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As long as the governments of this country (federal, state and local) keep providing a backstop for misbehavior, that misbehavior will keep occurring.
Remove the financial incentives to have a child outside of a long-term and stable marriage, and guess what...it'll happen far less frequently.
In a land where people are forced to actually bear the consequences for their own actions, they will carefully examine their choices before acting.
But in a land where others are forced to bear the burden of someone else's poor decisions, they will throw caution to the wind and continue to make whatever irresponsible decisions seem convenient at the time.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 02-06-2015 at 09:38 PM..
Reason: Removed icon
No it wouldn't. All we'd have is a bunch of starving kids.
There are countries all over the world where the poorest of the poor get ZERO help from anyone, and they still pop out babies, often at a higher rate than those with more money. That "starve them and they'll stop" tactic never works.
Why? Because the decision to have babies is not based on money on the first place.
^^^
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly
You need to also take into account that those are 3rd World countries. Americans have much better opportunities in terms education and knowledge to make better decision making in life. So don't try and compare those countries as if they are the same as the US because they are not.
Really? Ever traveled through the Rio Grande Valley? Maybe the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota? How about the "hollers" of East Tennessee and Kentucky? Or the housing projects in Philadelphia or maybe rural Utah where the fundamentalist Mormons hold sway? There are a lot of places in this country where children do not have opportunities to better themselves through education because the world they live in is is constrained by their parents'/relatives'/clans'/congregations narrow-mindedness, mean spiritedness, poverty, hopeless, drug/alcohol addiction, mental problems, violence or whatever demons drive people.
Look, we can play the blame game all day. Here are the facts: the woman has to allow the men to have sex. she is the gatekeeper. She has MUCH MORE to lose by being irresponsible and getting pregnant when she is not ready. When you have more to lose than someone else, shouldn't you be more responsible and make sound decisions? When I am broke, I don't gamble. I'll let the million dollar man with little to lose play that game. Also, men are biologically programmed to seek out women for sex. This isn't my opinion, it is proven science. It has been this way since humans began, and no amount of being mad at men and wanting them to be shamed more is going to change it. Some of you can spew opinions and anger all you want, but I just laid the facts out there for ya. It is up to you whether you would like to face reality or not.
Teach responsibility. Stop praising bad behavior. Preach education. Promote birth control. That is society's only hope on this issue.
I do agree with you that it is irresponsible for people to conceive a baby without thinking about the circumstances, but that irresponsible action starts when the man inserts his penis into any woman without thinking of the consequences. She may have the option of saying NO, or using the pill or the morning after pill to keep from bringing an unwanted infant into the world costing tax payers money if she cannot afford to have a baby. When two adults decide to have unprotected sex, then each one is 100% responsible for their individual actions, so why should the women be shouldered with more than 50% of the blame.
I will quote you for I agree with you " Teach responsibility. Stop praising bad behavior. Preach education. Promote birth control. That is society's only hope on this issue. " I have said this almost to the T many times to my friends who wantonly get their girlfriends pregnant with the excuse that a condom takes the pleasure away. Well, I have seen more then a few of those guys go through divorce and repeat again with another girlfriend. I think their pleasure has been taken away, but they did not listen to me
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Most people don't care about ethical responsibility, only in what feels good, modified by social norms.
In the past, women NEEDED men to survive. Decent jobs with living wages simply weren't available to them, so they had to have a husband who was locked into the household by law once he married. If he abandoned them, he had to pay for them or risk going to jail. Even when I was young, it was unheard of for women to get anything but low paying jobs such as schoolteacher (it didn't pay much back then), maid, nurse, or factory assembly line work. So much the harder if they had kids to support. Plus society looked down on unmarried mothers in the worst way, with extreme social shunning and name-calling. Pregnant girls were often sent to live with distant relatives, who could make up a story about how the husband died. (See for example the Bible, in which Mary was sent off alone to live with her cousin quite some distance away when it was discovered that she was pregnant). If they were poor and weren't taken in by family, they became prostitutes, or beggars if they couldn't succeed at that.
Young men sowed their wild oats with a societal snicker supporting them and tried to avoid getting trapped into a marriage, unless they were very much in love. No one really expected them to stay around and help raise the kids, not since the beginnings of the human race. That was "women's work" ...... only recently has it become an abhorrent phrase in this country. But a "respectable" man got married and settled down so that he could get along with society, decent job, or more coldheartedly for useful alliances with another family.
Nowadays in firstworld nations, women are able to get very good jobs if they want, and at least livable welfare if not, so they're no longer desperate to land a husband. Men have nothing to gain by getting married or staying around longer than suits them.
Change this to young people living irresponsibly and it would make more sense. There was most likely a young man involved with each and every one of these young women.
Sex no longer leads to an expectation of marriage or long term commitment so people have different criteria for choosing sexual partners nowadays than they did in the past. Long term compatibility and stability have little do do with it. Sex still leads to babies however, so we end up with a lot of "couples" with no sustainable compatibility having children together. The couples inevitably break up and a single mother is made. People who are great candidates for the physical act itself but poor prospects for actual parenthood end up having a disproportionate percentage of the children.
exactly It may be some bias but I think 60-75 % o women are incapable of selecting a dude who would be a suitable father. then when they get knocked up its much easier for the man to escape that situation
The only recourse women have is to get the genes of a good man, but have a man who'll be MUCH better off in supporting the child. This way, men are tricked into giving $$ to support a child that's not their own. However, these situations seem to imply that there really aren't any good breadwinners, so it's moot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusty Avocado
Obviously we can't just instantly stop welfare. What I think we need to do is put limits on it (real limits not ones that we currently have a million ways and waivers around), channel money into job training/education/internships/something (many of these programs have had their funding cut), I know some people hate this one but I think people need to be on birth control while receiving welfare.
Problem with job training,/edu/internships/something is that numerous, current crop of college grads are already having trouble finding work, children or no kids. Also, you can probably bet many of these women won't be ambitious enough to study. The punishment may seem fit, but all sorts of issues there like how to enforce it, legal issues, moral ones, etc.
I've already mentioned this on C-D several times, but it's still amusing... reminds me of a Lifetime movie where a group of women are finding ways to raise $$ for a daycare center that cares for the children of high school girls. One woman asked why not just give them contraceptives? The other women said that would encourage hs school girls to have sex whereas she countered they're pregnant or with kids... they've already had sex!
Last edited by Oldhag1; 02-07-2015 at 12:22 PM..
Reason: Removed icons
i go around town and i noticed many young women have babies and the dads are not around. ive met some and they say their dad sucks at providing for their kids. some of them ive met the dad has not came around in a few years, but its like a trend or something. why are people not puting importance on being a family and sticking together, instead some like to put others things in priority. what kind of world do we live in today ?
Most of the time, I see that from men, not women, to clear that up. Men have the greater tendency to roam to greener pastures. Lot of it has to do with a lack of a moral compass. They took all the teachings of right and wrong, out of schools, ditching religion, and in essence, threw the baby out with the bath water. I am not a religious freak or even a good Christian, but the teachings where good, and where impressed on young minds , complete with the boogy man, who would toast you if you where bad. It made a difference, in my opinion. At least kids did not bring guns to school and shoot each other. Do you expect any better actions out of them when they grow up? No moral compass.
Most of the time, I see that from men, not women, to clear that up. Men have the greater tendency to roam to greener pastures. Lot of it has to do with a lack of a moral compass. They took all the teachings of right and wrong, out of schools, ditching religion, and in essence, threw the baby out with the bath water. I am not a religious freak or even a good Christian, but the teachings where good, and where impressed on young minds , complete with the boogy man, who would toast you if you where bad. It made a difference, in my opinion. At least kids did not bring guns to school and shoot each other. Do you expect any better actions out of them when they grow up? No moral compass.
The teachings had nothing to do with it at all. Society pressed young couples to get married in situations like that because they believed having a child out of wedlock was a shameful thing to happen. You have a similar attitude in Japan to this day, and the Japanese are not what you would call a religious people.There were also almost no social services or abortion access in most areas. So there was a pressing societal benefit to force young men to stay around and help take care of their children.
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