By Rosalinda Rubio

This mother of two has been called fat and lazy and a disgrace and on occasion she was told she wasn't wanted. But instead of letting these insults crush her, she used them to fuel her ambition to the point that she not only juggles parenting responsibilities and a full course-load, maintaining a 3.0 average, she also has learned to speak publicly on behalf of all welfare mothers.

Daisy Ruiz tells about her own life when she speaks at public forums, hoping to educate the community on the challenges of being on public assistance.

"I'm frustrated with all the stereotypes people have created. Not everyone on welfare is lazy. We don't all sit around watching television all day and we don't have a bunch of kids running around.'' She then cites the statistics that indicate that women on welfare have, on average, slightly fewer children than all mothers.

Ruiz is the second of five children. Her mother had an on-again, off-again relationship with her father, a man Daisy describes as cold and unloving.

``As a kid he used to tell me he didn't want me. That he didn't love me. He had wanted a boy and instead he got me. I couldn't change that. Later, as an adult he told me my mom had contemplated an abortion when she found out she was pregnant with me. I'm not sure how he expected me to respond. Did he want me to hate my mother? How could I? She's the only one who has been there for me."

Ruiz's father was little more than an occasional presence in her life. With no job skills, her mother cared for the family with public assistance.

In high school, Ruiz began an intense relationship. She became pregnant at age 19 and confessed to her mother. Enraged, her mother ordered her to leave home.

"What about college, you have you're whole life ahead of you. How do you plan on taking care of this kid? I won't let you throw your life away. If you're going to make this work your going to have to get married." Ruiz says her mother said, as she ordered her daughter out the door.

Ruiz moved in with her boyfriend, but her relationship crumbled within year and a half. Ruiz and her daughter found themselves back in her mother's house. Within a month, her mother ordered her out again. This time, Ruiz had no place to go--except a homeless shelter. That would be their home for the next five-and-a-half months, until she was approved for public housing assistance and provided with a subsidized apartment.

With her own apartment Ruiz was ready to start a new life for her and her daughter. And now that they had a place of their own, her daughter's father was back in the picture. Ruiz envisioned that they would work together to build a better life for their small family. She was eager to become self-sufficient and desperately wanted to attend a four-year college and earn her bachelor's degree.

"I didn't want the same life that my mom had. I knew that if I had a proper education I wouldn't have to."

She asked the Department of Social Services about day care possibilities for her daughter. She was informed that they did not provide assistance for parents in four-year programs. Two years later, she received a notice that she had to report in for Workfare. By this time, she was once again pregnant and therefore not compelled to work for her checks.

In 1996 Ruiz started having serious problems with her boyfriend and she sought counseling. The social worker encouraged Ruiz to return to school and finagled a way to have her now two-year-old son accepted into a subsidized child care program. Her daughter was six by then and in school. Ruiz would be able to attend school full-time.

Ruiz's boyfriend and the father of her two children was not eager to see Ruiz get ahead, she says. After long days at school and shuffling kids back and forth from day care and elementary school she would come home to her apartment and find him on the couch with the dishes piled up in the sink. He would verbally abuse her calling her fat and lazy.

"He would tell me that I should get off my lazy butt and get a real job, make some real money. Meanwhile he's the one lying on the couch. I finally got smart and told him to leave. ''

Ruiz's boyfriend was not the only one that was going to make going to school even more of challenge. Ruiz was in her second semester in the spring of 1997 when she received a phone call from the offices of the Work Experience Program, also known as Workfare. She was informed that in order to continue receiving public assistance, she would have to perform 35 hours of work experience. Her assignment--cleaning streets. She pleaded with the social worker emphatically, saying that there was no way she could possibly meet this requirement while she was attending school full-time and caring for her two kids. In addition, she was also doing 20 hours of federal work study.

"You'll have to drop out, or we'll discontinue your benefits." Ruiz was told by the Workfare office manager. By this time Ruiz had been receiving public assistance for four years and was well aware of her rights. She challenged the office manager, confident and determined that she could overcome any obstacle. She has had two hearings and is on her way to a third, and to date has managed to avoid Workfare assignments.

Instead, she's up at 7 in the morning preparing breakfast for her two kids. Her daughter needs to be at school by 8:30 and her son at day care by 9. In between she has a full course-load and a work study internship. By 6, she has picked up both of her kids and is preparing dinner. Afterwards she'll try to squeeze in a couple of hours of time with her kids, then another hour or two helping her daughter with her homework. By 10 p.m. she can start to tackle her own her homework. Even with all this she has managed to maintain a 3.0 grade point average.

"They're going to honor me at a ceremony," she says almost embarrassed. "Can you believe it? You know, school is the one thing I do have control over, I'm going to make it. My kids are my motivation. Failure is not an option."