Welfare Recipients

Re “Worried Welfare Recipients Bemoan Cuts in Benefits,” Jan. 1:

Poverty is never a laughing matter, but I had a hard time suppressing a smile at the plight of a welfare mother who couldn’t afford Pampers for her child. I raised two daughters in the mid-’70s and I couldn’t afford Pampers either. I also thought Pampers were a waste of paper, plastic and landfill space. So I did what my mother before me and her mother and millions of women worldwide do. I washed cloth diapers.

I wonder if the average American mother even knows how to launder cloth diapers. It’s important to hang them out on the line to dry. It’s not only cheaper, but the ultraviolet light of the sun has a sanitizing effect. When you gather them into the basket, they smell wonderful. Maybe instructions on laundering diapers should be part of sex education.

VICTORIA TENBRINK

Pomona

* Your article has a very bad ring to it. That politicians with their own political interests take it out on the poor. There is no shame in being poor; very few take advantage of the welfare system. Some people believe that it is a get-rich-quick plan. It is not. But this is a politician’s dream.

Set up new plans with no cutbacks to help people off welfare. Let people on welfare set up how the program will work. Try to live on the streets with no money and see how the programs run; they’re almost like Mel Brooks’ film “Life Stinks.”

DeWAYNE GRACE JR.

Canoga Park