Claudia Steiger -Back in Dortmund

Claudia went straight home from Thailand, as anyone would do, since it had been so long since she had seen friends and family. Circumstances made it difficult for her to avoid getting into a rut and badly bogged down. In Germany you have no proper state health cover until you are in employment for six months - unless you are on one of the 'guest-worker'- type visas. Like-wise if you are a German citizen you need a similar time in employment before you get access to any welfare benefits. I have always managed without benefits (a pride thing), but then I have sailed a little closer to the edge of disaster than was sensible. Claudia, realistically needed a bit of money to, at the very least, fill the tank on a borrowed car so she could job hunt, etc. It got worse for her: where was she staying? - at her parents. What do welfare states do to make it seem like they have every loop-hole covered? They means-test the parents of welfare applicants, regardless how old they are (the applicants, that is) . So even if you did not want to sponge off the wrinklies, you are forced to. The state is not going to give out any welfare benefits if your parents have any savings, they are expected to spend their savings looking after their kids, regardless whether they are retired or the kids are over eighteen. Welcome to the European social model. This was a very depressing and humiliating situation for Claudia, a woman in her thirties, to be in. To exacerbate this, some friends and family members felt she had just spent the last four years on a merry holiday in Australia and done nothing. This was perhaps an impression created by the very active lifestyle we led in Australia - she always had a story to tell of something new we had done or somewhere new that we had been. She was miserable immediately with all these other factors piling up against her. Things were not looking good.......