There’s a poor family in my neighborhood — a middle-aged couple with a teenage daughter. Neither of the parents seems to have ever worked the father learns according to an idiosyncratic schedule and the mother gets government help and shnorrs food from people. They’ve been thrown out of a local chesed agency.
They’re intelligent people but the mother regularly appears on people’s doorsteps looking for company food and “tutoring money” for her child. This seems like a psychological obsession — she’ll ask for things she doesn’t even need although she can be fussy about what kind of food she’ll take. She rarely makes Shabbos instead asking people for invitations.
I don’t mind helping out but this lady arouses the fear that the more I give the more she’ll take. I’m not a person with endless time and resources to help her; in fact sometimes I get resentful and want to say “Look some of us work for a living and don’t have time to hang out!” Obviously it’s part of her craziness to expect people she barely knows to drop everything and take care of her needs without her having to take responsibility or give back.
She makes my kids very uncomfortable as well. I did host this family once for a Shabbos and would perhaps do it again once in awhile but some of my children are adamant that they don’t want them.
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