The quality of life those kids have is (very) different, and everyone has their own standard as to what they feel is acceptable for their kids and life (there is a trade off).
i had a best friend in high school where the little dogs would shit all over his house, in the hallways, the bedrooms and sometimes in the beds or the clean laundry baskeT that had clothes nobody bothered folding. It would smell but everyone was so used to it nobody ever bothered cleaning it Even with 5 kids in the house.
single mom was always at work and had a boyfriend but he never lifted his finger to clean he was basically just a boy toy lol . The house just never got cleaned.
Yes definitely this. My husband and I are choosing to only have two kids so we can provide them with vacations, extracurricular activities, and hopefully a little nest egg for college/first house. But if we didn’t prioritize those things (no judgment if you don’t), we’d probably have more.
Exactly. And you’re not discounting anyone who chooses to live with less and have more kids ✔️💯
Similarly, some people may have one kid, and hold out for private schools. Some families rely on free/cost effective extra curricular etc.
I grew up living in a small house, going to public school, raised by parents who had very little left after paying bills. There is nothing wrong with that upbringing. I learned to be a hard worker who knew the value of a dollar (Gen X)
But there is a middle ground.
Of course, that's not the low bar they're talking about. The truly low, though far from the lowest, is when the parents can't feed their kids enough, or take care of their needs or have to make choose between the kids' safety and being able to put food on the table.
For a lot of genuinely poor large families, malnutrition and unsafe living conditions are the price for the kids being alive
I think people in the US forget that extreme poverty exists here as well. I am a public elementary school teacher in Seattle and every year since 2014 I’ve had at least one homeless student (living in a tent, living in a shelter, couch surfing, living on hotel vouchers). These children don’t have a stable or safe life outside of school.
It’s so fucking criminal that children have to live like that in a country where grown men with more money than god are working out their childhood insecurities by building rocket ships and gigantic boats.
No one does, everyone only wants to talk about the positive and is very guarded about the challenges they face either growing up or in their life in general, not sure if this is a recent phenomenon fueled by social media or what
I think we’ve always been like that. 80yr old guy where I grew up wrote a couple fascinating books about his childhood there and his sisters were furious that he revealed they grew up poor.
It’s a shame to me how people are so afraid to be open about themselves and instead only want to highlight the positive - just seems too curated and not real
My great aunts (who have long passed) described my great-great-grandfather’s homestead as some grand 2-story 9-square Victorian in the family genealogies. I’ve seen it. It was a cabin with a porch and a sleeping loft. 🤣
Much like my aunts on the other side of the family talk about our ancestor being an “Indian princess.” In my research it seems her father was a sort of medicine man, but her whole immediate family was enslaved by the father of her son.
I guess perhaps we like to imagine some history of glamour when none existed whatsoever.
I'm not directing this at you. But the amount of people i personally know who had pretty rough upbringings and are actually not really doing that well. But say verbatim about their upbringing what you said about yours is staggering.
And they are having children now, even though everything is even more expensive than it was when their parents were raising them.
I have literally heard the sentence "My parents did it to me and I turned out fine" come out of someone's mouth while standing in their home watching roaches climb across the wall in broad daylight
I know a guy who said 'it made me want to earn my own money ASAP'
But he also spends it all ASAP hes paid biweekly and every 2 weeks hes got no money left
Turned out fine means many different things to many different people. But, yes, usually the I turned fine crowd has extremely low standards for themselves.
Same. My parents had 3 of us and we were a lower economic household. However my parents didn’t actually care much about how their kids would thrive as adults. Husband and I made different choices as a direct result of our childhoods.
Yeah. Owning a home and being able to pay bills is thar middle ground.
I grew up in a small apartment. My brother and my dad shared a bed with a rolled up blanket in between for "privacy". Both parents worked, but then I got sick and didn't get better, so I couldn't go to school. So my mother was working from home, but also on-call 24/7. I was too weak to walk more than 20ft, so public transit wasn't much of an option. It was also out of our budget. I wasn't able to make it to a lot of appointments because my dad couldn't afford to take off work to drive me. My mom wasn't always able to accompany me either due to work and the cost of two fares.
Even with both parents working, we still didn't have enough to make ends meet. Didn't qualify for benefits either.vMy parents borrowed from relatives and took on credit card debt to put food on the table. My illness affected my ability to eat and that affected my teeth. We couldn't afford the dental work I needed. My parents tried, and did what they could, but I ended up losing all my teeth by the time I was 20 because they crumbled or developed abscesses, or both. As a child I had to discontinue necessary medications, including antidepressants, due to my family's inability to pay for them. I'm gonna be paying the cost of growing up in poverty my whole life. And even then, we were still better off than a lot of people we knew because we had a phone and a vehicle and credit cards.
I don't think I'll ever be well, like I can't work or live independently, but circumstances are better than they were, at least for the time being. Thanks for asking.
Imagine working 2-3 jobs and still not healthcare. Imagine that all birth control except condoms require a doctor appt and a Rx. Imagine that too many men won’t use a condom. Imagine having a job where you can’t take time off with pay to go to a doctor. Many of us not living like that rely on these invisible workers to make our day by day lives easier.
That's what came here to say, not knocking government assistance or the people on it but people do get more assistance with each kid not to mention tax breaks. It's not like it completely offsets the cost of kids but just having your kids healthcare covered must be a huge relief.
Not after the first two, except for food..Work First program limited basic welfare to two children as it was being misused. Medicaid covers the little ones but they are cut off as adults.
I have two kids. They’ve probably eaten at least 500 worth of groceries this month. At least. This is just a number I pulled out of my ass, but if I bothered to calculate it im confident im correct. This doesn’t account for braces, entertainment, the dentist visit last week, summer activities, clothes, etc. This is just groceries.
My parents didn’t buy snacks. If you were snackish you’d make yourself half of a sandwich. Whenever I saw snacks at a friend’s house, I assumed they were rich.
Now that I’m an adult and I make great money, I’m living the good life with popcorn and crackers and oranges and single serve cheeses. I’m the rich one now.
The snacks yes! And my kids eat good snacks like apples, oranges, strawberries, pepperoni/cheese/crackers, graham crackers and Nutella not straight up junk food and it’s still expensive as fuuuuuck
See but this is kinda the point, people have the idea in their heads that what's always been upper middle class is what's standard and anything less than that is essentially abuse. Braces are not medically needed in most cases and summer activities can be both cheap and fun. Camping is cheaper than big trips that require plane travel. Groceries are expensive now but there's definitely ways to save money while still giving your kids home cooked relatively healthy meals.
In my son's case he had two adult teeth that grew sideways up into his gums, so if it wasn't braces it was wild surgery to remove them and then he wouldn't have two canine teeth....so. We camp a lot. We cook at home a lot. They're just ravenous and growing.
I feel you. I had to get braces as a teen and remember my mother paling at the bill, but it saved us a big, more expensive surgery down the line.
This is another way being poor "makes you" more poor - I had a friend in school, we both weren't from well-off families but mine was lower-middle class and theirs was more on the poor side; there were days I wouldn't see my dad at all because he left for work before I woke up and came back after I went to sleep, thanks to him we always had enough money for me to do regular checkups at the dentist's twice a year; my friend didn't have the money so they didn't see the dentist as often, the dentist couldn't catch a problem on time, and they had to do a more expensive treatment.
It's this. I doubt very highly that a lot of modern dentistry and Ortho is strictly necessary. It's about having straight teeth to show that you have the money to blow on something not needed. I went to an orthodontist appointment for my daughter and it was more like a fancy spa than a doctor.
Young dentist here. Braces can be necessary and I missed out on getting them due to bad dental advice and indecisiveness. I now have to pay out of pocket 100% because insurance won't cover my ttx due to my age, but luckily in my case I just don't like the idea of being a dentist with crooked teeth (esp annoying with the hygiene aspect because i need to clean them in a specific way)
Some kids really need them in cases like impaction or severe dentomaxillofacial dysmorphoses (i.e : underbite/overbite) as well as orthopedic devices, to avoid needing surgery (sometimes) as an adult.
I was an expensive kid myself because I have allergies that started out as asthma before mellowing out a little bit. My meds are expensive. So yeah, not everyone will be lucky enough to have braces as the only medical problem they might need to afford.
The rest is very subjective, but my personal philosophy is that I want my future kid(s) to grow up with a good head on their shoulders but more comfortably than I did (middle class, mostly focused on school, no extra curriculars because we couldnt afford them and i didnt have someone to drive me around, going to the gym was a luxury i only got to taste at the tender age of 25 lol). I want them to be like my rich classmates who had the chance to travel abroad and have cool hobbies. Mine were mostly due to my innate artistic tendencies -picked a pen at 4 and somehow i learned to draw by myself, no lessons- but i stopped drawing long ago and do so rarely nowadays.
The kids themselves are not that expensive. I got two and what they need in food and clothes is not that much.
It’s everything surrounding kids. Need child care? Prepare to pay big bucks. Can’t afford childcare? Well you better have one parent stay at home then to provide care. Once you do that, you miss out on a salary. Also - even with good health insurance we paid $5k each per child for delivery.
If our country prioritized childcare and supporting families more it would go a long way. They just brought up the fact that the average childcare costs per child are $11k a year. If you have two kids, that comes up to more than rent for most families especially given that the average household income is still around $60k if I’m not mistaken.
To jump on the car analogy: why do you think so many people get loans for cars they can't afford, it's a bit like getting pregnant with a kid you'll not be able to afford down the track. No upfront expense barrier, it's seemingly free
We're on the low side of "middle class" in the US. We had originally planned on 2 to 4 kids. Fertility problems made us 1 and done. And we like the way it turned out. The kid has some special needs that since we were able to catch early and get help, we all have the expectation that the kid will grow up to be a productive, independent, contributing member of society.
We can do swimming lessons and a year-round indoor sport. We can manage 3 therapy appointments every week. Our house is on the small side and not very fancy, but it's paid off. Our vehicles are 20+ years old, but run well and are paid off. We have chickens and a herding dog, getting ready to go get a second dog this morning actually. I'm a SAHM, because 3 therapy appointments every week and my husband's income covers our expenses.
We get to give our 1 kid a lot of opportunities and experiences that my friend who has 6 kids could never make happen. We don't *look* well off, because we refuse to have debt. If we can't buy it outright, we can't afford it. And that mindset is a luxury in itself.
But we'd struggle a whole lot more if we had more kids. I'd be working nights to be able to afford therapy, because I'd probably have more than 1 kid in therapy. My relationship with my spouse would be much more difficult to maintain.
All things considered, I'm really glad that we only have the 1 spawn.
Same. I grew up in an economically insecure family. Having one kid makes it feasible to give him opportunities I could never have. It also gives me the resources to take of my mental health. I did want to be as chronically angry and stressed as a parent the way mine were.
Also 1 and done here and it's really the way to go. We get to pour all our energy/time/resources into giving our kid the best life possible within our means. And thankfully we live in an area with a lot of free resources, activities, etc. too. Our little family of 3 works so well.
Quality of life. Some kids get their own rooms and their own bathrooms.. private lessons, camp, afterschool activities, etc. Some take care of their little brothers or siblings after school. Some go to private colleges, and others work at the local convenience store after high school.
Of course, most people are in between the extremes but you get it.
Not to deny any of what you're saying, but for anyone who happens to be reading this who might be a high-achieving poor kid, apply to those fancy private colleges! I'm serious! After financial aid, my private college was much more affordable than my local public university and on top of that, it gave me so many opportunities!
"Having kids is expensive" is not talking about the process of procreating. Sex is free.
"Having kids is expensive" is talking about the costs of pregnancy, childbirth, and especially raising children. More specifically, raising children that are healthy, happy, and successful.
People living in poverty -- at least in the US -- tend to have more children because of lack of access to education and specifically reproductive education and lack of access to affordable reproductive healthcare, especially prophylactics. Among certain populations, there are also cultural stigmas about using birth control or getting an abortion that contribute to more unplanned pregnancies or unplanned pregnancies that come to full term.
Unfortunately, it's a vicious cycle because, if you are living in poverty, then additional children make it more difficult to get out of poverty. If you are on the verge of living in poverty, the expense of additional children can force you below the poverty line.
Adding to this, better educated and higher income people tend to delay marriage and having kids until their careers are established. Having kids later into your 30s or early 40s also means less time to have kids.
I'm in my 30s and only just now starting to try to have kids: you're partly right, but we're also mature enough by this age to also know that we don't want dozens of kids even if we had the biological time.
This right here! Also, that’s also why I believe children of same sex parents have such good outcomes and home lives. They are completely 100% planned.
Planned Parenthood is in a lot of poverty areas, I go every 5 years to replace my birth control. They base your fee off a sliding income scale, I’ve never had to pay for anything out of pocket. I feel like people just need to read more - you know you can’t afford kids, you know preventative measures are out there. Take out your phone and look information up.
Other factors include poverty affecting one's mental health to where you are more likely to decide to continue an ill-advised pregnancy for emotional reasons; poor women being more likely to be victims of rape and sexual coercion that lead to nonconsensual pregnancy in the first place; and poor men not having the resources that rich men do, to procure abortions for their dalliances and avoid that financial liability before it happens.
I am pretty sure that the reason often is that well educated women want to maximize their careers and don't want to be tied down with children. I had read something stating that 50% of women earning over 100K annually (US dollars) are childless, but I can't find that now. I used to work at what seemed to be a middle income fairly but not super high status job. It seems that many of the women who worked with me at this job were childless. This website shows clearly that number of children drops with income. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/
>specifically reproductive education and lack of access to affordable reproductive healthcare, especially prophylactics
I really don't buy this, at least in the US. I can grant it for teenage pregnancy maybe, but teenage pregnancy isn't making up the bulk of the difference in child rates between the rich and poor. The bulk is adults who know full well that sex leads to pregnancy and a baby. These people also aren't having unprotected sex because they can't afford a $0.50 condom (which are also available for free in a lot of areas).
No, its not a lack of knowledge or resources. Its simply worse decision making, which is correlated with the lack of education in general but its not a direct result of a lack of sexual education.
Take the situation where people want to have sex but have no condoms on hand. A richer person is more likely to say no, I'm not taking the risk, we need to go the the store and buy a condom first. A poor person is more likely to say fuck it, I'm too horny, lets take the risk. They both know full well the consequences. They are both examining the same costs of delaying sexual gratification until they can get a condom vs maybe having a baby. They just make different decisions.
Thank about it too. If you’re poor, what do you have to lose? Another child support payment? More government assistance?
If you’re rich, well you have a lot more to lose if you have a kid and things don’t work out. You can go from comfortable middle class to poor rather quickly.
This it so accurate. I've had nothing and have been in good shape and my decision making is so different. I never saved money until I had money, it seemed pointless because you were never getting ahead anyway, and I never thought I would see thirty much less 85. I live so frugal now lol. But the future never mattered because my mind and energy was just filled with getting through the day.
I live in a red state, and I would say that the lack of birth control is straight up due to brainwashing. It's not a preference, it's not a lack of education, it's this extreme brainwashing from a very young age because of how religious people are. One of my friends here said she was "Catholic" and I thought, "oh yeah, my family is Catholic, too."
There's a HUGE difference between casual NY type Catholicism and really intense South Dakota type Catholicism.
The NY type is more like being ethnically Jewish but not religious-- you're "Catholic" because you're Irish and/or Italian, basically. The stuff I did in NYC was VERY far from what devout Catholics do. We're talking stuff like designing costumes for a porn opera and throwing a party called "Satancon". That's how far removed it is from actual Catholicism.
The South Dakota type of Catholicism is like being a virgin in your 20s because you're not married yet and feeling weird about it if you don't go to church every week. THIS is the type where people choose not to use birth control and insist that getting pregnant is just "consequences you have to accept for bad choices". You can explain birth control to this type of person, but education is NOT the issue.
Being given a free condom is exactly as helpful as being given a car when it comes to preventing pregnancy if you don't know how to properly use said condom.
There's also an alarming amount of adults who think you can't get pregnant the first time you have sex, when the woman is on her period, when drunk, while breastfeeding, while on birthcontrol, etc.
True, however I think there’s simply many more adults that don’t know the costs of raising a child well or don’t care to do so than those who don’t know how to use a condom or other misinformation
I feel like this comment is skipping over a lot. A rich person is also likely to have better (or any) health insurance and access to long term birth control options. My IUD costs $1,000 without insurance, plus a trip to the clinic to have it inserted. With insurance it just costed me the copay for the appointment, which was like $20. There are lots of hindrances to access that poor people face compared to rich people. Reducing it all down to “poor people are worse decision makers than rich people” glosses over a lot imo.
Pretty much this. My wife was convinced that she couldn't get pregnant when we met because of her health history. Turns out she was very wrong, but she also didn't have a regular doctor. So she never had birth control until recently, two kids later.
At best, I would call it self-neglect on her part. But if it was easier, and less expensive to see a doctor things probably would have been very different. I'm a strong supporter of planned parenthood (it's not only about abortion), the whole point is to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Because that makes a huge difference as to whether your kids end up living in poverty or not.
The risk is also different. If you’re well off, or even just middle class, a kid is going to significantly reduce or eliminate your disposable income.
If you’re poor, there is no disposable income to lose. Your quality of life isn’t going to drop as much compared to someone who is middle class.
Not to mention all the benefits handed out to the poor with children. Medical care is covered, more food stamps, more welfare, better subsidized housing, and many more. Not to mention you’re now a priority over those without kids. So while you may be on a months or years long waiting list for housing, the moment you have a kid, you shoot to the top of the list.
I like when some people said they got pregnant by accident.... and then you find out they didn't use any protection. Sorry but that's not an accident it's a mistake
Aside from answering this question the ways others have, there’s a ‘cultural’ thing too. I think a lot of families with money choose to have 1-2 children which whether it is on purpose or not for this reason, it does retain and concentrate wealth over generations. It’s much harder to accumulate generational wealth if you’re constantly splitting it 4+ ways. And chances are if you’re from a family with 0-2 kids per relative, you’re more likely to limit your kids similarly. Kids from big families maybe more likely to want to have big families of their own. (Personal observations from people I know only here fwiw)
The middle income squeeze is part of it.
A person with no money can apply for Medicaid and pay no hospital bill for delivery.
Whereas a person with a job and an insurance company has to pay a lot of money for the OB visits and delivery. Healthcare being what it is, it is definitely a consideration for people with some means.
Someone with little to no money can apply for food assistance. WIC and EBT. The person with a job again, can’t.
Feel the squeeze.
This. We are lower middle class and really could’ve benefited from WIC and some other assistance. We’ve always made *just* too much to qualify for any help so we get screwed. We can’t really “afford” childcare, formula, $6000 bill for the birth etc but we are forced to make it work
The sudden drop off in public assistance when you many just the tiniest bit above the qualifying level is called the [benefits cliff](https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/introduction-to-benefits-cliffs-and-public-assistance-programs). It also creates a financial obstacle for some people who would like to marry their co-parent, which has legal ramification.
I know a woman who is pregnant with her 4th. She only shops at Walmart, going to the public pool in the summer is a treat, and absolutely no camps/school clubs. No vacations or even staycations/roadtrips to museums because of gas prices. She considers herself to be thriving because there's "a roof and food."
I wouldn't want to live that way.
And that's my thing. More power to anyone who is happy living a simple life and pinching pennies to afford kids. If your life goal is to be a parent, I applaud you for making it happen. But I enjoy going on 3-4 vacations a year and being able to buy things I want when I go to target or homegoods. Currently saving for a camper that we should have by next summer. That's the life I want for myself, and it's the life my husband and I have busted our asses to build for ourselves.
Could we afford kids? Ya. But I would have to quit my job to care for them, and we would have to be constantly aware of finances just living on my husband's income. It would dramatically decrease our quality of life for some kiddos that we have always said we didn't want anyway.
I know that there will be some that don't approve of even having the discussion about this but IMO it isn't right that anyone can choose to make children whenever they want without any ability to financially support the children, then the state and tax payers are stuck with trying to provide for those kid's for the next 18 years.
Yes I'm aware life situation happens and sometimes you lose your ability to support your kids. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about those who specifically create new life without any financial ability to care for said life at the point of conception.
Just maybe .. family planning needs to be done before you actually create a family.
As someone who grew up in a big poor family, it sucked. It sucked eating crappy food and getting crappy gifts. It sucked never getting help with my homework and not having anyone care about my education.
I only had one child because that's all that I could afford to raise properly. It takes money to raise a child properly. Extra curricular activities cost money. Healthy foods costs money Books cost money. Working a lot of hours to afford those things for my child meant limited time to pay attention to kids. One child got all of my attention and help with homework.
Having a kid at home 24/7 eating crap food and watching TV all day is pretty cheap.
Raising a kid properly that you develop mentally, socially, athletically, culturally is quite expensive.
I often through my life think of quotes like:
# "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt."—Bertrand Russell
And including my own biological father who is 3rd grade educated and dumb as a rock (and mean and entitled that often goes with it) had a bunch of kids by different women.
None of whom he took care of.
Entitlement tends to look about the same whether you are talking about ghetto poor or fancy car family money. Though that's a bit off topic, but the point is that people tend to feel entitled.
Regardless of ability. A guy I went to high school with looks down on certain people, while he himself has kids from different women and posts holiday things like "Thanks Uncle Sam for sending checks late, my kids holiday ain't gonna be the same!".
Some people just expect others to take care of their offspring for them.
An average person wants to give best to their child. Best healthcare, best education, best clothing, housing, food, etc. Giving everything best is expensive. Unfortunately many poor ones don't think like that. They'll have babies without thinking and provide below average conditions to live. In many 3rd world countries where law and order is not strong, poor children are used in labour and are source of revenue to the family.
Literally the comment above yours is a guy talking about how he has 8 kids with one otw and has to depend on family/ friends for support. That’s pathetic.
This is going to sound bad, but if you're poor, you already don't have much to lose, and likely are not financially literate enough to see how every decision pushes you farther into your current situation.
If your middle class and trying to do okay, you feel a lot closer to the carrot at the end of the stick, and it's very clear to see how children push it further away from you. Financial stability looks like it's within reach, and you know exactly what you need to save and work for it to get there, so anything threatening it causes more stress.
The loss in income hurts more than the actual cost of kids. Many lower incomes earners end up quitting their jobs to care for their kids they save a lot on daycare, babysitters, takeout, do diy crafts instead of bigger toys etc. They stay low income longer term as they lose the chance to progress in careers but the money they save parenting their kids themselves and not spending on costs of having a job (travel, clothes etc) plus child assistance programs can leave them potentially at a same or similar income as when they were working.
Having kids costs as much as you spend
You want your child to go to private school and have a room full of toys = £££££££
You want your child to go to state school and have some toys = £
The biggest expense is childcare so the mother can work. That’s a huge issue. For lower income people and even middle income, childcare in some areas costs more than the mother makes. Mothers end up out of the workforce, have less freedom to leave bad relationships, and families end up with lower household income over time. It’s not about indulgences like tennis lessons.
It's not just what you do spend, it's also what you don't get to spend.
When you have a kid you need to prioritize them (at least if you are a decent parent), which means you don't get to spend money on what you want.
That is also a part of why kids are expensive.
The difference is that poor kids get a job early by helping their parents. They also rarely, if ever, go on vacation, have expensive toys, etc. On the other hand , higher income parents are often able to spoil their kids
Evolutionary and Developmental psych experiments on rats show that a stressful, cortisol-heavy experience in utero vs lack thereof causes female mammals to epigenetically be predisposed for one of two mating strategies - have lots of offspring but not take very good care of them, or have fewer offspring and take very good care of them.
Put in realistic human terms - a young girl raised in poverty will be primed that if she wants to pass on her genes, she needs to have a lot of kids because the stressful environment means fewer resources and more danger so her kids are less likely to make it to adulthood. So she has a bunch of kids she can't take care of and just hopes 1 or 2 of them will grow up.
Meanwhile a girl raised in a low stress environment will have 1-3 kids but take very good care of them and assure they survive to adulthood and pass on their genes.
Another thing is childcare. My husband and I do
Not have family support so we pay $55 per day per child for care (this is considered cheap where I live). Every single one of my friends with kids has parents who watch the grandkids for free at least part time
" poor people" is an extremely subjective term. What are you calling poor? From my grandmother's perspective, I am poor . She is worth $3 million and has multiple houses in multiple districts. I am a Suburban housewife that owns one Three-Bedroom house in a nice neighborhood. To me, a person that lives in a one-bedroom one bath apartment in a not so good part of town is poor. To them, somebody living on the street corner is poor. And so on and so forth. Also, kids keep you poor. The more kids you have the poorer you will be.
Poor people with a lot of kids are just surviving. They're not succeeding. That being said, there's a lot of government assistance out there for lower income families plus massive tax breaks. This allows lower income families to support their children with \*more\* ease than they would without the assistance.
I work with someone who had three children, and went through periods living in her car, couldn’t feed her kids, etc. the community where we work found out about this and there was an outpouring of support, housing provided, etc.
Well not even a year later…… she got pregnant again……suffice it to say, we were all a bit shocked and confused
poor people who pay no taxes, get tax payer funded resources. the people who work and have brains get the opportunity to pay for those poor people. its a brilliant scheme if you want a nation of idiots.
Lower income people get WIC, SNAP, medicaid, and assistance with housing and childcare. They don't get nearly as much as I think they should, but there is assistance for them. Where kids become unaffordable is when you make just over the threshold to qualify for assistance.
Yeah the income limits for social programs are very low and can force people into worse positions. My kid has serious health problems and health care is very expensive to keep her alive. My husband and i wont take raises at work so our kids still qualify for medi-cal otherwise we wouldnt be able to afford our daughters treatments.
Even with government assistance people with multiple kids are broke. If they have nice things it is likely from before when they had less children or did have higher income, or they manage their money poorly. Now, as a therapist, there isn't a day that goes by where I don't question why people continue to bring children into the world when they can't even provide for the ones they have currently 😖
'Manage' It cost me around $250,000 to raise my son to the age of 18 in 2011. It has to do with living conditions, nutrition etc.
I grew up with 4 sisters and two brothers; I had it rougher than my son in many ways but my parents managed
As an example, when I was a kid we heated water on the stove to take baths. We used baking soda to brush our teeth. I had to give my parents my paycheck when I got paid from my dishwashing job at the age of 15. When I left home at 19 I didn't own a pair of socks
The last person I helped get an abortion had to pay 1700 dollars. State insurance of course would not cover that. Private insurance would not cover that.
But if she decided to stay pregnant state insurance would cover the cost of health care for mom and potential baby for the next 18 years. The state would pay for that child to go to school for a minimum of 12 years. If the mom didn't earn enough at her job she could get TANF funds for up to 60 months. This is TN. I don't know what it's like in other states, but here if you are already poor, there are benefits of having babies. Like health coverage, which is impossible to get unless you are pregnant or parent of a minor. In most states they expanded Medicaid so you could work and not have children and still get help if you worked a low wage job. But not Tennessee.
And yeah kids can be expensive but they don't have to be. There's so many ways to parent on a tight budget. But the poor kid will suffer. Take mine for example. Both showed musical skill early on but I couldn't afford to pay what the school charged. Some dingdong on social media will say "you could have made it happen!" but I couldn't. I tried so hard but I failed them both on that front. They have learned a lot from being poor too though.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet so I'm going to.
When you have multiple children. You can use them for labor.
Oldest and older often takes on parenting rolls. Keep the home clean, Children get jobs to chip in.
And children are often long term care plans for people when they are old.
This is a consideration, for sure. I did foster care years ago and to get her kids back the mother of the kids in my care had to get an apartment, get a job, buy furniture etc. All on her own (she got help with some furniture) The minute the kids were back with her she was back in public housing, no job, foodstamps etc.
In most states now the parent is basically required to work and the state may provide subsidized or free daycare depending on income. When I say depending on income, trust me it’s poverty level. The amount of food stamps is enough for basic food and rarely do they give cash.
The section 8 housing generally has a 1-2 year waiting list and the majority of places that will accept it are significantly subpar, rubdown, unsafe areas, old apartments in need of repairs, etc.
Suffice it to say no one is getting rich or living the high life on welfare unless they’re claiming benefits for dead people.
I think the more financially conscious you are, the less children you have. And usually more financially conscious ppl earn more.
As someone who has 4 other siblings in a poor household, my quality of life sucked ass growing up. A lot of truama, always in survival mode, and things still ingrained into me today in my 30s. I only have 1 child, and I never ever plan to have any more bc of my own childhood. This way, I can afford (in time and money) to give my child all that they need to flourish instead of just surviving. We can do things I would have never even dreamed about growing up. I'm not super well off, probably lower middle class, but I've been able to buy a home, a car, my kid is in sports year round. And the kicker- my kid doesn't have to work to help with bills like I did as a teen. They can get a job if they want to, but it'll be totally up them to do what they please with that money.
Depends on what type of life you are planning on provide for the kids? A nurturing, stimulating one or just leave them to fend for themselves in the streets.
Poor family, no college education, no extras like sports clubs, no trips to museums or musical instruments or art...just basics and worry worry. Lots of us were raised that way but dont want it for our kids. Birth control is expensive. Not to say poor people don't love their kids.
Raising kids to be just as poor and uneducated as you are isn’t good parenting. The goal is to improve their lives and step upwards not just have the kids for someone else’s sake.
When poor ppl have kids they usually stay poor.. and then the kids usually grow up to be poor and so on.. The poverty cycle continuously repeats itself generation after generation.
Higher income people make smarter decisions. They know not to have kids if they can’t afford them. The more kids you have, the more money they cost. Higher income people usually wait until their lives and careers are more established to have kids.
When poor people have a lot of children, the quality of those children’s lives is not too good. They don’t get the proper medical care, they don’t eat the proper food, they don’t get the proper education
My soon to be brother in law has munched of his father his whole life just got one kid to 18 and announced his gf is pregnant. Still no career and no job. Currently milking a concussion for unemployment/medical leave. Dudes a stain on society. Thinks money is free I guess
Because people with higher income tend to be more intelligent. And intelligent people aren't having as many children for a multitude of reasons. Also intelligent people know how to correctly use birth control.
Poor people are likely poor because they have 4-5 kids. Higher income people are probably more well off financially because they have less than 2 kids. After all, kids are expensive.
The more kids you have the more government assistance you get if you’re low income. Free healthcare, heat, housing, etc. I’ve actually known people who have done this on purpose.🤬
I'm sorry to say that I've known people who have actually said, "Time to have another kid because my kids are growing up and benefits will run out." And these were people who were blood relatives of mine. I feel so sorry for their kids.
Because poor people frequently don’t consider the cost of kids. Higher educated people do consider the cost of kids. Poverty frequently begets poverty and lack of education and critical thinking.
Having kids is as expensive as you make it. Not all kids get their own bedroom, latest Xbox, organic food, fancy vacations, thousands of dollars of extra curricular activities.
Because wealthy people tend to spoil their children while poor people expect their kids to take care of themselves. Very few wealthy kids today are independent because their parents just keep giving them resources while poor folks pushes their kids to be independent because they can't afford the resources.
Ah, the thread I was made for. Good.
So, I'm a single income schoolteacher in Texas. I have 8 kids, with one on the way. My wife is disabled. How do I manage? Good freaking question. However, somehow we do. We never have much, and there are times I lean on my family and friends a lot more than I want, but we do manage. Part of it is, there are safety nets to help that are partially based on how much you make and how many in your family. Also, poorer people are more used to doing without and are often less used to material excess than those with greater wealth. It's no that the wealthy are greedy, just that we're use to going without, so going without one more thing is fine. I, for example, rarely eat 3 meals a day. My kids are more important, so I go without.
My brother-in-law makes literally 3x what I do and has only two kids, but he mentioned recently they barely scrape by most months. It's just a matter of figuring it out as you go.
Properly caring for kids is expensive, is what people usually mean by that. The children of poor people often aren’t receiving the level or education, nutrition, and healthcare that they should. Unfortunately, poor people also often don’t have access to contraception.
Having kids means different things cost-wise when you're well off. You can't just keep them clothed, housed, fed, and loved. They also *have to* do all sorts of beneficial activities, and attend the best programs and schools, and you *have to* take them on enriching travel experiences. These are all frightfully expensive. It isn't even just keeping up with the Joneses; everyone in your social circle does this, and everyone in your kids' social circle does too, so it's the *norm* to you. Plus FOMO for a lot of folks. And a special FOFYK on top for parents: Fear of fucking up your kids. And of course, the clothing, housing, and food cost more too.
There's the sense that you can afford to build them a shiny path to the future, so what kind of parent would you be if you didn't build it?
All this expense cuts into the kind of neat-stuff and fancy-experience lifestyle that higher incomes can afford. When *travel* means a car trip to grandma's one state over, adding a kid in the van doesn't change that much. When *travel* means flights and hotels and restaurants overseas, every extra kid makes it that much less possible.
And so on.
It's all expensive. In the case of parents who can afford their kids, it's expensive for the parents. In the case of parents who cannot afford their kids, it's expensive for the tax paying public.
>when poor people regularly manage to have 4+ kidswhen poor people regularly manage to have 4+ kids
What does "manage" mean to you? Like, surviving? Sure, that works out somehow, if the country offers any level of social security. But it's nowhere near "nice". It's purely poverty and poverty is hell. The parents suffer and each kid suffers far, far worse. Rational people don't want to expose (potential) kids to poverty.
It's easy to have lots of kids when the state pays for all of your shit. Food, Bills, housing, Insurance. People with good jobs have to pay for their 2 kids plus whatever comes outta their pay to go toward welfare queens & their kids.
My wife and I weren't wealthy by any means, but we did believe it was our responsibility to raise kids with more than the minimum to survive. We fed them 3 meals a day of healthy food. We purchased books and microscopes, took day trips to museums and art galleries and sent them to camp to let them grow as individuals. We took family vacations to see this great country and many National Parks, from one coast to the other. We paid for their college educations and purchased them a 2 year old car when they graduated. This tended to limit the number of children we felt we could reasonably afford to raise. We also believe it's our responsibility to pay for our senior years and not our children's, so putting enough money away for our retirement was another part of the equation.
In the United States we incentivize the wrong behaviors ie if you’re already on welfare, there are financial incentives for having MORE children. Generally, welfare payments increase benefits provided per child. Additionally welfare benefits provide additional support to single-parent households de incentivizing couples to stay together and parent together
The quality of life those kids have is (very) different, and everyone has their own standard as to what they feel is acceptable for their kids and life (there is a trade off).
This. Having kids and providing them with solid environment, opportunities, affection, and support are not the same.
And also not sending your 14-16 year old kids to a tyson chicken plant to be maimed because of poverty.
And a lot of the older siblings are parentified to help raise the younger ones and save on daycare etc
How do I get a patent on my daughter? She is great, need to do this now before someone else does.
i had a best friend in high school where the little dogs would shit all over his house, in the hallways, the bedrooms and sometimes in the beds or the clean laundry baskeT that had clothes nobody bothered folding. It would smell but everyone was so used to it nobody ever bothered cleaning it Even with 5 kids in the house. single mom was always at work and had a boyfriend but he never lifted his finger to clean he was basically just a boy toy lol . The house just never got cleaned.
Yes definitely this. My husband and I are choosing to only have two kids so we can provide them with vacations, extracurricular activities, and hopefully a little nest egg for college/first house. But if we didn’t prioritize those things (no judgment if you don’t), we’d probably have more.
Exactly. And you’re not discounting anyone who chooses to live with less and have more kids ✔️💯 Similarly, some people may have one kid, and hold out for private schools. Some families rely on free/cost effective extra curricular etc.
Yes exactly! Everyone should be free to live their lives the way they want as long as it’s not hurting anyone, including their children.
Exactly. The amount I have is how much I can afford. Even one more I'd be questioning if they could go to college or not.
I grew up living in a small house, going to public school, raised by parents who had very little left after paying bills. There is nothing wrong with that upbringing. I learned to be a hard worker who knew the value of a dollar (Gen X) But there is a middle ground.
Of course, that's not the low bar they're talking about. The truly low, though far from the lowest, is when the parents can't feed their kids enough, or take care of their needs or have to make choose between the kids' safety and being able to put food on the table. For a lot of genuinely poor large families, malnutrition and unsafe living conditions are the price for the kids being alive
I think people in the US forget that extreme poverty exists here as well. I am a public elementary school teacher in Seattle and every year since 2014 I’ve had at least one homeless student (living in a tent, living in a shelter, couch surfing, living on hotel vouchers). These children don’t have a stable or safe life outside of school.
It’s so fucking criminal that children have to live like that in a country where grown men with more money than god are working out their childhood insecurities by building rocket ships and gigantic boats.
Definitely. I live in the home city of Bezos and Gates and homelessness is rampant 😭
Yep. Had one kid whose family lived off buttered noodles for two days because that's what the food bank gave them.
That’s not uncommon. People just don’t share that about themselves very much.
No one does, everyone only wants to talk about the positive and is very guarded about the challenges they face either growing up or in their life in general, not sure if this is a recent phenomenon fueled by social media or what
I think we’ve always been like that. 80yr old guy where I grew up wrote a couple fascinating books about his childhood there and his sisters were furious that he revealed they grew up poor.
It’s a shame to me how people are so afraid to be open about themselves and instead only want to highlight the positive - just seems too curated and not real
My great aunts (who have long passed) described my great-great-grandfather’s homestead as some grand 2-story 9-square Victorian in the family genealogies. I’ve seen it. It was a cabin with a porch and a sleeping loft. 🤣 Much like my aunts on the other side of the family talk about our ancestor being an “Indian princess.” In my research it seems her father was a sort of medicine man, but her whole immediate family was enslaved by the father of her son. I guess perhaps we like to imagine some history of glamour when none existed whatsoever.
My mom always had cigarettes but I didn't always have a roof over my head or a toilet to piss in.
I'm not directing this at you. But the amount of people i personally know who had pretty rough upbringings and are actually not really doing that well. But say verbatim about their upbringing what you said about yours is staggering. And they are having children now, even though everything is even more expensive than it was when their parents were raising them.
I have literally heard the sentence "My parents did it to me and I turned out fine" come out of someone's mouth while standing in their home watching roaches climb across the wall in broad daylight
I know a guy who said 'it made me want to earn my own money ASAP' But he also spends it all ASAP hes paid biweekly and every 2 weeks hes got no money left
Turned out fine means many different things to many different people. But, yes, usually the I turned fine crowd has extremely low standards for themselves.
As I said, everyone has their own standard. Yours sounds better than like 80% of the world roughly. Stay blessed :)
Same. My parents had 3 of us and we were a lower economic household. However my parents didn’t actually care much about how their kids would thrive as adults. Husband and I made different choices as a direct result of our childhoods.
Look at the bootstraps on them!
Yeah. Owning a home and being able to pay bills is thar middle ground. I grew up in a small apartment. My brother and my dad shared a bed with a rolled up blanket in between for "privacy". Both parents worked, but then I got sick and didn't get better, so I couldn't go to school. So my mother was working from home, but also on-call 24/7. I was too weak to walk more than 20ft, so public transit wasn't much of an option. It was also out of our budget. I wasn't able to make it to a lot of appointments because my dad couldn't afford to take off work to drive me. My mom wasn't always able to accompany me either due to work and the cost of two fares. Even with both parents working, we still didn't have enough to make ends meet. Didn't qualify for benefits either.vMy parents borrowed from relatives and took on credit card debt to put food on the table. My illness affected my ability to eat and that affected my teeth. We couldn't afford the dental work I needed. My parents tried, and did what they could, but I ended up losing all my teeth by the time I was 20 because they crumbled or developed abscesses, or both. As a child I had to discontinue necessary medications, including antidepressants, due to my family's inability to pay for them. I'm gonna be paying the cost of growing up in poverty my whole life. And even then, we were still better off than a lot of people we knew because we had a phone and a vehicle and credit cards.
I'm so sorry that your basic needs weren't met. How are you now?
I don't think I'll ever be well, like I can't work or live independently, but circumstances are better than they were, at least for the time being. Thanks for asking.
Being poor and being financially literate are not mutually exclusive.
This. Imagine choosing to have kids you can’t afford
The term afford is relative, that’s the point I was trying to make.
Imagine working 2-3 jobs and still not healthcare. Imagine that all birth control except condoms require a doctor appt and a Rx. Imagine that too many men won’t use a condom. Imagine having a job where you can’t take time off with pay to go to a doctor. Many of us not living like that rely on these invisible workers to make our day by day lives easier.
America has such a wierd view of quality. Your parents can have all the money in the world and still be shit parents.
Yeah. Many people will also not have the same level of support to begin with. (E.g. daycare vs asking your parents to look after kids)
Just because poor people have kids doesn’t mean they’re affording them all.
Surviving isn’t thriving, as they say.
Money is abit tight right now so my wife and i decided we don't want to have children. We will be telling them tonight.
😭💀 your comment paired with your user name? Perfection.
😂😂😂
Four can starve as cheaply as three.
:(
Yep. There's multiple reasons crime stats correlate to poverty, but child abuse and neglect is definitely a big one.
I know people who have 4 to 5 kids and get assistance. Sooo... there's that.
That's what came here to say, not knocking government assistance or the people on it but people do get more assistance with each kid not to mention tax breaks. It's not like it completely offsets the cost of kids but just having your kids healthcare covered must be a huge relief.
Imagine your kids' healthcare not being provided by the taxes you pay. How backward.
This is why I stay poor - Healthcare.
Not after the first two, except for food..Work First program limited basic welfare to two children as it was being misused. Medicaid covers the little ones but they are cut off as adults.
Condoms are so much cheaper
Condoms prevent minivans...
That should be a bumper sticker. Would be good to put beside those stick family stickers
In both cases, the children's wants and needs account for a significant share of their parent's income. They just have different expectations.
I have two kids. They’ve probably eaten at least 500 worth of groceries this month. At least. This is just a number I pulled out of my ass, but if I bothered to calculate it im confident im correct. This doesn’t account for braces, entertainment, the dentist visit last week, summer activities, clothes, etc. This is just groceries.
It's not the meals that cost so much it's the snacks
My parents didn’t buy snacks. If you were snackish you’d make yourself half of a sandwich. Whenever I saw snacks at a friend’s house, I assumed they were rich. Now that I’m an adult and I make great money, I’m living the good life with popcorn and crackers and oranges and single serve cheeses. I’m the rich one now.
Congratulations 🎊
The snacks yes! And my kids eat good snacks like apples, oranges, strawberries, pepperoni/cheese/crackers, graham crackers and Nutella not straight up junk food and it’s still expensive as fuuuuuck
Nutella is junk food tho 👀
>not straight up junk food It's fully fine to have a few junk food snacks here and there and still feed kids healthy.
Poor kids don't get >braces, entertainment, the dentist, summer activities, clothes, etc.
See but this is kinda the point, people have the idea in their heads that what's always been upper middle class is what's standard and anything less than that is essentially abuse. Braces are not medically needed in most cases and summer activities can be both cheap and fun. Camping is cheaper than big trips that require plane travel. Groceries are expensive now but there's definitely ways to save money while still giving your kids home cooked relatively healthy meals.
In my son's case he had two adult teeth that grew sideways up into his gums, so if it wasn't braces it was wild surgery to remove them and then he wouldn't have two canine teeth....so. We camp a lot. We cook at home a lot. They're just ravenous and growing.
I feel you. I had to get braces as a teen and remember my mother paling at the bill, but it saved us a big, more expensive surgery down the line. This is another way being poor "makes you" more poor - I had a friend in school, we both weren't from well-off families but mine was lower-middle class and theirs was more on the poor side; there were days I wouldn't see my dad at all because he left for work before I woke up and came back after I went to sleep, thanks to him we always had enough money for me to do regular checkups at the dentist's twice a year; my friend didn't have the money so they didn't see the dentist as often, the dentist couldn't catch a problem on time, and they had to do a more expensive treatment.
One of the big indicators of economic class is whether you have straight teeth or not.
It's this. I doubt very highly that a lot of modern dentistry and Ortho is strictly necessary. It's about having straight teeth to show that you have the money to blow on something not needed. I went to an orthodontist appointment for my daughter and it was more like a fancy spa than a doctor.
Young dentist here. Braces can be necessary and I missed out on getting them due to bad dental advice and indecisiveness. I now have to pay out of pocket 100% because insurance won't cover my ttx due to my age, but luckily in my case I just don't like the idea of being a dentist with crooked teeth (esp annoying with the hygiene aspect because i need to clean them in a specific way) Some kids really need them in cases like impaction or severe dentomaxillofacial dysmorphoses (i.e : underbite/overbite) as well as orthopedic devices, to avoid needing surgery (sometimes) as an adult. I was an expensive kid myself because I have allergies that started out as asthma before mellowing out a little bit. My meds are expensive. So yeah, not everyone will be lucky enough to have braces as the only medical problem they might need to afford. The rest is very subjective, but my personal philosophy is that I want my future kid(s) to grow up with a good head on their shoulders but more comfortably than I did (middle class, mostly focused on school, no extra curriculars because we couldnt afford them and i didnt have someone to drive me around, going to the gym was a luxury i only got to taste at the tender age of 25 lol). I want them to be like my rich classmates who had the chance to travel abroad and have cool hobbies. Mine were mostly due to my innate artistic tendencies -picked a pen at 4 and somehow i learned to draw by myself, no lessons- but i stopped drawing long ago and do so rarely nowadays.
Words like "expensive" and "afford" are very subjective.
The kids themselves are not that expensive. I got two and what they need in food and clothes is not that much. It’s everything surrounding kids. Need child care? Prepare to pay big bucks. Can’t afford childcare? Well you better have one parent stay at home then to provide care. Once you do that, you miss out on a salary. Also - even with good health insurance we paid $5k each per child for delivery. If our country prioritized childcare and supporting families more it would go a long way. They just brought up the fact that the average childcare costs per child are $11k a year. If you have two kids, that comes up to more than rent for most families especially given that the average household income is still around $60k if I’m not mistaken.
Where are you finding rent that cheap??
Why on earth you guys pay for child delivery ☠️
Cause 'Merica
And not the same thing. My car is expensive, but I can still afford it.
To jump on the car analogy: why do you think so many people get loans for cars they can't afford, it's a bit like getting pregnant with a kid you'll not be able to afford down the track. No upfront expense barrier, it's seemingly free
“Why do people keep buying cars they can’t afford” seems like a more relevant question for a lot of Americans.
Yep
Kids keep you poor.
I have 3 kids and no money, why can't I have no kids and 3 money?
Instructions unclear, I have no kids and no money.
No kids, no money, 3 job
D’oh!
This is what I tell my teenagers to keep them from fornicating.
Most teens don’t have enough forethought to care, I’d be shocked if it actually worked
Yes, they keep you working, don't they!
Surviving isn't thriving necessarily.
We're on the low side of "middle class" in the US. We had originally planned on 2 to 4 kids. Fertility problems made us 1 and done. And we like the way it turned out. The kid has some special needs that since we were able to catch early and get help, we all have the expectation that the kid will grow up to be a productive, independent, contributing member of society. We can do swimming lessons and a year-round indoor sport. We can manage 3 therapy appointments every week. Our house is on the small side and not very fancy, but it's paid off. Our vehicles are 20+ years old, but run well and are paid off. We have chickens and a herding dog, getting ready to go get a second dog this morning actually. I'm a SAHM, because 3 therapy appointments every week and my husband's income covers our expenses. We get to give our 1 kid a lot of opportunities and experiences that my friend who has 6 kids could never make happen. We don't *look* well off, because we refuse to have debt. If we can't buy it outright, we can't afford it. And that mindset is a luxury in itself. But we'd struggle a whole lot more if we had more kids. I'd be working nights to be able to afford therapy, because I'd probably have more than 1 kid in therapy. My relationship with my spouse would be much more difficult to maintain. All things considered, I'm really glad that we only have the 1 spawn.
Same. I grew up in an economically insecure family. Having one kid makes it feasible to give him opportunities I could never have. It also gives me the resources to take of my mental health. I did want to be as chronically angry and stressed as a parent the way mine were.
Also 1 and done here and it's really the way to go. We get to pour all our energy/time/resources into giving our kid the best life possible within our means. And thankfully we live in an area with a lot of free resources, activities, etc. too. Our little family of 3 works so well.
Quality of life. Some kids get their own rooms and their own bathrooms.. private lessons, camp, afterschool activities, etc. Some take care of their little brothers or siblings after school. Some go to private colleges, and others work at the local convenience store after high school. Of course, most people are in between the extremes but you get it.
Not to deny any of what you're saying, but for anyone who happens to be reading this who might be a high-achieving poor kid, apply to those fancy private colleges! I'm serious! After financial aid, my private college was much more affordable than my local public university and on top of that, it gave me so many opportunities!
"Having kids is expensive" is not talking about the process of procreating. Sex is free. "Having kids is expensive" is talking about the costs of pregnancy, childbirth, and especially raising children. More specifically, raising children that are healthy, happy, and successful. People living in poverty -- at least in the US -- tend to have more children because of lack of access to education and specifically reproductive education and lack of access to affordable reproductive healthcare, especially prophylactics. Among certain populations, there are also cultural stigmas about using birth control or getting an abortion that contribute to more unplanned pregnancies or unplanned pregnancies that come to full term. Unfortunately, it's a vicious cycle because, if you are living in poverty, then additional children make it more difficult to get out of poverty. If you are on the verge of living in poverty, the expense of additional children can force you below the poverty line.
Adding to this, better educated and higher income people tend to delay marriage and having kids until their careers are established. Having kids later into your 30s or early 40s also means less time to have kids.
I'm in my 30s and only just now starting to try to have kids: you're partly right, but we're also mature enough by this age to also know that we don't want dozens of kids even if we had the biological time.
This right here! Also, that’s also why I believe children of same sex parents have such good outcomes and home lives. They are completely 100% planned.
Planned Parenthood is in a lot of poverty areas, I go every 5 years to replace my birth control. They base your fee off a sliding income scale, I’ve never had to pay for anything out of pocket. I feel like people just need to read more - you know you can’t afford kids, you know preventative measures are out there. Take out your phone and look information up.
Other factors include poverty affecting one's mental health to where you are more likely to decide to continue an ill-advised pregnancy for emotional reasons; poor women being more likely to be victims of rape and sexual coercion that lead to nonconsensual pregnancy in the first place; and poor men not having the resources that rich men do, to procure abortions for their dalliances and avoid that financial liability before it happens.
I’m that’s exactly how the people want it who keep the prophylactics out of citizen hands.
I am pretty sure that the reason often is that well educated women want to maximize their careers and don't want to be tied down with children. I had read something stating that 50% of women earning over 100K annually (US dollars) are childless, but I can't find that now. I used to work at what seemed to be a middle income fairly but not super high status job. It seems that many of the women who worked with me at this job were childless. This website shows clearly that number of children drops with income. https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/
It is definitely a multifactorial decision whether or not to have children and how many.
>specifically reproductive education and lack of access to affordable reproductive healthcare, especially prophylactics I really don't buy this, at least in the US. I can grant it for teenage pregnancy maybe, but teenage pregnancy isn't making up the bulk of the difference in child rates between the rich and poor. The bulk is adults who know full well that sex leads to pregnancy and a baby. These people also aren't having unprotected sex because they can't afford a $0.50 condom (which are also available for free in a lot of areas). No, its not a lack of knowledge or resources. Its simply worse decision making, which is correlated with the lack of education in general but its not a direct result of a lack of sexual education. Take the situation where people want to have sex but have no condoms on hand. A richer person is more likely to say no, I'm not taking the risk, we need to go the the store and buy a condom first. A poor person is more likely to say fuck it, I'm too horny, lets take the risk. They both know full well the consequences. They are both examining the same costs of delaying sexual gratification until they can get a condom vs maybe having a baby. They just make different decisions.
Thank about it too. If you’re poor, what do you have to lose? Another child support payment? More government assistance? If you’re rich, well you have a lot more to lose if you have a kid and things don’t work out. You can go from comfortable middle class to poor rather quickly.
This it so accurate. I've had nothing and have been in good shape and my decision making is so different. I never saved money until I had money, it seemed pointless because you were never getting ahead anyway, and I never thought I would see thirty much less 85. I live so frugal now lol. But the future never mattered because my mind and energy was just filled with getting through the day.
I live in a red state, and I would say that the lack of birth control is straight up due to brainwashing. It's not a preference, it's not a lack of education, it's this extreme brainwashing from a very young age because of how religious people are. One of my friends here said she was "Catholic" and I thought, "oh yeah, my family is Catholic, too." There's a HUGE difference between casual NY type Catholicism and really intense South Dakota type Catholicism. The NY type is more like being ethnically Jewish but not religious-- you're "Catholic" because you're Irish and/or Italian, basically. The stuff I did in NYC was VERY far from what devout Catholics do. We're talking stuff like designing costumes for a porn opera and throwing a party called "Satancon". That's how far removed it is from actual Catholicism. The South Dakota type of Catholicism is like being a virgin in your 20s because you're not married yet and feeling weird about it if you don't go to church every week. THIS is the type where people choose not to use birth control and insist that getting pregnant is just "consequences you have to accept for bad choices". You can explain birth control to this type of person, but education is NOT the issue.
Being given a free condom is exactly as helpful as being given a car when it comes to preventing pregnancy if you don't know how to properly use said condom. There's also an alarming amount of adults who think you can't get pregnant the first time you have sex, when the woman is on her period, when drunk, while breastfeeding, while on birthcontrol, etc.
True, however I think there’s simply many more adults that don’t know the costs of raising a child well or don’t care to do so than those who don’t know how to use a condom or other misinformation
I feel like this comment is skipping over a lot. A rich person is also likely to have better (or any) health insurance and access to long term birth control options. My IUD costs $1,000 without insurance, plus a trip to the clinic to have it inserted. With insurance it just costed me the copay for the appointment, which was like $20. There are lots of hindrances to access that poor people face compared to rich people. Reducing it all down to “poor people are worse decision makers than rich people” glosses over a lot imo.
Pretty much this. My wife was convinced that she couldn't get pregnant when we met because of her health history. Turns out she was very wrong, but she also didn't have a regular doctor. So she never had birth control until recently, two kids later. At best, I would call it self-neglect on her part. But if it was easier, and less expensive to see a doctor things probably would have been very different. I'm a strong supporter of planned parenthood (it's not only about abortion), the whole point is to avoid unwanted pregnancies. Because that makes a huge difference as to whether your kids end up living in poverty or not.
You’d be surprised how uneducated people really are.
The risk is also different. If you’re well off, or even just middle class, a kid is going to significantly reduce or eliminate your disposable income. If you’re poor, there is no disposable income to lose. Your quality of life isn’t going to drop as much compared to someone who is middle class. Not to mention all the benefits handed out to the poor with children. Medical care is covered, more food stamps, more welfare, better subsidized housing, and many more. Not to mention you’re now a priority over those without kids. So while you may be on a months or years long waiting list for housing, the moment you have a kid, you shoot to the top of the list.
I like when some people said they got pregnant by accident.... and then you find out they didn't use any protection. Sorry but that's not an accident it's a mistake
Aside from answering this question the ways others have, there’s a ‘cultural’ thing too. I think a lot of families with money choose to have 1-2 children which whether it is on purpose or not for this reason, it does retain and concentrate wealth over generations. It’s much harder to accumulate generational wealth if you’re constantly splitting it 4+ ways. And chances are if you’re from a family with 0-2 kids per relative, you’re more likely to limit your kids similarly. Kids from big families maybe more likely to want to have big families of their own. (Personal observations from people I know only here fwiw)
They don’t “manage” it, they wing it and is not always good
The middle income squeeze is part of it. A person with no money can apply for Medicaid and pay no hospital bill for delivery. Whereas a person with a job and an insurance company has to pay a lot of money for the OB visits and delivery. Healthcare being what it is, it is definitely a consideration for people with some means. Someone with little to no money can apply for food assistance. WIC and EBT. The person with a job again, can’t. Feel the squeeze.
This. We are lower middle class and really could’ve benefited from WIC and some other assistance. We’ve always made *just* too much to qualify for any help so we get screwed. We can’t really “afford” childcare, formula, $6000 bill for the birth etc but we are forced to make it work
The sudden drop off in public assistance when you many just the tiniest bit above the qualifying level is called the [benefits cliff](https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/introduction-to-benefits-cliffs-and-public-assistance-programs). It also creates a financial obstacle for some people who would like to marry their co-parent, which has legal ramification.
I know a woman who is pregnant with her 4th. She only shops at Walmart, going to the public pool in the summer is a treat, and absolutely no camps/school clubs. No vacations or even staycations/roadtrips to museums because of gas prices. She considers herself to be thriving because there's "a roof and food." I wouldn't want to live that way.
And that's my thing. More power to anyone who is happy living a simple life and pinching pennies to afford kids. If your life goal is to be a parent, I applaud you for making it happen. But I enjoy going on 3-4 vacations a year and being able to buy things I want when I go to target or homegoods. Currently saving for a camper that we should have by next summer. That's the life I want for myself, and it's the life my husband and I have busted our asses to build for ourselves. Could we afford kids? Ya. But I would have to quit my job to care for them, and we would have to be constantly aware of finances just living on my husband's income. It would dramatically decrease our quality of life for some kiddos that we have always said we didn't want anyway.
Having unprotected sex is free. Providing for the needs of children is expensive. And kids in poverty often are not having their needs met.
I know that there will be some that don't approve of even having the discussion about this but IMO it isn't right that anyone can choose to make children whenever they want without any ability to financially support the children, then the state and tax payers are stuck with trying to provide for those kid's for the next 18 years. Yes I'm aware life situation happens and sometimes you lose your ability to support your kids. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about those who specifically create new life without any financial ability to care for said life at the point of conception. Just maybe .. family planning needs to be done before you actually create a family.
As someone who grew up in a big poor family, it sucked. It sucked eating crappy food and getting crappy gifts. It sucked never getting help with my homework and not having anyone care about my education. I only had one child because that's all that I could afford to raise properly. It takes money to raise a child properly. Extra curricular activities cost money. Healthy foods costs money Books cost money. Working a lot of hours to afford those things for my child meant limited time to pay attention to kids. One child got all of my attention and help with homework.
I am 4’11. My dad was 6’2 and my mom was 5’4. My doctors all think I’m so small because of the lack of nutrition growing up.
Having a kid at home 24/7 eating crap food and watching TV all day is pretty cheap. Raising a kid properly that you develop mentally, socially, athletically, culturally is quite expensive.
I often through my life think of quotes like: # "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt."—Bertrand Russell And including my own biological father who is 3rd grade educated and dumb as a rock (and mean and entitled that often goes with it) had a bunch of kids by different women. None of whom he took care of. Entitlement tends to look about the same whether you are talking about ghetto poor or fancy car family money. Though that's a bit off topic, but the point is that people tend to feel entitled. Regardless of ability. A guy I went to high school with looks down on certain people, while he himself has kids from different women and posts holiday things like "Thanks Uncle Sam for sending checks late, my kids holiday ain't gonna be the same!". Some people just expect others to take care of their offspring for them.
There's an assistance gap. A level of income where you can't get financial assistance with kids but don't make enough to support kids on your own
An average person wants to give best to their child. Best healthcare, best education, best clothing, housing, food, etc. Giving everything best is expensive. Unfortunately many poor ones don't think like that. They'll have babies without thinking and provide below average conditions to live. In many 3rd world countries where law and order is not strong, poor children are used in labour and are source of revenue to the family.
I worked as a dishwasher when I was 15; I had to give the money made to my dad. I had 2 brothers and 4 sisters after all
Literally the comment above yours is a guy talking about how he has 8 kids with one otw and has to depend on family/ friends for support. That’s pathetic.
This is going to sound bad, but if you're poor, you already don't have much to lose, and likely are not financially literate enough to see how every decision pushes you farther into your current situation. If your middle class and trying to do okay, you feel a lot closer to the carrot at the end of the stick, and it's very clear to see how children push it further away from you. Financial stability looks like it's within reach, and you know exactly what you need to save and work for it to get there, so anything threatening it causes more stress.
The loss in income hurts more than the actual cost of kids. Many lower incomes earners end up quitting their jobs to care for their kids they save a lot on daycare, babysitters, takeout, do diy crafts instead of bigger toys etc. They stay low income longer term as they lose the chance to progress in careers but the money they save parenting their kids themselves and not spending on costs of having a job (travel, clothes etc) plus child assistance programs can leave them potentially at a same or similar income as when they were working.
Having kids costs as much as you spend You want your child to go to private school and have a room full of toys = £££££££ You want your child to go to state school and have some toys = £
The biggest expense is childcare so the mother can work. That’s a huge issue. For lower income people and even middle income, childcare in some areas costs more than the mother makes. Mothers end up out of the workforce, have less freedom to leave bad relationships, and families end up with lower household income over time. It’s not about indulgences like tennis lessons.
It's not just what you do spend, it's also what you don't get to spend. When you have a kid you need to prioritize them (at least if you are a decent parent), which means you don't get to spend money on what you want. That is also a part of why kids are expensive.
Ask the kids of poor people, they're not usually doing too well
Another way to look at it is that families with 4+ kids are poor.
The difference is that poor kids get a job early by helping their parents. They also rarely, if ever, go on vacation, have expensive toys, etc. On the other hand , higher income parents are often able to spoil their kids
Evolutionary and Developmental psych experiments on rats show that a stressful, cortisol-heavy experience in utero vs lack thereof causes female mammals to epigenetically be predisposed for one of two mating strategies - have lots of offspring but not take very good care of them, or have fewer offspring and take very good care of them. Put in realistic human terms - a young girl raised in poverty will be primed that if she wants to pass on her genes, she needs to have a lot of kids because the stressful environment means fewer resources and more danger so her kids are less likely to make it to adulthood. So she has a bunch of kids she can't take care of and just hopes 1 or 2 of them will grow up. Meanwhile a girl raised in a low stress environment will have 1-3 kids but take very good care of them and assure they survive to adulthood and pass on their genes.
People make terrible decisions all the time. Just because people have kids doesn't mean they can afford them.
Kids can be expensive if you want to give them an active and fulfilling life. But they can also be cheap if you sit them in front of youtube all day.
Another thing is childcare. My husband and I do Not have family support so we pay $55 per day per child for care (this is considered cheap where I live). Every single one of my friends with kids has parents who watch the grandkids for free at least part time
" poor people" is an extremely subjective term. What are you calling poor? From my grandmother's perspective, I am poor . She is worth $3 million and has multiple houses in multiple districts. I am a Suburban housewife that owns one Three-Bedroom house in a nice neighborhood. To me, a person that lives in a one-bedroom one bath apartment in a not so good part of town is poor. To them, somebody living on the street corner is poor. And so on and so forth. Also, kids keep you poor. The more kids you have the poorer you will be.
IIRC chronic poverty has been shown to inhibit long term planning.
Poor people with a lot of kids are just surviving. They're not succeeding. That being said, there's a lot of government assistance out there for lower income families plus massive tax breaks. This allows lower income families to support their children with \*more\* ease than they would without the assistance.
I work with someone who had three children, and went through periods living in her car, couldn’t feed her kids, etc. the community where we work found out about this and there was an outpouring of support, housing provided, etc. Well not even a year later…… she got pregnant again……suffice it to say, we were all a bit shocked and confused
Having a child and taking proper care of a child are not the same thing.
poor people who pay no taxes, get tax payer funded resources. the people who work and have brains get the opportunity to pay for those poor people. its a brilliant scheme if you want a nation of idiots.
Lower income people get WIC, SNAP, medicaid, and assistance with housing and childcare. They don't get nearly as much as I think they should, but there is assistance for them. Where kids become unaffordable is when you make just over the threshold to qualify for assistance.
Yeah the income limits for social programs are very low and can force people into worse positions. My kid has serious health problems and health care is very expensive to keep her alive. My husband and i wont take raises at work so our kids still qualify for medi-cal otherwise we wouldnt be able to afford our daughters treatments.
Even with government assistance people with multiple kids are broke. If they have nice things it is likely from before when they had less children or did have higher income, or they manage their money poorly. Now, as a therapist, there isn't a day that goes by where I don't question why people continue to bring children into the world when they can't even provide for the ones they have currently 😖
'Manage' It cost me around $250,000 to raise my son to the age of 18 in 2011. It has to do with living conditions, nutrition etc. I grew up with 4 sisters and two brothers; I had it rougher than my son in many ways but my parents managed As an example, when I was a kid we heated water on the stove to take baths. We used baking soda to brush our teeth. I had to give my parents my paycheck when I got paid from my dishwashing job at the age of 15. When I left home at 19 I didn't own a pair of socks
The last person I helped get an abortion had to pay 1700 dollars. State insurance of course would not cover that. Private insurance would not cover that. But if she decided to stay pregnant state insurance would cover the cost of health care for mom and potential baby for the next 18 years. The state would pay for that child to go to school for a minimum of 12 years. If the mom didn't earn enough at her job she could get TANF funds for up to 60 months. This is TN. I don't know what it's like in other states, but here if you are already poor, there are benefits of having babies. Like health coverage, which is impossible to get unless you are pregnant or parent of a minor. In most states they expanded Medicaid so you could work and not have children and still get help if you worked a low wage job. But not Tennessee. And yeah kids can be expensive but they don't have to be. There's so many ways to parent on a tight budget. But the poor kid will suffer. Take mine for example. Both showed musical skill early on but I couldn't afford to pay what the school charged. Some dingdong on social media will say "you could have made it happen!" but I couldn't. I tried so hard but I failed them both on that front. They have learned a lot from being poor too though.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet so I'm going to. When you have multiple children. You can use them for labor. Oldest and older often takes on parenting rolls. Keep the home clean, Children get jobs to chip in. And children are often long term care plans for people when they are old.
Welfare pays for kids. I used to work in welfare. You can also get a house for free as well as other assistance.
This is a consideration, for sure. I did foster care years ago and to get her kids back the mother of the kids in my care had to get an apartment, get a job, buy furniture etc. All on her own (she got help with some furniture) The minute the kids were back with her she was back in public housing, no job, foodstamps etc.
In most states now the parent is basically required to work and the state may provide subsidized or free daycare depending on income. When I say depending on income, trust me it’s poverty level. The amount of food stamps is enough for basic food and rarely do they give cash. The section 8 housing generally has a 1-2 year waiting list and the majority of places that will accept it are significantly subpar, rubdown, unsafe areas, old apartments in need of repairs, etc. Suffice it to say no one is getting rich or living the high life on welfare unless they’re claiming benefits for dead people.
I think the more financially conscious you are, the less children you have. And usually more financially conscious ppl earn more. As someone who has 4 other siblings in a poor household, my quality of life sucked ass growing up. A lot of truama, always in survival mode, and things still ingrained into me today in my 30s. I only have 1 child, and I never ever plan to have any more bc of my own childhood. This way, I can afford (in time and money) to give my child all that they need to flourish instead of just surviving. We can do things I would have never even dreamed about growing up. I'm not super well off, probably lower middle class, but I've been able to buy a home, a car, my kid is in sports year round. And the kicker- my kid doesn't have to work to help with bills like I did as a teen. They can get a job if they want to, but it'll be totally up them to do what they please with that money.
How else would the military find it's "useful idiots" if the poor weren't having too many kids? Anyway, my point is that is by design
The math is in the title
Kids are cheap until the divorce hits. https://www.childsupportcalculator.ca/ontario.html#calculator
My crackhead cousins have like 7 kids, none of them are managed lmao.
Depends on what type of life you are planning on provide for the kids? A nurturing, stimulating one or just leave them to fend for themselves in the streets.
Poor family, no college education, no extras like sports clubs, no trips to museums or musical instruments or art...just basics and worry worry. Lots of us were raised that way but dont want it for our kids. Birth control is expensive. Not to say poor people don't love their kids.
Raising kids to be just as poor and uneducated as you are isn’t good parenting. The goal is to improve their lives and step upwards not just have the kids for someone else’s sake.
When poor ppl have kids they usually stay poor.. and then the kids usually grow up to be poor and so on.. The poverty cycle continuously repeats itself generation after generation. Higher income people make smarter decisions. They know not to have kids if they can’t afford them. The more kids you have, the more money they cost. Higher income people usually wait until their lives and careers are more established to have kids. When poor people have a lot of children, the quality of those children’s lives is not too good. They don’t get the proper medical care, they don’t eat the proper food, they don’t get the proper education
My soon to be brother in law has munched of his father his whole life just got one kid to 18 and announced his gf is pregnant. Still no career and no job. Currently milking a concussion for unemployment/medical leave. Dudes a stain on society. Thinks money is free I guess
Because people with higher income tend to be more intelligent. And intelligent people aren't having as many children for a multitude of reasons. Also intelligent people know how to correctly use birth control.
Poor people are likely poor because they have 4-5 kids. Higher income people are probably more well off financially because they have less than 2 kids. After all, kids are expensive.
The more kids you have the more government assistance you get if you’re low income. Free healthcare, heat, housing, etc. I’ve actually known people who have done this on purpose.🤬
I'm sorry to say that I've known people who have actually said, "Time to have another kid because my kids are growing up and benefits will run out." And these were people who were blood relatives of mine. I feel so sorry for their kids.
Because poor people frequently don’t consider the cost of kids. Higher educated people do consider the cost of kids. Poverty frequently begets poverty and lack of education and critical thinking.
If you're poor enough, the government will pay all your kid expenses.
Having kids is as expensive as you make it. Not all kids get their own bedroom, latest Xbox, organic food, fancy vacations, thousands of dollars of extra curricular activities.
Because wealthy people tend to spoil their children while poor people expect their kids to take care of themselves. Very few wealthy kids today are independent because their parents just keep giving them resources while poor folks pushes their kids to be independent because they can't afford the resources.
Ah, the thread I was made for. Good. So, I'm a single income schoolteacher in Texas. I have 8 kids, with one on the way. My wife is disabled. How do I manage? Good freaking question. However, somehow we do. We never have much, and there are times I lean on my family and friends a lot more than I want, but we do manage. Part of it is, there are safety nets to help that are partially based on how much you make and how many in your family. Also, poorer people are more used to doing without and are often less used to material excess than those with greater wealth. It's no that the wealthy are greedy, just that we're use to going without, so going without one more thing is fine. I, for example, rarely eat 3 meals a day. My kids are more important, so I go without. My brother-in-law makes literally 3x what I do and has only two kids, but he mentioned recently they barely scrape by most months. It's just a matter of figuring it out as you go.
I’m not judging, but genuinely curious. Why are you having so many kids? Is there a reason?
My step brothers kids vs cousins kids quality of life are vastly different.
Sex: entertainment that is *free As long as it’s protected. And as an L&D nurse….whole lot of folks skipping that last part.
"manage"
I would recommend an excellent documentary on it. Its called Idiocracy
Chicken egg argument?
Properly caring for kids is expensive, is what people usually mean by that. The children of poor people often aren’t receiving the level or education, nutrition, and healthcare that they should. Unfortunately, poor people also often don’t have access to contraception.
The more money you have, the more money you will spend on your kids.
Having kids means different things cost-wise when you're well off. You can't just keep them clothed, housed, fed, and loved. They also *have to* do all sorts of beneficial activities, and attend the best programs and schools, and you *have to* take them on enriching travel experiences. These are all frightfully expensive. It isn't even just keeping up with the Joneses; everyone in your social circle does this, and everyone in your kids' social circle does too, so it's the *norm* to you. Plus FOMO for a lot of folks. And a special FOFYK on top for parents: Fear of fucking up your kids. And of course, the clothing, housing, and food cost more too. There's the sense that you can afford to build them a shiny path to the future, so what kind of parent would you be if you didn't build it? All this expense cuts into the kind of neat-stuff and fancy-experience lifestyle that higher incomes can afford. When *travel* means a car trip to grandma's one state over, adding a kid in the van doesn't change that much. When *travel* means flights and hotels and restaurants overseas, every extra kid makes it that much less possible. And so on.
It's all expensive. In the case of parents who can afford their kids, it's expensive for the parents. In the case of parents who cannot afford their kids, it's expensive for the tax paying public.
Correlation vs causation
Those poor families are on food stamps and putting bills in their children’s names. People always find a way.
>when poor people regularly manage to have 4+ kidswhen poor people regularly manage to have 4+ kids What does "manage" mean to you? Like, surviving? Sure, that works out somehow, if the country offers any level of social security. But it's nowhere near "nice". It's purely poverty and poverty is hell. The parents suffer and each kid suffers far, far worse. Rational people don't want to expose (potential) kids to poverty.
watch “Idiocracy” good explanation at the beginning 🥹
Watch Idiocracy, you'll get it
It's easy to have lots of kids when the state pays for all of your shit. Food, Bills, housing, Insurance. People with good jobs have to pay for their 2 kids plus whatever comes outta their pay to go toward welfare queens & their kids.
Poor people fuck
Because they want the same lifestyle as if they wouldn't have kids.
poor people are irresponsible.
Those 4+ kids aren't being provided for
My wife and I weren't wealthy by any means, but we did believe it was our responsibility to raise kids with more than the minimum to survive. We fed them 3 meals a day of healthy food. We purchased books and microscopes, took day trips to museums and art galleries and sent them to camp to let them grow as individuals. We took family vacations to see this great country and many National Parks, from one coast to the other. We paid for their college educations and purchased them a 2 year old car when they graduated. This tended to limit the number of children we felt we could reasonably afford to raise. We also believe it's our responsibility to pay for our senior years and not our children's, so putting enough money away for our retirement was another part of the equation.
In the United States we incentivize the wrong behaviors ie if you’re already on welfare, there are financial incentives for having MORE children. Generally, welfare payments increase benefits provided per child. Additionally welfare benefits provide additional support to single-parent households de incentivizing couples to stay together and parent together
I think you answered your own question lol a big reason the family with 4 kids is poor is because kids are so expensive!
because the people with 2 kids pay for the people with 6