It's not really about trust, it's about how you've got to do something with them or you won't be able to get all your work done. Her lord didn't force his servants to kill their babies the way some lords did, she's pretty sure that's part of how her mother wound up there, but that didn't mean he'd let anyone get away with not doing their job. If you're out in the middle of nowhere with no daycares the question is whether you trust other people to be better than not having anyone watching them at all — though actually, he's a nobleman, probably his family is worse than normal people.

"...For what you just said about most of your duchy's families, do you mean all the families or just the noble families? I don't know how it is in the cities but most people back home wouldn't... murder your kid... if you were going in on watching each other's kids. ...If there are a lot of people in the cities murdering each other's kids that seems like something we should be doing something about right away!"

He looks incredulous at the question and blinks in confusion

"...All the families I know of, yes. Murder is almost entirely irrelevant and beside the point; even the most unpleasant would expect to be killed for it and refrain. Negligence can kill, and cause much other harm."

"I don't think I can possibly be understanding you right. It sounds like you mean to tell us that if you left a toddler with your cousin for a day, you'd expect them to neglect it to death. Are your cousins all... six years old, or... presently in active war zones, or..."

"Well, you can just say you'll watch it and then ignore it all day." Not that she would know anything about that.

"I'm also confused but I'm not sure if... I don't know how to explain this... I'm not sure if I'm confused because of people being less Evil to their families where I lived for some reason, or because of — something like whipping people for doing badly in school, bad things that I thought were just normal everywhere. Could you maybe... say what you'd be scared of, if someone asked their neighbor to watch their kids, or was trying to watch their own kids, that you think wouldn't happen if there were Good priests watching the daycares?"

(Her mother didn't leave her with the servants' kids, actually, at least not that she can remember, but it's not like she remembers being a really little kid. And her mother was a wizard, anyways, little kids aren't going to make that much harder if they can sleep through the night... she's not actually sure what her mother did when she was a baby, now that she thinks about it, but it must've been something.)

"A child gets into the kitchen unwatched and gets cut with a large knife, and there is no cleric to keep the wound from festering. Same but with an unguarded fire. A fall in a well. A kick to the head from a goat or horse. Tries to swim in a river and can't handle the current. Or the sea and the tide. Can handle the tide, or a lake, but gets exhausted and no one notices them starting to drown. A hunting dog who's calm in company it knows but not with strangers, who gets riled up and bites."

"I think I might've lost track of your argument here but — when Korva told us about the orphanages it sounded like that sort of thing happened a lot there, even more often than it would've back home?" She's not sure how often it happened back home. Kids die for all sorts of reasons and she mostly wasn't keeping track. "And you're saying... if there are Good clerics, they'll be able to heal the kids up so they don't die of it, and it's... in the cities, at least... easier to have a Good cleric in every daycare than a Good cleric in every group of people that are watching multiple kids, because there's fewer daycares?"

"We at least don't want to participate in anything the orphanages are doing besides to clear them out. I guess we could stop by and channel there every day but I'd go mad if I had to spend much time there and keep going back over and over."

"The Church of Abadar runs orphanages in Osirion and these are regarded as a great success as they produced the great Inquisitor Shawil. But they are much less expensive in Osirion because the circumstances that produce abandoned children are much rarer."

"How are those funded, at whatever level of expense they do require?"

"The state pays for them on the theory that if the children of prostitutes and vagrants are well-raised they will turn out assets to the state and not criminals and liabilities, and I suppose also now the theory that perhaps you get the very best Abadarans that way."

This committee is so confusing. Victòria is pretty sure it was not this confusing yesterday.

"That doesn't really sound like an argument that they're bad for the children."

"Yes, the Osirian government doesn't believe that they're bad for the sort of child who gets abandoned to them or they would not run them."

"How's Osirion avoid the sort of problems Korva was talking about on the first day — uh, I guess you weren't here—" She looks at Korva.

"Sorry, which problem? Just the thing where they're horrible? I'd expect if very few children are abandoned then it isn't very hard to take good care of the ones that are, since it's way less work."

"I think that's the key, yes."

"Yeah, that's the one I meant, sorry if I asked that badly."

"If we can have orphanages run by Good churches, we can trust that they will take good care of them; or if they cannot because there are too many and their resources too few, to say so and let us know of the problem. We cannot have that trust with the general public, not today, and not for years to come; if mothers and aunts and neighbors are being neglectful because they do not care about the children enough to ensure their welfare, and I think we must assume that in great numbers they will be, we will never hear of it. The children will suffer from that negligence, those being paid will pocket profits as if they were taking good care, and it will continue out of sight. That is why I am more optimistic about paying for better orphanages than about giving stipends for mothers."

"The resources are too few. I am letting you know about that problem right now. And the thing I do about it is I guilt people into adopting the orphans. Even a chance at something like a family is better than those places."

"The ones we have now are terrible. No one here disputes that, after what we heard from Delegate Tallandria last week - I have scribed copies if our new members want to read it, but I will warn you that it is long and very unpleasant reading. But so are all too many of our families. And the alternative is not, usually, a family. If a family wants to adopt children, that would still be encouraged. It is a mother without a husband, and without close family she can trust, because few women have that even before they have a child out of wedlock. Without neighbors she can trust, because few Chelish people can trust their neighbors at all. I do not think money can fix any of that; time can, I hope, but not money. I am optimistic that money can produce good orphanages that can take good care of children, while their mothers work or otherwise; in Osirion it appears it can. It is not the solution to all our problems, and we will still need to work on encouraging there to be fewer children abandoned this way and more marriages and families. But for the problem of what to do for the children without a father once they exist, I think trying to fix the orphanages to provide good childcare is better for them than a pension for their mothers."

Headshake headshake.

"I don't know. I think we should work on improving the orphanages too, obviously. But right now, a child with just a mother is still usually better off than an orphan. I like the idea of giving compensation to whoever is actually raising the child, whether that's the mother or the orphanage or someone else. ....though, now that I think of it, it probably will result in some people adopting kids and then neglecting them for the sake of a one time payment, but - ugh. I'm not actually sure that's worse than what we do now."

"I'd say most likely it isn't, but it's still worse than what we'd be doing if we gave the orphanages the money and supervision to care for orphans and day-stay children well. I have faith."

"Do you also have money."