California social service cuts

The Governator has cut ALL funding to battered women’s shelters. He’s also cut aid to family programs which primarily serve women and children in need.

Now I know that some women are the batterers and that some men are single fathers, but I’m going to address this call to men.

Men: We have one of the largest economies in the world. It is your patriotic duty to pay your child support and to quit hitting your wives and children. I realize that the economic crunch is difficult for you, making it harder to pay your bills, including child support. And I know that when the economy is hitting you in the balls, you are more likely to prove to the world that you can hit back by picking on the women around you.

The Republican idea is that we can take these funds away and thus encourage the women using these services to stop needing these services. They’ll just stay with you instead of fleeing for their lives. They’ll somehow find jobs when no one can (and when they don’t have child care).

Someone said once that you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps unless you have boots. Men, you not only can provide those boots, but you should provide those boots.

If you’re one of the good guys reading this, remember that it’s your job to protect the least of us in society. People don’t often uphold morality unless there’s a social imperative. Good guys–encourage those other guys (and I know you know them) to straighten up. Pulling the money won’t make these problems go away; it will exacerbate them. It’s up to each of us to do what we can.

And what we can do is to make wife beating completely unacceptable. What we can do is to look at fathers who’ve left their children without income with the same disdain we give to the women who have stayed, who are trying, who are loving, who are “single mothers.”

Deadbeat dads get to pass in our society. If they don’t tell people they’ve abandoned their children, no one knows. It’s time to know.