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Comment by greyskull | Hacker News Reader

I'm not denying that there are relevant problems that should be addressed, but why are all these families having kids, multiple even, if they're not fit to raise them? I'm not saying they deserve it, but is it really all that surprising that one or two low-wage adults aren't able to provide for themselves on top of growing children? I'm sure there are families with no kids also facing difficulties, but damn, people!

Also, I'd like to see the breakdown of these families' budgets. Where is their money going? If they're like most Americans, they're likely pissing money away needlessly.

The cynic in me is showing again.

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My politically incorrect opinion: the same factors that cause them to be poor influence how many children they have, poor decision making and low impulse control.

That and the fact that having children makes them poor by robbing them of the time to improve themselves and earn a higher salary.

And they are also likely to be happier than you are ;) Primarily because of the same factors that you've mentioned.

If that's true, which is doubtful, then their problems should become a 2nd priority, since our 1st priorities should be improving the happiness of the least happy.

I'm not sure if that in itself is a politically incorrect opinion. The link between success and impulse control is, as far as I know, pretty well established and agreed upon.

It's the conclusion that you draw from this that matters. Is poor decision making and low impulse control also just a consequence of poverty, of being born in an environment that does not nurture these skills? Or does the buck stop there and do these poor people only have themselves to blame?

The same applies to addiction, whether to a particular substance or obesity-related. It was only when I spent some time in Texas that I realized how much harder it is to eat well and exercise compared to my life in Amsterdam!

Or religion. Having experienced both a very religious life, and a very 'secular' life, the one thing it taught me is how little, in the end, my behavior and beliefs were shaped by my 'individual' thoughts and decisions. Very humbling.

I tend to be on the no-blame side on these issues, as I strongly believe we're much less 'individuals' than we think, and much more a product of our upbringing and our path in life, which is to a large degree out of our hand. The ability to make choices is, in itself, largely not a choice.

I hold that position because I've seen and experienced how fragile and context-dependent people are, and because there are volumes of research that support this.

I also believe it is, regardless of the facts, a more optimistic, constructive, and humble approach to life. It reminds me am not the product of (just) my own willpower and craftiness; I am the product of nurturing parents, a good education, a relatively stable upbringing, and inspiring, like-minded friends and acquaintances.

I think the culture of blaming the poor for being that way shows a tremendous lack of understanding about the complex social issues around it. It's more than statistically likely you would not break the generational cycle of poverty if you started life in similar circumstances.

Furthermore, it's a pretty serious judgment to make, which I'd say requires a lot of supporting evidence.

Because we don't take birth control seriously in this country. IUD's and hormonal birth control should be free. The morning after pill should be available for free in schools. Republicans should stop making it more difficult to operate a planned parenthood.

Doing these things would reduce poverty, crime, and quite importantly our environmental impact.

Yeah. And especially, the FDA should get on it and fast-track the reversible, non-invasive male birth control (1 time injection) that has been safely used (in trials) in India for 20 years. Men need birth control too, am I right?

They usually don't choose to conceive. Another factor is poor planning. Many people don't budget in the fact that one parent could be unemployed for months on end.

I think this deserves extra attention. America has a weird cultural thing at play here; the religious right seem to be strongly anti-contraception (the recent Hobby Lobby decision being a good example). Yet, when the inevitable happens and a child is unexpectedly conceived, there doesn't appear to be much in way of a support structure.

I'd be happy to be wrong on the second part.

> but is it really all that surprising that one or two low-wage adults aren't able to provide for themselves on top of growing children

In a wealthy society it ought to be.

Raising children is a pretty basic part of the human experience. It's easy to say "just don't have kids!", but rather harder to live that life if you're someone who wants a family.

But 9 kids at 31?

Yeah, in fairness I can see that's kinda insane. I guess I just get aggravated when I perceive people treating the issue as a simple decision, whereas the emotions around having/not having children are anything but.

She's recently come from Gambia, remember, where the cultural values around birth control and family size are very, very different from in your culture. There are cultures where women are shamed, punished, or outcast for "failure to conceive."

I have not heard anyone mention yet that federal aid programs do incentivize having kids, lots of kids. Any compassionate ideas for fixing that?

Nobody is suggesting "just don't have kids". People are saying plan and save appropriately. (Sure, accidents can happen.)

I know a couple who has had 3 kids by age 19 and both parents have dropped out of high school to support them. What's their endgame? They basically are going to live off the state for their rest of their lives and will always struggle with money and food. If they would have continued with their education and waited 5-10 years, their situation could have been drastically different...

> Nobody is suggesting "just don't have kids".

I disagree. I see people suggesting that on a regular basis.

I absolutely agree that it's much better to wait and plan more, and we need to encourage people to do that as much as possible. We still need to collectively realise that our society will always have poor people. That being the case, my opinion is that denying the poor the moral right to reproduce is unfair.

Are you asking questions to which you actually want answers, or are you just trying to whip HN toward a good ol' eugenics fervor? Your entire comment is nothing more than the expectorant of a right-wing radio host. I guess it's fine to rag on poor people though, since we're all Randian captains of the tech industry in here.

I think greyskull's questions are rhetorical, but his tone is understandable given the tone of TFA, which relentlessly beats on the drum of victimhood at the hands of an unfair system. I think the article could have been could have made the same point with less appeal to sentimentality.

Look at maps showing availability and locality to family planning resources and abortion clinics - plus abortions stopped being fun a few years ago.

Who's to say that these people were in their present state since the choice to follow through with a pregnancy? The one kid looks like 6-8 y.o. That's pre-crash. A lot changes in 7 years. You can have bankruptcy discharged in 7 years.

OK, so maybe you could be clearer. Are you saying that poor people shouldn't have sex?

He's saying a responsible adult should not knowingly bring a child into the world without the means to provide for that child.

Which is a correct opinion that sadly ignores the environment in which these people grew up, the level of education available to them and the medical care they are able to access. Even nicely wealthy with access to everything they could need have accidents.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the level of education available to them." In my state everybody gets the same level of sex education in 7th and 9th grades, and you're legally required to attend until 10th grade. In general, anybody over the age of 15 should understand the consequences of unprotected sex. Yes, even here in the south.

Education quality varies wildly from district to district. I'm not using "level" to refer to formally declared years, but the quality of the classroom and the outcomes achieved within. It's very hard to learn in a poor classroom in which the teacher is interrupted constantly.

Additionally, with all the emphasis people put on being a responsible adult, that's not something that's really taught in school. There isn't much value placed on learning how to budget, keep track on finances, but then when people are unable to do so it's all their fault. That doesn't seem right.

It's not right, but that's the problem of the people saying it's all their fault, ignoring the Fundamental Attribution Error.

Everybody has sex and birth control is imperfect.

Is he? Where is the line drawn at "knowingly," if not at the decision to have sex?

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