Moral Dilemmas

What do you do when the starving children your parents always used to convince you to finish your dinner are right outside your door in Bangladesh?

Tonight I had dinner with a few girls I just met, and this very question was raised as we sat around the table looking at our boxed up leftovers. We argued for giving the food to the kids (it's not like they chose to be born into poverty after all), and against (if we gave them the food it would be reinforcing their begging behavior and further decrease the likelihood that they would be encouraged by their parents to go to school). We brought up the extremes (what if the child was literally about to die from hunger? Then would we feel obligated to give then our food? But if they are going to perish, us giving them food on one occasion would only delay the inevitable and would be a temporary bandaid covering up society's failure to help the most vulnerable among us). I held to my idea that a better idea to help our inner moral qualms surrounding this issue is to try to think of a more sustainable solution to help reduce their poverty.

Although I could see both sides, I knew that giving the children our food would just perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty (even though it would certainly make us feel better in the mean time). Yet at last, as I stood up to leave the table, I caved in and said to give our leftovers to the kids. After all, how can you look into their sad, yearning eyes day after day and even attempt to ignore their struggle? Even though it only helps fill their bellies for only one night, it helps us buy more time until we can come up with a better solution.