to live a better life. And she isn’t just a statistic. She

has many skills and qualifications. In my opinion she makes it clear that being on welfare

is not her first and final choice.

Stagg writes that her children’s fathers are both more than 10 years older than she is. It

seems to me that she follows a certain pattern of bad choices and bad decision making.

Otherwise she wouldn’t have had unprotected sex again and she wouldn’t have gotten


Y. Dietzold P.2

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