The New York Times ran a multi-part series a few months ago focusing on a homeless girl named Dasani (named after the water) and how social programs both help and hinter her family. Her parents are pretty much an example of what conservatives warn about: They never graduated high school, do and sell drugs, don't work, had way too many children than they can afford, and are in and out of rehab.

The article focused how little help they get from the city. $23K for eight children and themselves, their shelter has perverts roaming the halls and bathroom, the facilities are barely maintained and filled with vermin — Dasani herself had to fix the plumbing in the room — and the child welfare workers are not sympathetic to the pressures of the situation. I can't imagine foster care doing them any good.

But as I read about Dasani, I could totally see her growing up and never leaving her condition. At the moment she's ten and sees the world with a child's clarity and determination: She won't do drugs, she won't have kids too early. I'm just imagining her entering high school and that all changing. Her mother for one is a bad influence. She is a pugnacious individual and encourages Dasani to do the same to the point that Dasani is suspended from school for fighting after multiple warnings. Education is the best way out of a bad situation, and her mother is not helping in that aspect.

Actually the mother is trying to get Dasani to be noticed and perhaps go on television or enter a sports team. While that's a noble dream, I feel she's entering the same trap lots of other people from impoverished communities enter as well. Although you will get a lot of money if you succeed, the competition is tough and your chances aren't that good. Unlike other people, you have no safety net to fall back on if this doesn't work out. It's better to focus on a more dependable and probably less lucrative path for now to create that safety net in the middle class so your children have a chance.

At the same time I can see what the article is getting at: The parents definitely mismanage money, they don't deserve what they're getting, but okay. Let's take away from them. What about the innocent children then? Yeah, there's too many of them, but I don't feel comfortable saying, "Yeah, you little shit, you've been riding the gravy train for too long." By punishing the parents, you're inadvertently punishing the kids. Some people sneer and say the children will become just like their parents, which I said above can possibly happen, but at the same time it possibly can't. You don't know what potentiality is. There are plenty of people who came from poor situations and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams; isn't that was the American dream is about?

Then there are people who say taking away welfare programs will encourage the parents to work (the father seems useless in this aspect) and have less children. Possibly, but simultaneously let's look at the late 1800s before the welfare programs were in place. Plenty of people were alcoholics who didn't work, and plenty of people still had children, it's just those kids starved and died. I don't think anyone would be comfortable with that situation in modern-day United States.

When I came out of The Times series, I wasn't really able to offer any answers. Again, the parents are pretty much completely at fault for what's happening. This is not a case of the system fucking them over. They did it to themselves. But the kids didn't do it, and you want to remove them from that lifestyle quickly so they don't become their parents. It's causing conflicting emotions; I don't want to reward bad behavior but I still feel there's a societal duty to poor children. Thank god I'm not a politician because I'd be paralyzed.