This Is For You, Mr. Obama

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That's what you've always heard, isn't it? I will confess--in our house, it's usually the only one in which all 3 of us are sitting down at the same time. I've tried instituting this at dinner, and it's very difficult. Lunch is usually just my daughter banging and hollering with her pots and pans while I rush to get her food together. But breakfast is special--coffee mugs, scrambled eggs, toast...the whole 9 yards.

Most mornings at the breakfast table are all about getting as much conversation in before my husband has to dart out the door. This morning was no exception. We were talking about the dreams we'd had the night before, discussing the current political upheavals, and this morning we were specifically griping about the healthcare plan that Obama is proposing. Obviously, like most hard-working "middle class" honest clean-nosed Americans, we are very angry about it. Most rich Americans have worked hard at some point in their life to become rich. Lower class Americans are increasingly becoming a class of lazy welfare-cashing disability-faking low-lifes that are content with altering the face of the rest of the classes for the sake of getting as much as they can without ever lifting a finger. I don't mean at all to be judgmental or accusatory. I am just calling it as I see it.

My saddest thought, though, with the possible impending alteration of healthcare, was my daughter. Not only does making healthcare "free" to those who can't (read choose not to) afford it, but it puts an even bigger burden on my husband's hard-earned paycheck. He has put in a lot of blood, sweat, & tears to get his degree. He has worked overtime hours and been gone to training seminars when SC was just a baby. It has been a long difficult road, and we are just beginning to see some of the benefits. Just barely. I feel like, as we begin to come out of that dark tunnel into the light, the beautiful spread before us is being snatched away piece by piece. So I pondered my daughter's future. Not only is she already (what is it?) 30 kajillion dollars in debt before she can write her name, but what kind of career could she ever have? Let's say she wants to become (God forbid it now with this bill being pushed) a doctor one day. She will still be required to go through YEARS of college, med school, residency, etc. None of that, God-willing, will change. But what happens when all of her years of hard work are over? Will she be able to, as a hard-working middle-class-and-rising American, buy a new car for herself as a reward? Will she be able to pay off her med school debts? Will she be able to afford a decent apartment in a safe area? No.

As I said to my husband across the breakfast table, "she will have to put in just as much work, but with no pay!" Well something finally sparked a note of irritation in my little one. She slammed her waffle down and looked indignantly up at us and in her gravelly monster voice shouts "NO PAY!"

My husband & I have decided she may have a different career ahead of her--politics.