> Public libraries have become little more than homeless shelters with books. <
There’s a beautiful, huge, century-old public library not all that far from me. It’s in a distressed area. I know a lady that works there. She says that the library is now also a day care center.
By that, she means moms drop their kids off in the morning, then go off drinking, carousing, whatever. Then they come back just before the library closes for the day.
So the library board is thinking about instituting a “no unaccompanied children” policy. But I doubt if that will work. Mom goes in with the kids, then just sneaks out a bit later.
It's sad to imagine that society has fallen to the level where kids are banned from libraries.
And I'm sure it's a small handful of women who are doing this but since we can't make narrow policies to specifically punish the troublemakers, we make wide policies that punish everyone. Just like the no kids allowed unaccompanied at shopping malls even though 95% of the kids are behaving themselves and rewarding vendors with their discretionary income.
Mom’s who abandon their children like that should return to find the kids in the hands of Child Protective Services.
Yeah, they’re horrible, but it’s a “lesser of two evils” situation; they’re only using the kids to bump their welfare check, anyway.
And — for that matter — the Library probably wouldn’t have to go any further than handing out flyers warning of that new policy and posting the associated signage. Word would get around.