[nucleardog]

> The tricky thing is, if you let anyone just choose not to pay, there will be plenty of people who are capable of paying who don't bother. In your case, it sounds like your dad was maybe capable of paying but wanted to freeload.

I say this as an IT worker making what most would consider an absurd amount of money and pays 0.55*absurd money in taxes, a dad, a human, etc... what the fuck does any of this matter.

If a child is hungry, the only concern is feeding that child. A child is, pretty much by definition, incapable of fully caring for themselves. If their parents fail to care for them, we have various mechanisms for the state to step in in their stead up to and including taking them away and giving them to someone else.

"Sorry, Johnny, your dad has the money to pay for lunch but chose not to so we're punishing you with going hungry until he wises up."

Full stop no.

If a child is hungry, they get fed. Politics can dictate that adults who are less valuable deserve to starve to death. Politics can dictate that adults who can afford to feed their child but choose not to need to be punished, taxed more, or anything else.

But we, as a society, have the means to ensure that no child ever has to go hungry. Every decision that leads to hungry children is offensive, and anyone choosing to punish adults by starving their children is a monster.

Downvote, flag, or come fight me. I'll die on this hill: Neglecting children is bad and anyone who could help and doesn't is at fault.

[em-bee]

exactly. if you want to play hardball, then send a bill to the parents. send a debt collector if you believe that they have the money. but don't withhold food from the children. i mean we might as well bar children from school if their parents don't pay taxes. it's really the same thing.

[graemep]

I agree the child should be fed, but we also need to think about the other wide of this.

It sounds as though the dad in this case was able to pay but refused to pay. What sort of person puts their own child through this to make a point? It is neglectful or abusive.

[pertymcpert]

You know there are countless parents that abuse their kids, physically, emotionally, sexually. They rape their kids and strangle them until they pass out. They hit them in places where bruises aren't visible. They break bones and threaten the kids with death if they dare tell anyone or show their injury or pain.

Why do we suddenly need to especially think about the other side of this because tax money is involved? Now we need to care?

[graemep]

No, we should care in all cases.

The point is that the problem is not necessarily fixed by providing lunch. What else is going on if someone is deliberately not feeding a child?

[mulmen]

Why would providing food preclude support for victims of or intervention in other types of abuse?

[nkrisc]

Yeah, it is abuse. But feed the child if the parents won’t or can’t.

[framapotari]

All the more reason for using schools to feed children who may be abused and starved at home.

[graemep]

Yes, but is that all you do? One meal a day does not solve the problems of an abused child.

[acdha]

You know, we say “don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good” a lot for technical problems but it’s far more critical here. A child from a failing home has a lot of problems and it often takes a long time to solve them, but we can for a trivial amount of money ensure that child isn’t malnourished because they get breakfast, lunch, and in many Title 1 schools, dinner. Many of the other problems of poverty, neglect, or abuse are much harder to solve – e.g. sending a child to foster care might be the solution for abuse but it’s slow and has plenty of risks of its own – but this one is easy and cheap to fix while we work on the hard problems.

[framapotari]

Of course that is not all, how on earth did you get that impression?

Doing something to address a problem doesn't imply that nothing else will be done and that this one thing is expected to solve the problem entirely. I didn't think this needed explaining.

[ninalanyon]

That really is someone else's problem. The best the school can do is feed and support the child and report the abuse to the relevant authorities.

[GuinansEyebrows]

> What sort of person puts their own child through this to make a point? It is neglectful or abusive.

So... your point is that not feeding the child is neglectful or abusive?

That's basically the position that proponents of free school meals have.

[ninalanyon]

> anyone choosing to punish adults by starving their children is a monster.

Well said!

[charcircuit]

>A child is, pretty much by definition, incapable of fully caring for themselves.

This is disrespectful to the intelligence of children.

>we're punishing you with going hungry until he wises up

Not giving people free things is not a punishment.

>as a society, have the means to ensure that no child ever has to go hungry.

Giving away free food is not the only way to achieve that.

>Every decision that leads to hungry children is offensive

I disagree as there may be times where it is fine. This statement to me is equivalent to saying that we shouldn't make children feel sadness or pain. These are just parts of living. People will naturally experience them and later move on.

>punish adults by starving their children

Schools do not starve children. While yes schools prohihit people from leaving, school only last for a part of the day before they are released, and parents can pickup a child at any time. In order to starve someone you need to block access to food for a very long period of time.

[decimalenough]

I'm not sure where to even begin with this, but a large part of why free school lunches exist is that there are many kids in abusive or simply desperately poor families who do not get fed properly, meaning that the school lunch may be the only decent meal they get.

> Not giving people free things is not a punishment.

This is absurd. Kids don't have money to purchase what they need, so parents have a duty to feed, clothe, house etc them. Intentionally not providing children what they need, like food, is abuse, period.

[charcircuit]

>meaning that the school lunch may be the only decent meal they get

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

By giving away food you are getting people stuck in a bad situation. Preventing a reconfiguration of people's lives. A kid could have figured out how to get 3 proper meals a day if they had to figure out how to get food themselves instead of sustaining themselves on a single daily handout.

>Kids don't have money to purchase what they need

Again you are underestimating the abilities of kids. They are capable of providing value to others and consequently receiving money or goods that they need.

>parents have a duty to feed, clothe, house etc them.

But this duty is not because their children don't have money. The duty is because they are family. I wouldn't expect a patent to take in every homeless person to their household because they don't have money to purchase what they need.

>Intentionally not providing children what they need, like food, is abuse, period.

I think it's more complex. Parents have power over children and using that power they can restrict what they do and make it impossible for them to acquire what they need. To me this restriction is what is abusive and it would apply to anyone else. If you locked anyone in a room and denied them water, that would be abuse.

[mulmen]

> Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

It’s a lot easier to teach someone when they aren’t starving.

Teaching someone to fish almost certainly requires giving them a fish.

That’s how teaching works. First you do it for them, then you ask them to try and you help them when they falter.

[wredcoll]

> By giving away food you are getting people stuck in a bad situation. Preventing a reconfiguration of people's lives. A kid could have figured out how to get 3 proper meals a day if they had to figure out how to get food themselves instead of sustaining themselves on a single daily handout.

You realize this is a completely invented statement of faith, right? It has no data or research supporting it.

[jdbernard]

> >parents have a duty to feed, clothe, house etc them.

> But this duty is not because their children don't have money. The duty is because they are family.

I'd like to live in a society where we extend this duty to the society. It is the parent's duty foremost, but we as a society should see this as our duty as well, at the very least for our children (and let's think of it that way, we are in this together, at least when it comes to our children).

> A kid could have figured out how to get 3 proper meals a day if they had to figure out how to get food themselves instead of sustaining themselves on a single daily handout.

I'm with you as far as the principle of personal responsibility is concerned, we are all better when everyone contributes, and I agree that we should teach our children this principle. However, the whole reason that, even legally, we don't treat kids as adults is that they are not adults, cannot and should not be held to the same standards. Withholding the basic necessities of life is not the way to teach this principle.

It doesn't even work consistently. I'd argue that many of the people that are fraudulently taking advantage of welfare programs are doing so because they were taught, as kids, that society doesn't care about them. So why should they care about us? Why shouldn't they take advantage of whatever they can? I'm not justifying this position, or even saying it is logically sound, but kids are not adults. If withholding school lunches is your method for "teaching responsibility" it is really ineffective.

Just feed the kids. We're not giving them free Xboxes. We're keeping them healthy and alive so that they can learn.