Leaving Dependency

My Life as a Welfare Brat focuses on how people take advantage of the welfare system and become dependent on a government check every month. The reader travels through time with a woman who played and cheated the system. The writer takes us on her journey of redemption and self-discovery. To get to this point in her life she goes through many challenges and trials.

Star Parker is a woman who went through three abortions, years of drug abuse and her strongest dependence a welfare check. Parker came from a family that was not well off, but worked hard and did not accept any handouts. At an early stage in Parker’s life, she felt independent and old enough to be on her own in the streets of Los Angeles. Los Angeles introduced her to the dangerous nightlife. She began to get trapped in a lifestyle consumed with late nights, angel dust and numerous men. After many encounters with men and three abortions, Parker decided that she wanted be a mother and gave birth to a baby girl who she named Angel. This was the first step in Star Parker becoming a different person. By having a child, she saw it as a step in a new direction.

Parker was an avid welfare dependent who learned how to make side money off of the system. The life that she lived gives light to some of the reasons taxpayers criticize the Welfare system. Taxpayers are afraid that their hard earned money is being used and given to people who are lazy and do not want to work. Her story shows how easy it is to manipulate the government and a life of complacency with receiving a check.

Doing research on Star Parker, I found that after having all of these revelations and changing her life, she is now a part of the Republican Party. Rush Limbaugh wrote her introduction to her autobiography and she is totally against the Welfare system.  While I agree that the Welfare system promotes dependency, I think that Star Parker is looking at the system from her own perspective. Not every single person is manipulating the system; there are some who actually need it. Parker is a person who has made it to where she wants to be in life, but has turned her back on the community that she use to look to for help.