When I was younger, I used to feel sorry for them. It was incomprehensible to me that anyone would want to beg. And so, I concluded, they were forced to it. And perhaps, for those hard times, it was true.
Even now, the sight of a child or a cripple begging usually does move me. Yet, much as it saddens me to see them sometimes, I never reach into my bag for money. Food, maybe, if I have any about me. I also once carried clothes to a woman who seemed to need them. I have never seen her wear what I gave her – but, as the Guy said, even if she sold them to buy something she needs more, it's fine. That's perhaps the same as giving money, but I couldn't pass her every morning and not do anything. She seemed mentally disturbed and as helpless as a child. I know I have done little – perhaps less than nothing. And that is also why I refrain from paying to a beggar – the little I can give will not improve her life, and is perhaps likely to encourage her to not improve it on her own.
The sight of healthy, usually young, men and women with outstretched arms infuriate me. This is a prosperous city, where I will assume work is easily to be found. I should know – I have been looking for a maid the past two months and not found one. I would be willing to pay one of them to clean my house. I thought once of asking a woman begging on my street if she would like that. But I realised she had already made her decision.
It incenses me not only because I work for a living, but because so many people who have had few advantages in life, do. There are maids and vegetable vendors and construction workers. I do not imagine you need qualifications to work as one of these. I cannot believe that a booming city has more than enough of such workers.
I would much rather pay higher wages to a maid for work she does, than to a beggar for not working.
How often have you seen a blind man or cripple being lead by a healthy person who is begging on his behalf? Instead of using the disabled person as a crutch to support themselves, why can't the healthy person work to support the two of them? Is it because begging is more lucrative? Is it because it's easier?
It makes me even angrier to see mothers with young children, using their children as an excuse. Once, I cried out to a woman with an infant in her arms, "Did you consult me before you had the child? Why can't you work to feed him? If I had children, would I come to you for help feeding them?"
The Guy gently admonished me at expecting the woman to have that much sense. But it appalls me what those mothers are teaching their kids.
It makes me feel mean, sometimes, to pass by and not offer a note that I would not even miss. But most of all, it makes me angry. That they never ask for work, only for money.
4 comments:
I don't particularly care for beggars. In the US you have a special kind which hangs out on the expressway interchanges and on-ramps. They sit there day after day looking pitiful, sometimes with their kids with a hand always out. I once saw a news expose on people like these and one guy said he usually raked in $100-$200 in cash, tax-free-of course he didn't want to work. When I was in India I would give little children a few paise but skipped over the adults since as you pointed out, most had made their choice. The irony is that you can afford a maid in India and I cannot in the US.
Here in the U.S. alot of beggars do ask for work, but people are leery of them. They are afraid they will steal, or try to find a way to insinuate themselves into their lives.It's sad, but true. The media doesn't help.
Also a few fakers ruin it for the people who truly do need the help, and as gov't work programs are cut, esp. in this economy, there is no one to champion them, when better qualified people are on the brink of begging now.
I'm right there with you. The ones I hate the most are the ones who intentionally devise ways to prey on the nature of others to help. On top of that, they all seem to be "Christians" and attempt to throw religion into the mix which just upsets me more. As beggars become more inventive with their stories, my own strategies for dealing with them have evolved as well. In Nashville, I've encountered several people who will stop you at a gas pump with some sob story about how they are stranded in town and need money to get back to where ever they came from. I will offer to buy them gas IF they are willing to give me something in their car that I believe to be of equal value to the amount of gas I'm willing to buy for them. Trust me when I tell you those who are truly in need will give you something. Those who just wanted something for nothing will decline and bring up the "Jesus wouldn't have asked for anything in return" excuse.
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