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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (19511)	3/31/1998 1:24:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Duncan, read the articles again. It is not teenagers who have a stake in the future who are getting pregnant, for the most part. It is children who are poor and have not much to look forward to who use this as a survival strategy. I can pretty much guarantee you that middle class girls who are college bound are not dropping out of high school to have babies and live on welfare. On the other hand, I am very much in favor of curtailing benefits to teenage mothers, to make sure that there is no further incentive for the behavior. But really, poverty and lack of a future are the core characteristics of this population. All over the U.S., welfare benefits are being reevaluated, and cut. I have no problem with that, either, but we do need a minimum wage that will allow people who work hard all day to at least provide food and shelter for their families. In San Francisco and the Silicon Valley here in California, people working fulltime often live in homeless shelters or the street. To me, the standard of living in other countries is totally irrelevant. We are here, in a very wealthy country. Children born to poverty who grow up demoralized without any realistic hope of middle class life tend become angry and commit crimes. They also use drugs and alcohol to kill pain, and a huge number of crimes are committed while high on various substances. The amount of money it takes to fully fund HeadStart for toddlers, so that there is a reasonable chance they will develop well and do well in school, and fund programs like school lunches, is minute compared to the cost of warehousing criminals later. This selfish shortsightedness is something I don't personally care for. Incidentally, teenagers have been getting pregnant since the beginning of time. The only thing that has really changed is that many of them are no longer forced into marriage when that happens.

To: Zoltan! who wrote (19511)	3/31/1998 1:36:00 AM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Duncan, there is one statement that you made which I missed the first time, about how people who do not need school lunches can still sign up for them. I don't believe this is true. First, at least in San Francisco, there are several pages of forms that must be completed in detail to qualify, and this information must be substantiated, and is checked for truthfulness. They are federal forms, I believe, so I would assume that they are fairly standard all over the country. Secondly, getting a free school lunch is a stigma, to the child and its parents. It is very embarrassing to be needy, and not to be able to feed your own children, and people feel deep shame about this for the most part. I believe a few "welfare queens" have given a bad name to millions of the truly poor and hungry. Anyway, much fraud is committed by white collar criminals, who are in no way needy!! I think if we are going to have this discussion, we should keep it in balance.