Jil Orra
Far too often, which is to say more than never, I’m reminded of a quote from ‘Chain Of Command, Part II’ (TNG). “When you teach a child to devalue someone, they can devalue anyone - including their parents.”
I sometimes see children in the areas of extreme poverty my daily commute takes me through. To expose a child to homelessness and drug addiction is monsterous. Even in passing. Thankfully the vast majority of these kids are just visitors but I still think it’s a problem. As an adult I find that life terrifying, I can’t imagine how a child would process the experience. I probably could but I do all I can to keep from thinking about it.
And before you start thinking this is all because I’m a parent now let me assure you these thoughts are not new to me.
Getting back to the quote, here’s the context. A torturer has just been visted by his daughter in the room where he conducts torture, the victim still present. The moment before the quote…
Picard: “I’m surprised that you’d let her come in here”
Madred: “Why?”
Picard: “To let a child be exposed to this…to someone who is injured and suffering”
In trying to get the quotes just right I stumbled upon a Social Psychology website that analyzed the scene. They had this to say…
“Madred was acting as if everything was normal, and she accepted that it was too. Now cognitive dissonance is at work: if someone I love and I can act normally with while this is going on, then it must be normal for it to occur, thus must have reason”
So it seems that I’m not the only one troubled by this. So let’s reformulate the above to these cicumstances.
Bringing a child into an environment of extreme poverty, homelessness, and drug addiction and behaving as if everything is normal teaches the child that this is a valid life choice and that nothing is wrong with the situation.
Now whether or not you agree with me that drug addition is inherently wrong or not I think everyone, including the homeless, can agree that extreme poverty and homelessness is wrong. Whether wrong as a choice or wrong as being permitted by society it’s still some kind of wrong. So parading your child through skid row can teach them very few things, none of them good.
Without a context they would likely infer that you’re okay with this existence as a life choice. But even with context - explaining why the people are there - you’re likely to scare the hell out of them, potentially in a life-altering way. Say what you will about the merits of scared straight but I’d like my child to be driven by his own goals, interests, and passions, not by some fear of ending up on the street.
In other words, no good can come of it. It is not okay and it is not a lesson, it’s simply sad and upsetting.
So this, in short, hopefully explains why there are some areas in the city I do not want to take my son. Frankly given the arguments presented I have trouble seeing how anyone could if given a choice.
