I'm confused. You originally said that D.C. was a world class city. I demurred, and in one post cited an article saying that D.C. was the worst place to raise children. You replied:
Interesting that California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana are all at the
bottom of the list - all except for Louisiana are border states with Mexico, and thus
probably have a large Latino population, which is Roman Catholic, as is Louisiana. The
Catholic teenage girls who get pregant have their babies instead of abortions. So do the
girls in D.C., they aren't going to get married anyway and having a baby gives them
standing in the community.
I am guessing that the high rate of teenage mothers is the source of pretty much of the
rest of the problem - child poverty, child abuse, child neglect, inadequate prenatal care,
inadequate child medical care. Babies having babies.
So you are blaming babies having babies for the general problem, and poverty, child abuse, child neglect, inadequate prenatal care, and inadequate child medical care specifically.
I then said that if D.C. were indeed a world class city it would have programs to deal with these, and you told me that they did. So I'll assume the programs are in place. In only see two alternatives:
a. D.C. is doing a good job of serving their citizens, the progams are effective to deal with the problems, and in general the city makes sure that its babies do not live in poverty, are not abused or neglected, and have adequate prenatal and postnatal care. In that case, your thesis that this is why D.C. is at the bottom of the list for raising children goes out the window.
b. D.C. has all the programs, but they are for whatever reason (lack of funding, poor management, inadequate legal resources, badly written regulations, etc.) not effective to address the problems, so there is still a high degree of child poverty, abuse and neglect, and lack of prenatal and postnatal medical care. In that case, D.C. is failing in its responsibilities as a world class city, because a world class city would make sure that their programs are adequate and adequately run to solve these problems.
c. You could argue that D.C. is doing a great job with its programs but that the mothers aren't taking advantage of them, and it isn't at all the city's fault. I think that is a false argument, because if the programs were successful they would be solving the problems, at least to the extent that D.C. would not be at the bottom of the list of good places to raise children. This assumes that most mothers, of whatever age, given a reasonable choice and programs which were effective, available, affordable, and respectful of them and their children as persons and of their personal dignity, would prefer not to have their children live in poverty, or be neglected or abused, or do without necessary medical care. If this isn't the case, the city has to do a major educational job, which becomes part of the success of the program.
So either you are wrong about the reason for the finding about D.C., or the city isn't doing a world class (or even a marginally acceptable) job in providing essential services to its poorest and most vulnerable citizens. |
