Food Stamps

In the third post of what’s a four-part series, we examined how pursuing hobbies is related to “money can’t buy happiness”, and how this affects food stamps users. In this post—the last one of the series—we’ll see how it all relates to children of families on food stamps.

Children: Pop culture is inundated with movies and TV programs that show one or both parents so caught up in their jobs, they don’t have time for their children. As a result, the kids—despite having money and toys and enrolled in various lessons—are not nearly as happy as children whose parents are involved, even if those kids’ parents are dirt poor. The lesson is that no job is as important as spending precious—free—time with your kids.

Except the one thing those screenwriters are missing is that to be able to enjoy spending time with your kids, you need a certain amount of peace of mind first. How much do you think you’ll be able to relax and have a tea party with your daughter if there’s gunfire outside? Think you can build a table fort with your son when the drug addict down the hall beats his wife until she screams? And how safe would you feel letting your kids play outside when there are constantly cops driving by with drug dealers on the run from them?

And that’s just the peace of mind you need for enjoying free time with your kids, never minding the fact that you need a certain amount of peace of mind to just not scream at them for simply being children. When all you can think of is how behind you are in your bills, mentally calculating which one’s in danger of being shut off first, it’s pretty darn hard to relax enough to enjoy the most basic level of companionship with your children.

But assuming you can push that aside and have the kind of fun with your kids that movies and TV shows tell you to have, what about their futures? How will you send them to college on a $10/hour salary, or teach them about grocery budgeting and cooking when you’re on food stamps? They’re not going to have the kinds of networking options you want for them, no matter how high your dreams for your kids are.

But that’s okay, because you’ve still got quality time with your kid, and that doesn’t cost a cent.

However, up your income to a livable wage—which isn’t always necessarily in line with minimum wage—and suddenly, you can afford the things to bring peace of mind to your family. Your kids can play outside without you worrying about drive-by shootings. You can enroll them in sports and music lessons, turning them into well-rounded children. And you can finally have that free time to just hang out with them. But to do all this, it costs money first.

So while money can’t directly buy the feeling of happiness, it does lay the groundwork for you to achieve it. It buys peace of mind, an almost essential ingredient for happiness for you and your kids.