By happenstance, I know a young couple who had a child at a very young age. The father is in his early twenties and underemployed. The mother is probably 19, has a job, but isn’t exactly well paid. The baby is two. The couple isn’t really a couple, though, because they split up about a year ago. The father has primary custody despite his basic unemployment because the mother really wasn’t interested in having the responsibility. It’s not that she doesn’t love her baby, but she tends to drop him off early when she has visitation because her new boyfriend is more interesting, if you know what I mean.
The father hasn’t touched a drug in years. The mother? She might be high right now.
So, let’s think about how this law would impact these parents and their two year-old boy.
The House late Wednesday voted to give states the authority to conduct drug testing on people applying for food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
By voice vote, members approved the idea as an amendment to the farm bill that was proposed by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.). Hudson said the proposal would help ensure SNAP benefits go to needy families and children.
“If adopted, this amendment would join a list of good-government reforms contained in the farm bill to save taxpayer money and ensure integrity and accountability within our nutrition system,” Hudson said.
They get SNAP money because they are living in poverty. Under this new law, would they both have to go piss in a cup every time they wanted to feed their kid? Because that might not work out too well. The mother might not show up. And she might fail the test if she did. Maybe the father could argue that he has primary custody so only his pee should count. But she’s the one who receives the benefit because she’s the one who applied for it. I’d hope their child wouldn’t go hungry while they sorted that out.
But let’s think about this some more. Does the mother’s disinterest and occasional pot habit make her child less needy? You might think that the drug test would dissuade her from getting high and that, thereby, she’d become a better parent. But this young woman can’t even be counted on to spend 20 hours a week with her child because she has things she’d rather be doing.
You might argue that the state should intervene and take the baby away, but he’s in the caring hands of his father, who only lacks the resources to make ends meet on his own. There is no reason to take the baby away, and it would actually be quite harmful to everyone involved.
SNAP is a supplemental nutrition program set up to assure that children don’t suffer from malnutrition or a detrimentally poor diet. The idea that you might take this nutrition away because one parent likes to smoke a joint now and then and isn’t particularly responsible, seems beyond cruel. It’s self-defeating.
