I serve on the board of several community organizations and this year the task has become difficult. Everyone knows that the state is struggling with a monumental budget deficit, with a worse deficit looming on the horizon. The federal dollars that used to flow to the states are tied up in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. State funded services are being cut in every category, eldercare, education, children's services, mental health, highways and bridges. I wish I had a solution to offer. 

My reflection this month is not on how to solve the deficit. My concern is with the politicians' habit of vilifying the people who are the victims of the next planned budget cut. Just before the funding for interpreters was cut, new immigrants, i.e. legal new immigrants, were criticized for not speaking English. I think speaking English is important. However, when it comes to filling out forms for the courts or any bureaucratic structure, I know English speaking folk who get stuck. If we can't help our legal immigrants, it is truly unfortunate for them and for us. If we can't help people, it's because we can't afford to not because they are bad. 

The criticism of single parents, usually mothers, is equally unfair. Some of the criticism recently offered by the Governor is grossly inaccurate. There is nothing morally tainted about being a single mother or being divorced. The belief that both parents, a mother and a father, are the best arrangement for children is a television sitcom fantasy from the 50's. I know many children with one parent who are well cared for. I know many children with divorced parents who are well cared for. Unfortunately, I know children with both a mommy and a daddy who are not. 

There are numerous studies in psychology journals and journals of pediatric medicine that have repeatedly found that the quality of the parenting is the vital issue. There is no such thing as a "maternal instinct." Parenting is a learned skill. Some men are more nurturing than women. A single daddy or two daddies can raise healthy, well-adjusted children. The politics of vilification is misplaced. 

Rev Eugene T. Dyszlewski