What's So Bad About Being Poor?

Imagine that you are the parent of a small child, living in contemporary America, and in some way you are able to know that tomorrow you and your spouse will die and your child will be made an orphan. You do not have the option of sending the child to live with a friend or relative. You must select from among other and far-from-perfect choices.

Suppose first this choice: You may put your child with an extremely poor couple according to the official definition of "poor"-which is to say, poverty that is measured exclusively in money. This couple has so little money that your child's clothes will often be secondhand and there will be not even small luxuries to brighten his life. Life will be a struggle, often a painful one. But you also know that the parents work hard, will make sure your child goes to school and studies, and will teach your child that integrity and responsibility are primary values. Or you may put your child with parents who will be as affectionate to your child as the first couple but who have never worked, are indifferent to your child's education, think that integrity and responsibility (when they think of them at all) are meaningless words-but who have and will always have plenty of food and good clothes and amenities, provided by others.

Which couple do you choose? The answer is obvious to me and I imagine to most readers: the first couple, of course. But if you are among those who choose the first couple, stop and consider what the answer means. This is your own child you are talking about, whom you would never let go hungry even if providing for your child meant going hungry yourself. And yet you are choosing years of privation for that same child. Why?

This article is from The National Review back in '88... I think it pretty much sums up Conservative Values and the values of the commenters on the previous post.

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