Our kids don’t know poverty.
Not like we did.
When we had our babies,
I stayed home with them.
Besides, by the time we had 3, or 4,
my working was not cost effective anymore.
When we had our babies,
government decided
to downsize middle managers,
so sometimes you were home with us,
and still, somehow, we survived.
When we had babies,
I used cloth diapers,
and hung them out on the line to dry.
One summer, the gas company shut us off,
we had no hot water for weeks.
Our kids don’t know poverty,
Not like we did.
They have nice houses,
new furniture,
They don’t have wealth,
but they don’t go without,
or have to use food stamps
at a local store.
They don’t know the shame
of standing in line
to get that free government cheese,
They don’t know having to take a bus
to go downtown to pay a bill,
and I wonder what they will ever do
if hard times come to call,
or if they will know how to find the joy,
while making it through it all.
cfblack 10-06-2018
Doctor Grandma 
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