In a modern society such as ours, there are really no self-sufficient individuals. Everyone relies on someone for something. Nonetheless, there are still people who contribute more than they use, and there are those who are a drag on the resources of society. It is safe to say that most people at least want to be contributors, whether it turns out that way or not.

Admittedly, the desire to be a great contributor to society can be easily beaten out of a person through everyday life.

Forget about volunteering on the weekends or changing the world as a politician. The greatest contribution one can make to society is to be a good parent.

Amazingly, there are people who have kids and for some reason forget just what their responsibilities are. At one extreme, we have the increasing numbers of young parents throwing their babies away in dumpsters and toilets, and, at the other, lazy parents who simply won’t take their kids to swimming lessons.

Everyone knows what the results of poor parenting are on children. Low self-esteem is arguably the first of those problems, and it is an indicator of potential behavioral problems in the future.

Really bad parents are almost guaranteed to have children with behavior problems. However, parents who properly feed and clothe their kids but are otherwise indifferent towards their children’s lives are going to have the same problems with their children. Not that they would care.

I have one particular person in mind as I write this. “Susie” is a single mother with three kids. She was adopted by a wonderful family after her mother’s abuse and neglect led to the state taking away her three children over 15 years ago.

Susie liked her new parents for the most part, but while she was growing up she seemed to have something missing that these new parents could not replace. She wanted her biological mother to love her.

Once Susie was out of high school, she looked up her mother. Susie’s mom wanted nothing to do with her, and she was not afraid to let Susie know it. Twenty years earlier, she drank while she was pregnant with Susie. Susie got Fetal Alcohol Syndrome from this particular abuse, which has made her life infinitely more difficult. Now Susie had to see her drunk mother turn her away voluntarily. Susie could no longer pretend that she and her siblings were wrongly removed from a loving family.

Susie is now a welfare mother. She did not drink while pregnant with her children, and she does not overtly abuse them. She has also managed to keep custody of her children. That’s more than her mother can say.

Susie’s mother was, by most standards, a very bad mother, and Susie has miraculously become an indifferent parent. What is going to become of Susie’s children? Hopefully, they will continue to make whatever improvements they can on the hand they were dealt.

All of the money spent on welfare and social workers for these seven people would have been completely avoided if only a few irresponsible parents hadn’t decided that they really did not want their kids after all.

A little tender loving care over 45 years ago could have saved a lot of money for today’s welfare system. More importantly, it could have ensured happy childhoods and comfortable lives for at least seven people.

Lisa Simpson once said to her cartoon father Homer (perhaps the worst father in this country, but also extremely funny — luckily, he is a cartoon!) that she was disgusted by “your paper-thin commitment to your children.” She was talking to Homer, but she may as well have been talking to Susie’s mom, Susie, or any number of people like them.

So there it is — all one has to do to fulfill one’s duty to society. It doesn’t seem like taking responsibility for one’s children should be equated to volunteering time at a soup kitchen.

But for too many people, good parenting is an extra-curricular activity.

Aaron Klemm is an undeclared sophomore from Woden.