Baby Grant, sign of a caring government

Dear Editor,

The Kamla administration has announced underprivileged moms will receive $500 to help with their newborns’ accoutrements (Baby Grant). Some “high-society” individuals have condemned the proposal, indicating, among other things, the idea is poorly conceived (no pun intended) and the money would be better applied if given to NGOs. A few went as far as claiming it will stimulate an unwanted bump in the birthrate, à la the so-called 9 months after Carnival fable. Yeah, right! By their logic, the Baby Grant will induce women to labour for nine months to get a $500 payout! In my view, it’s vehemently wrong to oppose the Baby Grant.

The measure is another cog in the wheel which, since May 2010, has been redirected so those who historically had a harder time coping will get the immediate breathing space they need to save them from suffocating. In a man’s world, these suffering souls are very often persons placed under severe pressure only because they’re women. Simply put, the slapdown of the Baby Grant is really an example of eugenics at work.

Eugenics essentially encourages only the upper class to procreate and the poor be neutered and exploited. In Animal Farm, George Orwell satirically authored a comprehensive dismissal of such sanctimoniousness by allowing the pigs to withhold proper rations and housing (national resources) from the lion’s share of the farm’s population. The porkers openly hoarded everything for their own use; and, to justify their rapaciousness, they penned the ludicrous lie that: “All animals are equal; but some animals are more equal than others”.

The Baby Grant canNOT be viewed in horror or isolation. Its introduction reflects the outpourings of a caring government which, in the same Budget, also announced women workers will, from now on, get equal pay as men for doing the same work and substantial compensation for the families of fallen Protective Services. $500 to help cover neonatal expensense means, regardless of station in life, every tot will, in future, be showered with an acceptable stock of swaddling clothes and newborn stuff when they come into the world. I therefore commend the government for establishing the Baby Grant and, if anything, ask that it be maintained and augmented until every mother, of every creed and race, is economically equal and independent at last.

Richard Wm Thomas
via email