Reply #129: I was once viciously attacked by such a right-winger type...

[Left Is Write]

My husband was laid off when I was pregnant with our son. When I was seven months pregnant, I joined a discussion on a message board about what stay-at-home wives/mothers could do during hard economic times when their husbands were unemployed.

I wrote that I had trimmed our budget down by reducing our energy use, scaling back at the grocery store, and shopping at discount/thrift shops.

Someone suggested I get a job. I said at seven months pregnant, it would be difficult for me to get a job because any potential employer would know that I'd be at least taking a leave in a few weeks, if not quitting altogether. Besides, I also had a toddler at home to take care of. If I were out working a minimum wage job, my husband would be at home caring for the toddler and thus NOT out making contacts and doing a job search for himself.

This person suggested that I was lazy, looking for excuses not to work, and burdening my husband. This person went on further to say that maybe I should stop "cranking out babies" I couldn't afford to support.

Nowhere did I say we could not afford to support our children. When we conceived our son, we did not have a crystal ball telling us his company was going to dissolve the division he worked for.

When another board member tried to defend me, saying our personal finances were no one else's business, the attacker said it became her business when I showed up at her door asking for a handout (read: welfare).

She assumed that because my husband had been laid off that we would be applying for assistance (we did not, though we would have if necessary). However, he had gotten a decent severance package, we had a few months' worth of living expenses in our savings account, AND he was eligible for unemployment compensation. With careful budgeting, we were going to be fine, even if his job search took quite a while.

I explained this to the attacker, annoyed the entire time that I felt like I HAD to defend myself from her ridiculous statements. She persisted in attacking, going so far as to suggest I shouldn't have gotten pregnant (even though my husband was employed when I conceived) or that I should have gotten an abortion.