Readers write: July 28

No such thing as ‘free’ kids’ lunch

I read with astonishment the AJC article entitled, “Free meals available at many Georgia schools” (News, July 21). The meals, of course, are provided at no cost to the recipients. However, they are not “free.” Someone had to give up part of the money they worked for and give to someone else who did not work for it. ( That would be you and me and thousands like us.)

Personally, it’s inconceivable to me two consenting adults who so gleefully copulated to produce a child cannot, between the two of them, feed it. Even wild animals feed their own young. Welfare, food stamps, housing and now a push for “free” health care. For many people, once their minimum needs are met, they have no incentive to work and will live off the sweat of others. This is flat-out wrong.

At the very least, the article should have been titled, “Taxpayer-provided meals for needy children.” I have no problem assisting children who are truly in need. However, to perpetuate the notion that the assistance is “free” is absurd.

PAT MURPHY, FAYETTEVILLE

There’s precedent to crossover voting

As AJC columnist Jay Bookman noted in "Why I will be voting Republican in runoff" (Opinion, July 7), I assume the Republican candidate in statewide races in Georgia will always win the general election. Therefore, to make my vote count and help ensure a leader that I find to be more moderate, I frequently "cross over" and vote in Republican primaries.

The Republicans who are “crying foul” over this legal practice must have very short memories. Cynthia McKinney was defeated twice in Democratic primaries in DeKalb County due in large part to Republican crossover voters who wanted a more moderate congressional representative. I believe that Georgia’s open primary system provides us with leaders that are more representative of all Georgians.

PAULA HUMER, DUNWOODY

Moms on welfare have honorable job

In his column, “Society moving toward criminalizing parenthood” (Opinion, July 22), Ross Douthat is 100 percent right to fault those who faulted “Debra Harrell, a black single mother in Georgia, who let her 9-year-old daughter play in a park while she worked at McDonald’s.” It is abominable that Harrell was, as Douthat points out, “shamed on local news and jailed” for this. However, I take issue with his idea that “conservatives” automatically believe “work requirements are essential if we want women like Debra Harrell to take jobs instead of welfare.”

A stay-at-home mom is a stay-at-home mom regardless of whether her source of support is a husband, a lesbian partner, a trust fund or the government. A mother on welfare has a job; that job is the honorable one of caring for a child. Moms should not be carped at for outsourcing a certain amount of child care, but neither should they be criticized if they mother full-time. We don’t call SAHMs supported by husbands “husband moms,” so we shouldn’t call those supported by the government “welfare moms.” Both are stay-at-home moms and worthy of respect.