Government can’t be ‘parent’ to the poor

Patricia Hershwitzky, Las Vegas

Friday, June 6, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

Regarding the Las Vegas Sun’s Thursday editorial headlined “An untenable situation”:

As a fellow teacher, I believe the Whitney Elementary School staff deserve the highest praise for identifying and meeting the needs of their homeless youth, both physically and academically.

Yet when the Sun’s editorial ponders “how on earth did we get to this place,” I admit bafflement. First, we’ve always (and always will) have the poor among us. Moreover, the vast majority of us has experienced, or will, job loss, catastrophic illnesses, poor judgment and other factors leading to at least temporary impoverishment.

However, whereas immediate and extended families, neighbors and churches were once the front line of assistance, we now foolishly expect the secular state to be the “perfect parent” to us all. The horrible consequences of this shift are far too numerous to describe in a brief letter, but have been well-documented by many sociologists, theologians and economists.