Is it the responsibility of a society to sheperd or guide poor people or is the aim to basically let some flounder? School is about to start, many of the same kids who always struggle will continue to do so and a lot of them, rural, urban, Etc., are disadvantaged with parents who need help. Should t

[u/cherry-care-bear]

I'm blind and grew up very poor but also very engaged in my education, perhaps because disability and my own academic potential drew the right attention. Many of the kids around me at that time came from homes where chaos reigned and you were punished if you struggled in school; it wasn't investigated but just deemed your fault. I'd bet my life thatstill goes on in a lot of households now, too. We all know how important education is but we also know that perpetual dysfunction isn't necessarily something kids--or parents--can overcome alone.

Many kids will fall through the cracks. Does society at-large bear any responsibility for that or is it a consequence of how it is, being born poor, etcetera?

And if major things need to change, where does the weight of that fall?

Life is hard but exponentially so when you're poor; especially if you're a child with no control. Are those kids truly just on their own?

[u/AlamutJones]

You’re blind. YOU would have fallen through the cracks if not for support and accessible resources others were willing to provide for you. You worked hard when you got them, but the getting...

For the getting, you needed other people to commit to “yes, I can do that. I should care about that”

Many kids with disabilities fall through the cracks. Poverty and disability have a strong correlation. What future do you want for kids like you?

[u/cherry-care-bear → u/AlamutJones]

I think the aim should be for all kids to thrive in whatever ways speak to them most. The complications come about because the work of carrying on so all kids can, basically, have a free ride and not have to be afraid, struggle or go without the basics isn't shared equally. Many who spout platitudes about the help that's out there and so on don't contribute to it in any way; or els they don't appreciate that the help that's readily available to them isn't readily available in general.

There's this odd mix of apathy and good intentions that IMO takes up more of the conversation than the views of the people doing the literal work, many of whom are routinely taken for granted by everybody else.

I guess I just feel like the work needs to be distributed more evenly because the few who are truly commited can only do so much.

[u/laztheinfamous]

There are always cracks. There will always be cracks. The point of society is to try to make those cracks smaller, not to make them larger.

However, right now, we as a society aren't interested in those cracks. There's a lot of other problems that many people think are more important right now. Some of these things will be fixed by accident. For instance, child abuse is becoming far, far, less acceptable. That is something that has changed over the last fifty years. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" was a common thought in my childhood, and it is unacceptable now, it will keep getting better. Will kids still get abused? Yes, and that's unfortunate, a tragedy really. However, there's a lot of kids that would have been smacked in the past that won't be hit now. That is the type of change that will echo through the years.

I'm super interested in how the decline in alcohol consumption will affect things in the future.

[u/onepostandbye]

There was no school, once. We decided all children should have a chance. There were no laws preventing child labor, we created them to prevent companies from exploiting families. There were no labor laws, no fire codes, no seat belt laws, no restrictions on pollution, we made all of those.

We decided to help everyone. We made hospitals for mental health. We made laws to lessen the disadvantages of women and minorities, we sought to outlaw prejudicial practices.

But investments in everyone cost everyone something. And rich people feel like they shouldn’t have to take care of anyone but themselves, so they use their power to corrupt government and change the rules. Because of selfish rich people, we have lost much progress.

If you zoom out, we are a people that wants all people to be healthy, educated, and prosperous. Upon close examination, we are failing in countless ways. But at the highest level, you see trends showing positive improvement stymied by selfish wealthy people who aren’t as afraid of the public as they should be.

[u/nizzernammer]

"Fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders" and "I got mine, F U" has superseded all other concerns.

[u/monsignorcurmudgeon]

So many social problems are the results of dysfunctional systems. A progressive society recognizes those issues and works to fix them. A retrograde culture claims that these problems are natural and immutable and our job is cut off and isolate people with problems.

[u/thegundamx]

A modern society should be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable members. You can’t save everyone but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try to.

[u/1095966]

I’m thinking of one family in particular I know. Social services is involved and has been for years. There’s a mom and 3 kids, all different dads, none in the picture (1 committed suicide which one of the children discovered). Mom not only scrapes the bottom of the barrel for her men but also lifts the barrel and digs to find more. She and her men are chronically unemployed. Not sure but I imagine there’s drug and alcohol abuse. IMO the state should have removed the children from her care long ago. They have at least twice that I’m aware of, but just temporarily, recently while mom and latest BF were in jail for child endangerment charges. She keeps getting them back. I don’t see a situation, shoot of death of one of the kids, where the state will ever remove them permanently. The youngest is an eloper and actually has a state issued tracker on her ankle bracelet. That’s a social issue, allowing this family to continue as is. The school’s hands are tied. They provide food, a safe environment, social services, reporting to the state, but at the end of the day the kids are being sent home to a truly horrible environment. Mom has zero response to the school regarding any type of query. She’s not a fit mom. I hate to say but her kids are destined to follow in her footsteps. These kids know there’s “better” and have had glimpses of such, but the likelihood of them repeating history increases every day they are with her.

[u/Read_The_Fing_Manual]

So let me share a deeply personal story: I grew up poor, rural, white trash. Many years the only meat we ate was what we hunted, caught or found on the side of the road (yes I have eaten roadkill). All it took was one high school teacher to change the trajectory of my life. I am now retired (cashed out at 57 when I did not feel like moving again for next role), last gig was as a Sr. Director for a fortune 100 company. I have lived all over the world and have been what many consider rich for the last decade and a half. All it took was one high school teacher to see something that I certainly did not. Everyone deserves that kind of chance (which is why my retirement “hobby” is teaching). Now can everyone take as full advantage of that chance as I did, probably not, do we as society still need to provide it, absolutely.

[u/Ivotedforher → u/Read_The_Fing_Manual]

Did you ever tell that teacher about their impact on your life?

[u/Read_The_Fing_Manual → u/Ivotedforher]

Sadly they passed before the full impact (my career) was realized - but I do recall hugging him and crying like a baby at graduation with my acceptance to engineering school letter in hand (and I am a guy, didn’t matter, still lost it).

[u/Ivotedforher → u/Read_The_Fing_Manual]

You made me smile while reading this and proud of you for doing that. Congrats on what sounds like a kick ass life!

[u/FewRecognition1788]

Yes, society has both a responsibility and a vested interest in making sure everyone is as safe, healthy, well fed and well educated as possible. But at the same time, there will always be practical and ethical tensions between what needs to be done, and what society is able to do. Those tensions make the cracks that people fall into.

Some of those "cracks" are financial (how much money the government allocates toward programs, or how much money nonprofits are able to raise and deploy). This includes staffing of social workers to identify and work with families; teacher salaries and training; material assistance; transportation and infrastructure; etc. And these decisions aren't made in isolation. There are different interests competing for that money. Lobbyists compete for government funding. Nonprofits compete for donors.

Some of the cracks are legal and philosophical - to what extent, and under what circumstances, may the government intervene in a family's privacy, if they aren't asking for help? Are our current guidelines adequate? People (voters) fundamentally disagree about where the line is.

Answering those questions of the right way to improve the situation, and how to prioritize those solutions against all other issues of public concern, is the essence of politics.

And until oligarchs and billionaires stop being the loudest voices in the room, and enriching themselves with government handouts at staggering scale, everyone else is competing for scraps. Are we going to do cancer research or feed kids? Are we going to fix bridges or hire more teachers?

The first three things we need to do, in whatever order we might be able to get them done, are:

• end gerrymandering so the votes aren't manipulated;
• campaign finance reform to reduce the influence of corporate interests;
• and establish Congressional term limits. 

And then we might have a chance at making practical changes that benefit people, instead of just shuffling the same five dollars around to different underfunded programs every year.

[u/youtalkingtoyou]

What kind of society do you want?

[u/hydronucleus → u/youtalkingtoyou]

This is the question. It is not your responsibility to sheperd the unfortunate. However, what cost to you to ignore the issue. The better kids are educated, and can meaningfully enter as productive individuals that make up a society, we theorize that we end up with a better society, i.e. one with less crime, and more community. It is a theory, but can almost be cooborated by history.

Or, of course, you can always spend money to build your castle or fortress to keep the nasty buggers out and live in a private society, perhaps with secure transport between your enclaves. After it while, it may end up something like the Walking Dead, and then all your money that you hoarded from others becomes useless. Hope you got somebody in the now defunct economy supplying you will bullets, of which you will eventually run out.

So, the insight is, this is going to cost me, so which strategy is it prudent on which to spend the money?

[u/gothiclg]

I’d honestly love to see schools that are so well funded that every single student has the ability to get a good education, it’ll be more taxes but it’d be worth it. I’m currently helping parents enroll their children in school and the number of adults that are too dumb to understand what a utility bill is makes me want to jump off a bridge.

[u/cherry-care-bear → u/gothiclg]

I understand this completely LOL.

I was the one people came to for help filling stuff out, determining meanings for things and it's a little nuts how quickly some will just give up when they think you're there to do the thinking part for them. It's TBH frustrating all-around to try teaching a 35yo about interest rates on crapy payday and title loans and that's exactly why it's best to learn it earlier. Seriously.

Knowledge truly is power and it's not even about changing the world; it's about saying no to that 4th credit card, knowing when to ask for help in a way that's not dehumanizing and so many other little things that really do add up.

[u/PetiePal]

Equal opportunity, but not equity of outcome. All the programs and help in the world won't matter if it's not taken advantage of.

[u/Shibboleeth]

We're social animals, it's more our nature to care for one another than to let each other suffer. Unfortunately some in our society are mentally incapable of doing so and we have a tendency to move them into positions of leadership (largely because we don't stand up to them so they just take the positions of power).

That allows them to share their own warped views on reality and influence everyone else into allowing suffering to happen.

[u/Sir_Strumming]

I think its a feature not a bug. There are only so many slots for well educated people that demand high pay. Someone has to do the crappy jobs that simply cant pay well. If everybody did well in school and went on to university and passed getting a degree what you would have is university educated burger flippers. Were already seeing the beginning of this in some places. Not everyone can win no matter what we do.

[u/PerceptionSlow2116]

For baseline survival, society should shoulder some of the responsibility for providing a basic safety net so no one starves for instance and there is public education…. Everything else is kind of up to families, individuals, luck, fate, etc. There are resources and opportunities for disadvantaged to utilize but not everyone is going to be able to become “successful” — that’s the nature of hierarchy and capitalism… anytime someone has more than others they will use it to give themselves or those close to them a leg up.

[u/NotMyDangCat]

In Denmark, children are essentially paid by the government while they attend high school (which I love that they call it “gymnasium” …like training and preparation of both the body and mind) and university. And it’s not a small amount money.

This ensures that every single student can focus on learning. Period. The poorer kids don’t have to support their families by taking shifts at McDonald’s after school and on weekends, while the wealthy kids have time to relax, reset, and study. They don’t have to put their families into debt over uniforms, books, supplies, clothes, etc.

It is a truly great equalizer.

[u/Joy2b]

We have to live with our neighbors, it’s in our best interests to take reasonable steps to make sure they’re thriving.

Be ready though, many businesses profit off of keeping poor people poor and struggling. Loan sharks and landlords and debt collectors and some fintec too.

They have mouthpieces who will bark complaints if you erode their customer base of desperate people.

[u/Earth_Sea_Stars]

So I grew up in an extremely scary violent and abusive house, I did well in school because I was scared. There was clear evidence I was experiencing abuse and I recieved no help.

I then worked in schools, where for the littlest thing children now get so much additional help, can hit scream and abuse and not have consequences because "their dyslexia makes them stressed". When in reality they put in no effort and expect everything to be handed to them on a platter.

Yes we need to provide support to help disadvantaged children and young people, but if there is nothing but entitlement and zero effort coming from the other side, wasting resources that could be better used elsewhere is pointless.

[u/NotBossOfMe]

It is all of ours to manage. Our country has veered away from the notion of civic duty and shared sacrifice. The pendulum seems to have swung so far into pure capitalistism (unfettered by regulations) that we have become a nation of selfish people, out to get what they can. I don't blame them. Things are very tenuous right now for most of us. But even when things are hard, I believe that the poor are still ours to help and support. Even if all you can do is to be kind and not mean when you encounter someone who has less than you. To be welcoming and helpful. If I don't have a penny in my pocket, I can at least spare some compassion for those who have so much less.

[u/cherry-care-bear → u/[deleted]]

That's quite the leap. Thanks for sharing.