>Also, is it personal responsibility if the state has put the parent in a situation where they will be systematically stripped of resources?
That is hardly the only problem. Society isn't at fault for all of the ills of low income areas.
That is hardly the only problem. Society isn't at fault for all of the ills of low income areas.
This mentality is pervasive in the elementary and middle schools that my kids attend and it's unfortunate that adults haven't grown out of it. Thank you for your comment.
True leadership says that we need to work toward fixing the problem, while selfish ambition says, "not my fault, not my problem."
The sad reality is that in the other hand, thanks to the ever present tragedy of the commons, there are selfish people that take advantage of this thinking "someone will fix it, doesn't matter if I contribute to the problem for my own benefit".
[edit]typo: "doing" -> "going"
Our federal and local governments often make it harder for these people, and I'm all for fixing that (with my notion of what a "fix" looks like of course.) That's not the entire story though; how do you make fathers stick around? How do you solve for poverty? You don't, at least, we have never been able to do so, and now you get into philosophical territory about whether or not that's even possible.
My issue is that I have no idea how to fix it. Pumping more money into low income schools is not a cure-all. Don't get me wrong, it can help, but we have many cases where it made little to no difference because teachers and iPads can't do it all.
Anyways, that's a lot of rambling. My point is that I don't think the sentiment of "these people are oppressed" (which is what I assume most mean when they say it's "society's fault") is correct. It's far more complicated than that.