Treating Symptoms

Driving around in the car listening to the radio the other day, I heard back-to-back public service announcements. 

The first was the sad story of the kid sitting in the corner of the playground without enough energy to play because he was hungry. It told me that one out of six kids in America is hungry and there is no reason for it. Donations would presumably help get food to the kid and solve the problem.

Someone at the station may not have been paying attention because the second PSA had the same theme, except this time it said that one out of five kids in America is hungry. I didn’t pay close enough attention to tell if this was a solicitation from the same charitable organization. I was too busy thinking about the underlying messages.

These PSAs actually led me to wonder about two questions. First, where did those seemingly iffy statistics come from? With about 74 million children in America, the difference between one in five and one in six is about 2.5 million kids. Are they hungry or not? But that’s just nitpicking.

The more important question is why are we only treating the symptoms? Hungry kids on the playground are the result of kids not being fed at home. Why are around 30 million families not feeding their kids? This is not a question anyone seems interested in answering – not these organizations and not the government. We just hear lamentations about how unfair it is that the food is not distributed more justly.

It’s hard to believe, especially at a time of full employment and help-wanted signs up everywhere, that all those families have just fallen on hard times. There must be a sizable percentage where people just plain didn’t acknowledge that it was an important enough consideration to be able to feed their kids before having them. In some cases she may have thought about how cute babies are and how having one would make her happier. In other cases he may have thought how cute she was and how getting her into bed would make him happier. When the consequences of those behaviors come calling, he may or may not even stick around and she can always look to the government to help bail her out.

Meanwhile the government has programs to feed the family while those other programs from the PSAs try to find ways to move the food around so the kid gets a good breakfast or a sandwich for lunch. Such systems are treating the kids almost as hostages. They are hungry and need to eat, so no one addresses the underlying issue of parental responsibility! Over and over we treat the symptoms and never dig any deeper to solve the core problem.

What’s worse is that by treating the symptoms, nothing was being done to discourage the same behavior by this generation or to discourage the same in the next. Whenever society decides to shelter people from consequences of their actions, they have less motivation to change, and others that observe this dynamic are less inclined to view those same decisions as problematic.  Of course, society can't let the kids go hungry and to confront irresponsible parents is branded as lacking compassion. Later everyone sits around wringing hands and wondering why the War on Poverty has not reduced the poverty rate after 50+ years in operation; but few understand why we will probably be hearing the same statistics 50 years from now unless something changes.

Boiling the Frog

There is a story to explain the slow advancement of unpleasant or unacceptable practices into any society or business.  It is the gruesome tale of boiling a frog.  If you take a live frog and drop him into a vat of boiling water, the frog feels the heat and immediately jumps out.  If instead you put the frog in a pan of cold water and slowly turn up the heat, the frog is not distressed at first and slowly gets accustomed to the slightly warmer temperatures until it’s too late.  At that point the frog’s complacency becomes his undoing and he is boiled without any resistance.  This story is probably completely false.  But taken as a fable, the moral is very powerful.

It came to mind when the PBS News Hour reported a new government rule concerning the SNAP Program (formerly known as Food Stamps).  “The U.S. government wants to steer the 46 million Americans who receive food stamps toward healthier food choices. The USDA plans to require retailers that accept those benefits to stock more fresh foods.”  In an interview, they go on to describe how it will affect both the retailers and the customers. 

The retailers will be required to stock at least 168 items of healthier foods, like fruits and vegetables.  They are expected to display them in a way to encourage their purchase – meaning food should be attractive and placed at eye level and all the other tricks grocers use to increase sales of certain products.  Some stores that today accept food stamps don’t have adequate refrigeration capacity to carry the additional products and don’t understand the storage and handling requirements.  They may have to invest in equipment and training, which will push up their costs, costs that most likely get passed along to their customers.  (Remember that grocery stores in poor neighborhoods are already being criticized for their higher prices, a situation partly driven by their lower volume business and partly by the increased risk of doing business in these neighborhoods in the first place.  Now come more regulations to increase the complexity of their business.)

On the customer side, there is not yet any requirement.  “A person using food stamp dollars could still purchase as much junk food as they wanted, but they would at least have more options in the store to buy fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats and bread.”  There is no guarantee that having the option will change behavior.

But officials at the USDA have very good intentions.  They want Food Stamp recipients to eat healthier.  If access to the food doesn’t do the trick, what might be the next steps?  That is the question we should always ask when people with good intentions start making rules.

Just 20 months ago the American Beverage Association fought off a proposed ban on the purchase of sugary soft drinks with Food Stamps.  The ban was based on research at Harvard and the University of California and backed by mayors of 18 major cities and influential elected officials in Washington.  The ABA argued that soft drinks were not the only problem.  Findings of those studies, however, were backed by another study released by Health Affairs showing that “a proposed ban on sugar sweetened beverages purchased with SNAP benefits would significantly reduce obesity in adults ages 18-65.”

Will the junk food industries continue to prevail in this battle with the food police?  Though this affects only Food Stamp users, what are the likely longer-term ramifications on the rest of us?

As I pointed out last time, this always happens when people don’t take responsibility.  Kind people with big hearts and good intentions start limiting options, taking away freedom.  When they can’t put prohibitions in place all at once; they ease into it.

The frog fable always gets a little scarier when you realize that you might be the frog.

The Road to Hell...

Has anyone else noticed that the 21^st Century has apparently brought a new order for making life decisions?  It used to be: 1) get a job, 2) get married, 3) start a family.  Many recent articles, often appearing as front-page news, show us a new order has emerged:  1) start a family (marriage optional), 2) get a job, 3) realize the income is not sufficient to raise a family, 4) get a second job or get help from the government or both, 5) complain about it.  This is not the prescription for a happy life, but no one seems to care enough about the situation or the people involved to look for a change.

Stories of people struggling to make ends meet are popular in the press and filled with anecdotes.  The news provides a forum for those complaints and endorses the common idea that society is failing these people.  The press is eager to report the situation, but refuses to investigate or especially challenge the decisions that led up to that bad situation.  (These are prime examples that behavior has consequences.)

This story about local teachers having to work a second job is typical.  “In his first year of teaching, [the teacher] made $34,000 annually. But with three children and a wife in school full time, he took a job waiting tables.”  Another teacher with one child and a wife is in nursing school full time, “found he needed to work a few nights each week to make some extra money.”  The same people who get themselves into theses financial situations are teaching our children!

The SNAP (food stamp) challenge is another common stunt for politicians and reporters to raise awareness.  I call it a stunt because it is usually done individually and only for a week, which precludes the purchase of anything in bulk (even a gallon of milk or a full box of breakfast cereal).  Furthermore, it is done with a preordained outcome in the interest of “educating the public.”  One recent example to supplement the reporter's experience tells the story of a single mother with “four children to feed — all of whom soon will be teenagers. She gets $184 in SNAP benefits each month for herself and close to $1,000 for her children. (Do they also get free school lunches?) Still she struggles.”  No mention is made of the father and why he is not responsible enough to contribute to feeding his children.  There is no interest in what decisions led to these circumstances and how others could avoid them.  That could be very useful educationally, raising the awareness of others about how to avoid this difficulty.

The concept of behavior having consequences is undermined daily when we, as a society, favor bailing out our fellow citizens while failing to question the decisions that set up the situation in the first place.  This leads to no learning, either by the decision makers or by those about to follow in their footsteps.  We are so compassionate and so concerned with people’s self-esteem that we support laws and programs to minimize consequences, and we are afraid to confront or criticize self-destructive behavior for fear of being labeled insensitive, prejudiced or as bullies.  Instead of telling them not to touch the hot stove, we anesthetize them and buy them gloves so they can continue making unwise decisions with no opportunity to learn.

We hear about fast food workers struggling to raise a family.  We hear of single mothers with multiple children, sometimes from multiple fathers; fathers who manage to disappear without meeting their financial obligations, and who likely can’t be forced to meet those financial obligations, because they don’t have the resources to do so.  The children suffer and society is at a loss about what to do, so the government becomes the surrogate father through programs and legislation.  We will readily prosecute parents who leave a child in a hot car, but give benefits and sympathy to parents who continue to have children without the ability to feed the ones they already have!

Everyone is afraid to point out that their problems are a direct result of their own irresponsible behavior.  That is seen as uncaring and unfeeling, but if we really cared about these people and our country, we would work seriously to change these dynamics instead of finding ways to indirectly condone them.

Behavior has consequences for a reason.  It’s not because the world is basically cruel or unfeeling.  It is how anyone learns from experience.  To endorse (by our silence) and reward (with benefits) this behavior is only to ask for more of it.