There is such a thing as a free lunch. Was, Lex Anteinternet: Quiet Quitting? Is it real, and if so, why?

We ran this yesterday:

Lex Anteinternet: Quiet Quitting? Is it real, and if so, why?: Poster that shows up in wide circulation, and posted here via the Fair Use exception.  I don't know who the author is, but this was used...

When I was young, there was no such thing as "free and reduced lunches" served at schools.  There was no lunch served by anyone at grade school whatsoever.  You either walked home for lunch, or your parents packed a lunch for you.

If your parents didn't pack a lunch, word would have gotten out, and they would have gotten a visit from the authorities.

By the time I was first practicing law, the concept had arrived that some kids were sent to school hungry, and the school district started serving free breakfasts and also free, or reduced price, lunches.

This in the early 1990s.

In the 1970s, those parents, which would have included very few "single" parents, would have been visited, as noted, by officialdom and if they couldn't feed their own kids that they had caused to come about in the world, the kids would be taken from them.

The point?

This.

In the 2000s, there was concern over the expense of the school food program. When it came up in the district, there was outrage. By that time, which hadn't taken long, the School District feeding children was regarded as a right that parents could expect, and a duty that the district had to provide.

Parents of my parents' generation, when we were young, would have been horrified over such a thought.

And yes, this has a connection.

Out of kindness, Americans have caused their government to provide all sorts of benefits to people conceived of, or indeed who are actually, disadvantaged.  But those things go from help, to a right, and a way of adults maintaining a lifestyle of a sort on the government dole. It's well established that people are at first embarrassed to accept the dole and then acclimate their lives to it, in an effort to avoid taking on that duty themselves once again, thereby making the situation permanent.

Free and reduced lunches become a government duty allowing parents to avoid it.  Aid to single mothers morphs into marrying the government on the part of some women and abandoning children by fathers.  

And sending money to people in times of crisis seems like a great idea.

But the consequences of the government becoming a charity, and then a sort of parent, are rarely thought out.