"The Curse" Assignment

I am a home visitor. My job is to educate parents in different areas including child learning and development (including responsive teaching strategies that promote child learning, social-emotional growth and development, etc.), nutrition, health, medical support, resource mapping and capacity building. I serve up to 12 children and their families, and I go to their homes once a week for an hour and a half. Before that, I was the agency’s interpreter, and supported the home visitors and the Spanish speaking families served by them.

A while back, there was a particular family that I supported. This family was very impoverished and has access to very few resources because of their immigration status. They, like all undocumented immigrants in the U.S., had no access to health and human services such as food stamps, Medicaid, Work First, unemployment benefits, etc. This family consisted of the mom, the dad, a 9 month old, a two year old and a 10 year old. They barely could make ends meet and did not have enough food, clothes, furniture or access to medical care. I was somewhat aware of the situation after the first home visit, but as time went by and I went to their home every week, the mom shared more and more about their situation, including not having enough food for the children, leave alone her and her husband. I felt that their situation was dire and started taking them food, clothing and any other stuff that I could get my hands on, including a couch.

Time went by and I was still supplying the family with necessities. I felt responsible for that family and specially wanted to make sure the children had enough food and appropriate clothing, especially during winter. I was exhausted mentally, physically and financially. Then I started noticing that the family was really not as bad off as they were making it out to me. They had a fairly big, nice and modern TV couple with a sound system, they went to Chucke Cheese every weekend, and got a car. I started resenting the family for abusing of my kindness. There I was, a single mom, shopping at thrift stores for my child and myself, budgeting everything, no luxuries like cable, using the same cell phone that I had gotten six years ago and never engaging in social or recreational activities that required spending money. Then it dawned on me. This was my own fault. I had trained them to depend on me for necessities and hence they simply expected me to fulfill the role of provider.

          I talked to the family and explained that I could no longer help them and that I was proud of them for being able to provide for themselves on their own. I have never made the mistake of assuming a provider role for another family after that; don’t get me wrong I still help whoever and however I can but no longer take it on as my responsibility.