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From the time I was teenager right up to the end of my wolfing around days in my mid 30s, the notion of having an unplanned child terrified me. Even sitting there with my girlfriend when I was 16, zonked out on bong hits and cheap beer, I could clearly see that having a kid would disrupt my entire life. I used to listen to Sprinsteen's, "The River" and shudder.
Yet its not hard to find teenagers who have one or more kids. Good Grief! How does a teenager, the epitome of immaturity, inexperience, and naivity raise a child? Why do they fall into this trap without bothering to ponder the ramifications? More so, what's the hurry? And why oh why, do so many people act as if this is no big deal and anyone who looks askew at it is some kind of pig-headed neanderthal? Why is society defining deviancy down?
I wanted to travel, obtain higher education, get my working life started, and sow my wild oats. And I did. I took great pains to avoid having any kids. Actually it was easy- I went to the drugstore.
I got married in my late 30s and had my first and only child three years ago. He means the world to me. I would love to have more, but the money and energy needed is not there. I have to feed and clothe him and save for his college education. Pragmatic thinking trumps romanticism. Nonetheless, I will be at his side so long as I am alive (at least until hanging with Daddy Moth becomes uncool).
I could understand an occassional anomaly. Accidents happen after all and if two kids honestly want to make a go of it rather than have an abortion, well, I suppose there is some nobility in that. But this near-systematic epidemic of unplanned kids by teens who never seemed to give it any thought is frightening. How will children born in such unstable conditions thrive in an economic society where brains and a string of degrees is the way to stable work?
Why then should I be penalized when I took simple measures to avoid such a lifestyle?
I agree. Which was my point. The tax system, discussed in another thread, rewards persons who have children. That is wrong; it should be the other way around. People who don't have children dontuse public services; therefore, they should be rewarded with lower tax rates. Not the other way around.
I agree. Which was my point. The tax system, discussed in another thread, rewards persons who have children. That is wrong; it should be the other way around. People who don't have children dontuse public services; therefore, they should be rewarded with lower tax rates. Not the other way around.
Sure, but there has to be something more to it. Teenagers are by nature immature, but don't they know the burden a child can prove to be?
This is something i have never come to understand. If i had to rely on anyone to help raise my children, or government assistance, i would not want children. Now in the event one does get down on their luck that is something different, then assuming others take responsibility for your children.
I will never understand this concept. In the cases, where Parents can barely make it and put the essentials on the table, or just the basics, and they cannot do it, i can't fantom the idea. of these ignorant idiot Parents wanting more children, never will i understand this.
I myself feel that parents that do this, are just plain lazy and selfish, if you know your not going to be able to feed and clothe, and put a roof over your child's head, why want so many children, excpet for your being so selfish and childish. To assume someone else will help you take care of your children, is something i cannot understand such as assistance.
If i have to rely on government assistance to help in the rearing of my children, i deserve what i have coming to me, for putting my children thru this nonesense. This is something i will never understand, it is hard enough today to raise children, never mind having to raise your children with government assistance.
I played by the rules. Don't have children unless you can afford to support them yourself.
Now I feel like an idiot. I am constantly bombarded with people who have kids who cannot afford them, are on public assistance due to them, or their kids suffer due to lack of birth control and common sense.
What gives?
When I first read this post, I thought you were a conservative but saw where you stated in a later post that you are a liberal.
What you practiced is called personal responsibility.
I have a hard time believing this thread is as long as it is without any discussion of access to birth control, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, contributing factors to this problem.
What is the big difference here between the poor and everyone else? Access to female contraceptives. Sure a middle class person can go down to the drug store and get some birth control pills, but they aren't cheap. If you don't have insurance, birth control pills are expensive. In addition, you usually can't get a birth control prescription without having an annual exam on a regular basis. Another expense.
In the United States, we have a big issues with health care access, especially for the poor and more especially for poor minorities. (Please note that the phrase "health care access" does not simply mean that a resource exists, "health care access" means that the resource exists and that people know about it and will use it.) Problems with our health care system in general aside, improved access to female contraceptives is something that is known to be a solution for this problem. It is talked about all the time in context with poor countries, but somehow the subject applied to Americans is taboo, in large part because for some reason providing birth control to poor adult women is equated with people's teenage daughters being more likely to have sex. It is ridiculous that we find a "moral" problem with proving access to female contraception to poor women, but complain about paying for poor children when subsidizing women's' health would be cheaper than subsidizing the children of women who would have benefited from better women's health programs to begin with.
People go off on poor people about being irresponsible, but when it comes to sex, which everyone has, it is a lot easier to be responsible when you have more money. I ask, really, if you couldn't have afforded better birth control, would you have stopped having sex? I doubt it. Do some poor people have poor priorities? Sure. But people of all income brackets can have poor priorities, and just because you can personally subsidize your own doesn't give you the high ground to knock others for theirs. People of any demographic are going to have sex, regardless of the fact that it could produce children. If you want people to produce fewer children, provide them with a better means of doing so.
Poor people have inferior access to contraceptives and to contraceptive education. It would cost less tax payer money to improve this than it would to pay for the children improving this would prevent.
I have a hard time believing this thread is as long as it is without any discussion of access to birth control, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, contributing factors to this problem.
What is the big difference here between the poor and everyone else? Access to female contraceptives. Sure a middle class person can go down to the drug store and get some birth control pills, but they aren't cheap. If you don't have insurance, birth control pills are expensive. In addition, you usually can't get a birth control prescription without having an annual exam on a regular basis. Another expense.
In the United States, we have a big issues with health care access, especially for the poor and more especially for poor minorities. (Please note that the phrase "health care access" does not simply mean that a resource exists, "health care access" means that the resource exists and that people know about it and will use it.) Problems with our health care system in general aside, improved access to female contraceptives is something that is known to be a solution for this problem. It is talked about all the time in context with poor countries, but somehow the subject applied to Americans is taboo, in large part because for some reason providing birth control to poor adult women is equated with people's teenage daughters being more likely to have sex. It is ridiculous that we find a "moral" problem with proving access to female contraception to poor women, but complain about paying for poor children when subsidizing women's' health would be cheaper than subsidizing the children of women who would have benefited from better women's health programs to begin with.
People go off on poor people about being irresponsible, but when it comes to sex, which everyone has, it is a lot easier to be responsible when you have more money. I ask, really, if you couldn't have afforded better birth control, would you have stopped having sex? I doubt it. Do some poor people have poor priorities? Sure. But people of all income brackets can have poor priorities, and just because you can personally subsidize your own doesn't give you the high ground to knock others for theirs. People of any demographic are going to have sex, regardless of the fact that it could produce children. If you want people to produce fewer children, provide them with a better means of doing so.
Poor people have inferior access to contraceptives and to contraceptive education. It would cost less tax payer money to improve this than it would to pay for the children improving this would prevent.
Your point is well taken and has alot of merits. On the otherhand, how many children have been born because of a "drunken trist?" How many children have been born to a lapse of judgement, et al? It is NOT my fault, and/or anyone else's fault, therefore not our tax responsibility, because you got drunk and had unprotected sex.
Every year, my friends and I get together for a Christmas party. It will be next weekend. I've been married for 26 yrs to the same woman; the greatest woman in the world (no idea why she is with me). I will hear, over and over again, from about 10 couples, about how they wish they would have never had children. How their children were an "accident."And, like it or not, I hear the samething at work everyday.
I have one couple, who are close friends, who didn't have children. They spend about 3 months of the year, traveling the world. They just came back from South America and Antartica. Every year its the same: "I should not have had children. You guys are lucky."
Now, is this everyone? No, of course not. However, based upon my personal experience, I'd say its more then half. More then half of the people in my "circle" wish they would have never had children. They felt they were pressured into it by society. You grow up, marry, and have kids. Everyone does it, so why not you? You are abnormal if you do not.
If society changed its unwritten "rules," I'd gurantee far more less people would have children.
For, lets face it, ALOT of children in this world are not wanted, were not planned for and, for most people, are a difficulty.
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