Welfare: How Did This Make You Feel And How Did It Change Your Work Ethic?

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LaDawnna shares how she felt when she was on welfare and discusses how it altered her work ethic.

LaDawnna:
I don’t want to do welfare. I did welfare when I left my first husband and I hated it. I felt ashamed.

I didn’t want to pick up those food stamps. I didn’t want to cash that check. I just felt like nothing, and so that’s when I went back to school.

I got myself together and the last check they sent me I sent it back. They couldn’t believe it. I sent the check back. That’s how much I didn’t want welfare or unemployment.

I have never been on unemployment. If I lost a job I went right out, depending on the time of day I lost it, I would go right out and get another one – definitely.

Not sit home and pity myself, oh I lost my job – okay there must be a better one out there. That’s the answer. There has to be a better one out there and I go out and look for it.

And I have never gone and not gotten a job. I have had three jobs at times. I couldn’t find one that will pay all the bills. I had to do what was necessary and unfortunately I had to leave my children.

I didn’t give them the quantity but I gave them the quality, and if anytime you ever talked to my sons they brag on their mother.

“She is a wonderful mother. She made all the sacrifices that were necessary. She put values in me.”

My boys work all the time. There’s never been a time when they just sat around not having a job because that’s how they saw me do.

They saw me work. They saw me make things happen and so that’s how they are. They are entrepreneurs.

I have had several businesses and they worked out pretty good. I like working for myself but I don’t mind working for other people if I am getting something out of it, if I am learning something from it. I try not to go to jobs that have no place to go unless a specific thing.

About LaDawnna Hudson:
Pastor LaDawnna Hudson is the CEO and founder of Women of Power International as well as the first lady and pastor of Shield of Faith Christian Center in Mesa, Arizona. LaDawnna's desire to help women stems from her early years of abuse, depression and poverty. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan in the late 50's, the fourth of nine children, she saw firsthand the struggle of her mother and other women being undereducated, suffering with low self-esteem and being abused by men who treated them more like property than wives. She too suffered hard times, she was raped, beaten, strangled, suffocated, ran down by a car and married to a man who tried to kill her twice. LaDawnna's journey through her troubled past motivates her to help other hurting women change their lives.

Visit LaDawnna at her website