An author of multiple books, Naomi is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at the Independent Women's Forum.

"Kentucky libraries step up to keep kids out of foster care system." That was the headline of a recent article in the Kentucky Lantern, which detailed a $200,000 grant given to local libraries to accomplish this goal.

Libraries are places "people trust to get information, to get access to resources," according to Britany Binkowski of the organization that is overseeing the grant. "They don't carry the stigma, for example, of going to a child welfare department and asking for resources in a way that might feel very vulnerable."

Keeping kids out of foster care is a laudable goal, of course, assuming that those kids don't actually need to be in foster care to keep them safe. But how, one might wonder, would libraries accomplish it?

According to the article, "70% of all Child Protective Services allegations are related to neglect and poverty" and "preventable issues contribute to removal ... like a parent not being able to buy a car seat or access safe child care."

So parents would go to the library and ask for help finding a new car seat ... et voilà! Except there's no evidence that kids are getting taken into foster care solely because of poverty -- more likely the cause is substance abuse or mental illness on the part of parents that may also be contributing to poverty in a family.

Aside from the (at best) misguided ideas behind this initiative, there is also the question of why child welfare is now the role of librarians. Of course, some might say, child welfare is the job of the entire community. We should all try to keep kids safe. But this initiative is emblematic of the mission creep now evident in many jobs. Especially since COVID-19, but even before then, librarians have become self-styled social justice warriors.

The Massachusetts Library System includes a webpage called: "Social Justice And Libraries: What Your Library Can Do." A 2022 book called "Practicing Social Justice in Libraries" addresses questions like "What does diversity work look like in librarianship? How are librarians implementing social justice elements into their daily work? How are librarians protesting and resisting in their everyday work?"

But what about helping kids read? Or providing books to people who otherwise wouldn't have access to them? What about providing a quiet environment, a place for kids to do their homework free from distractions or a place for adults to find information about continuing their education. These things seem unexciting compared to advancing racial equity or keeping children out of foster care.

The same trend has taken over in the teaching profession too. The American Federation of Teachers recently called for "an immediate bilateral cease-fire" in the Middle East. The statement goes on at length, criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and accusing Israel of "indiscriminate and disproportionate violence." Leaving aside the lopsided politics of the AFT, why does a union representing fourth-grade teachers in America have to take a position on this at all? What about if teachers just taught kids how to read and do math? Does that seem too mundane?

Even teachers' activities with students seem less and less about teaching. The focus on social-emotional learning, for instance, has turned teachers into therapists. But why? Some kids may need counseling but all of them need to learn basic subjects. Why is that not appealing anymore?

Universities and corporations finally seem to have moved away from issuing grand statements about world affairs, but now other sectors should follow suit. And the individuals employed in those sectors might want to also rediscover the importance of their actual jobs.

Last year The New Yorker published a profile of then-New York City Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch (who has subsequently become the police commissioner). Many former sanitation officials, the reporter noted, were focused on getting city residents to create less waste and a number of them have gone into "environmental efforts" since leaving office.

But when the author asked Tisch about encouraging people to produce less garbage, "She waved me off. She didn't think it was her job to reduce garbage -- just to remove it." As she noted, "The whole job is to make (trash) not omnipresent. Make it go away. Make it so that people who are using the streets don't see it at all hours of the day."

It's a refreshing sentiment. Maybe trash collecting is not glamorous and maybe it's tempting to say you're trying to stop global warming instead. But the truth is that people actually need their trash collected. So you have to hand it to Tisch: She "only had one job," as the saying goes. And she actually did it.