Many people don't think about being able to afford anything. If she can't afford a child she should have gone with the adoption route so someone who can afford the little crap machine would take it. It is like the people who come into my mother's non-profit office with an expensive car saying they need help with food and rent. If you could afford that damn car you could have afforded to add the cash to a savings account.

That's the issue. You can't tell a 16 year old girl from the projects not to have a kid anymore than a 41 year old on disability. It's like you're telling them they can't breathe air.

Cost will never come into consideration. Ever. You can't beat it into their heads.

The reason they have kids is because they view it as a right to be loved unconditionally by something, someone. They want to be loved and to love. They want meaning & purpose for themselves. Whatever the material, emotional & relationship needs of the child WILL be brushed off.

The thoughts of Fatherhood, stability, money etc. will only get in the way of having what they want now. Anyways they do not believe in them. They believe in what I call "I needs".

What is ideal or best for the child, which is not to have them until you have money & a husband will not take place. What is selfish will remain dominant with these people.

The worst of it is they don't view it as selfish but as purposeful.
As meaningful. They will never understand why you can't appreciate THEIR trials & sacrifices.

There is no excuse not to be able to diaper your child. You can get 100% cotton fluor sack towels at Walmart for a few dollars for a multipack. Fold them up and pin. They canbe hand washed easily and quickly in the bathtub. You would then just need a few waterproof covers. You could get a whole diapering stash for around $50.

I expect Ppen nailed it: at the age of 41, she felt she just had to have a baby now or never, even if she has no partner, no income, and no idea how she can care for a child. Love will conquer all, don't you know?

As for her profession? I expect this is her: artistic wannabe with no salable skills. Art is a great hobby, but a lousy profession - why do so many people insist on believing otherwise?

On the positive side, her list of things she's willing to do - if seriously meant - means that she is willing to work. Back on the negative side, several items on this list (house painting, multimedia installations) calls into question her supposed disability.

I suspect that those who are having kids they can't afford don't anticipate a time when they will be able to afford them. So, they figure "May as well have them, because this is as good as we're going to get."

They either need to think more positively (and thus open their minds to greater possibilities) or they should simply not have them...ever.

Heartless? Not as heartless as having kids that you can't provide for.

Some say parenting is the ultimate expression of narcissism. And given the surprising attitudes of the parents that Amy chooses to write about, there's at least some that justify this theory.

Regarding this apparently single mom who lives on disability, I suspect her entitled ass doesn't want to "do without" in order to have those kids.

I've seen people with disability pensions; they don't get a lordly amount of income by any means...but they significantly better than those on minimum wage jobs working full time. (Yes, it's true. You're better off on disability than at a minimum wage job.)

What this would necessitate is taking a step backward. She needs to move to a less expensive apartment and take care of that kid.

To reverse this scenario, how often do you hear of a young couple delaying parenthood until they can afford it, only to have brainless dolts tell them, "Well if you wait until you can afford them, you'll never have them!"

I agree with all the other commenters here so far, and Patrick is right - you're better off on disability than working a minimum wage job. In fact, Zero Hedge demonstrated a while back that if you are a single mother with two kids, you're better off getting all the available welfare programs than working for $70,000 a year.

So, why do people think it's okay to have kids they can't support, and never take cost into consideration? Because for several decades now, they haven't had to! At some point, "society" decided, oh boo hoo, these poor stupid people keep having kids, and we can't stop them, and we can't just let the poor kids starve. A few generations later, here's what we have - MORE poor stupid people having MORE kids, who usually go on to repeat the same pattern.

By the way, we said the same thing about people who don't save any money for retirement. Boo hoo, we can't expect them to work past the age of 65 just because they're poor.

And if you're 85 and need a million dollars' worth of medical care, we can't just let you die.

Throw in a few useless foreign "interventions" and pretty soon you've got a $17 trillion national debt that's 105% of GDP and climbing, and a society in terminal decline. Nice work, everyone!

OK, well, this person could do EC.

Or do cloth diapers and wash them in boiling water on the stove.

Seriously, there are solutions.

Any bets on my ever getting a reply?

I'll put 100 quatloos on half past never.

I'm gratified to see someone not me ask about cloth diapers.

To reverse this scenario, how often do you hear of a young couple delaying parenthood until they can afford it, only to have brainless dolts tell them, "Well if you wait until you can afford them, you'll never have them!"

This. SO. THIS.
Hubby and I use hear this all. the. time. It's maddening. As soon as we got married, all we heard was when we were going to have a kid. And every time I said I wasn't ready, or we couldn't afford it, that was the standard reply. I cannot tell you the amount of people who've also said, "You're not getting any younger. Don't you want to have them while you're still young enough to enjoy them?" My standard reply is "We won't enjoy them if we can't support them either. Would you rather I starve my child or actually be able to properly care for them?"

Women like this who take no consideration into the actual cost and comittement to the childs well-being but breed like it's thier job to repopulate the earth offend me to the core. I probably take it more personally than most because of my personal experiance trying to have a child.

The thing is, hubby and I had actually saved up a substantial savings just so we could have a child. We finally got pregnant after a year of trying. We started undergoing pre-natal care (do you know how expensive pre-natal care is?!). After two and a half months, we lost it. We spent hundreds on my medical treatment afterwards as my miscarriage ended up with me having to undergo a D&C. We waited another year, saved up some more, got pregnant again just this March, and lost it AGAIN in April and AGAIN I had to undergo another very painful, very expensive D&C. (Thankfully, insurance did cover most of it both times. Insurance that WE pay for.) We also had some major enexpected life events occur that cost a lot of money. Now, all our savings is gone. All of it. (I'm just grateful we had the savings to begin with at this point or we'd be majorly fucked.) We've agreed that we will not even discuss trying again for at least another year to 18 months until we can get back on our feet financially and are taking precautions to prevent getting pregnant in the meantime. (Grown-ups using contraceptives? Imagine that!?) It was an incredibly difficult decision to decide to wait a little longer, even though my husband is over 40 and I'm in my early 30's, especialy considering that we've been pregnant twice. But, it's the responsible thing to do. We can't even afford the co-pay right now. We've got no business trying to have a kid. We refuse to be those parents. Notice, I said "We".(Where the HELL are the fathers in all these sob stories?!)

Eryn Brown and Beth Capper and all the women like them can kiss my ass.

Having a child certainly can put dent into your finances. It also can teach you very quickly about being resourceful, creative and about your priorities.

Plenty of good kids come from families without a lot of money...but not many without a dad have a fighting chance.

The original Yale study decided that lack of diapers made mothers depressed and anxious. I wonder if depressed and anxious women have trouble figuring out how to maintain a supply of diapers. The study also didn't report partners/husbands, which is a major factor.
And the LAT's poster girl will turn out to be a friend of a friend of the write, I guarantee.

While waiting for your finances to be just right sounds great on paper, in reality, it's quite unrealistic and rather lacking in compassion. This reasoning means everyone poor dies out, effectively becoming self imposed genocide for some races, cultures and countries. The following is a list if people who wouldn't exist if their folks followed such reasoning.

JK Rowling
David Geffen (now worth $4.6 billion)
Jay Z
Celine Dion (Dad made $160 week, had 14 children)
Shania Twain (went w/o heat and sometimes food)
Jim Carrey (family lived in camper, was sometimes homeless)
Justin Bieber (lived in a rat infested house)
Mariah Carey (no toys, no shoes)
Leonardo Caprio (poverty, homeless)
Hillary Swank (lived in a car with her mother)
Tom Cruise (dire poverty)

Personally, I'm ready to remove the phrase "lacking in compassion" from our vocabulary, along with the word "deserve."

According to the Strawboss, it's great for poor people to keep creating more of the same, generation after generation. Well, keep cheering for the status quo, then - you already have exactly what you want.

Seriously, if waiting for your finances to be right is such a rotten idea, why shouldn't the same logic apply to me? Buy me a new car.

Strawboss (or is that "Wannabe Advice Columnist?)--not all those listed were ever on public assistance as children, and most of them came from two parent families.

Geffen's family wasn't on welfare. They were poor, but didn't live in public housing.

Rowling's parents weren't on public assistance--she was for a while, after her divorce.

(You forgot Sarah Jessica Parker, whose hippie parents went for welfare. )

But actors who got rich aren't really the point--I'd be glad to live in a world without Jim Carrey, if I had to chose.

Why can't she provide day care in her home for another child? If I were on disability, I would be doing something to earn money for my child's needs (under the table, if necessary).

Since having a baby, there is not a day that goes by I am not grateful for my wonderful husband and how involved he is in parenting. We aren't poor, but there are times we need to be very careful about spending. I can do without money over having no support.

There is not a day that goes by that I don't think to myself "How do single mothers do this?" (and not in a good way). One time I said it to my husband and he responded "They don't!".

To reverse this scenario, how often do you hear of a young couple delaying parenthood until they can afford it, only to have brainless dolts tell them, "Well if you wait until you can afford them, you'll never have them!" ~ Pirate Jo

The "if you wait until you can afford it..." crowd is most often referring to now waiting until you already having a college fund set aside or can purchase expensive orthodontics out of pocket. The expectation is that one's income will increase and one will be able to keep up with the expenses of raising a child.

They're not saying that if you can't afford even diapers, you should go ahead and have a kid anyway.

That's ...NOT waiting until you already have a college fund set aside...."

I need to start using the Preview button.

I got pregnant as I was finishing up my undergrad after being told it was a now or never sort of situation. However I have never had any public assistance of any kind. Her father and I sacrificed and then sacrificed some more. That is what parenting is one big damn SACRIFICE. It has some pay offs don't get me wrong but we never looked at our child being anyone else's responsibility than ours. My husband (not the father of my first however he and I share custody and he is a great father!) and I recently decided to have baby because we have savings and can now afford to have a baby! However I used to inundated with crap from family, friends, strangers ect telling me to go ahead have another one because I didnt want them to be "too far apart" or whatever. Even when I would counter with I couldnt afford that right now they would pish tosh it. The first question I always ask myself when hearing these "sob stories" is What business did you have having a baby you couldnt afford? I look at it as abuse and those people should have their children taken. Harsh but true

The expectation is that one's income will increase and one will be able to keep up with the expenses of raising a child.

And how is that working out for people?

And these articles usually blame everyone in society except the mother. Sad state when we hold 300 million people more responsible than the actual parent.

To reverse this scenario, how often do you hear of a young couple delaying parenthood until they can afford it, only to have brainless dolts tell them, "Well if you wait until you can afford them, you'll never have them!"

Yeah... I'm in that boat. My boyfriend and I can afford a nice little life for just the two of us, but we're waiting on marriage because we know his parents will be insufferable about pushing us to have kids (more than they already are). They're strongly Catholic, so fruitful multiplication and all that.

When I say, "We can't afford it," they laugh because they were poor as HELL when they had my boyfriend and his siblings. Sleeping in the car poor. Sending the kids into restaurants to steal jelly packets poor. Surviving on bread (and little else) poor. House without furniture poor. Living without A/C in Texas poor.

The family never received welfare. His parents were so thrilled with getting their US citizenship that they "never dreamed of asking for more from this country."

So, from their perspective, kids "don't need all that fancy stuff," and they raised some resourceful, scrappy kids. And, to their credit, they did! They also own a thriving business after 20+ years of effort. But I've cried listening to the stories my boyfriend tells me about growing up with a lack of food. He and his sister (the oldest) had long-term health problems from a lack of nutrition early on. I could NEVER EVER EVER raise kids like his parents did.

I'm conflicted. On one hand, I think his parents were selfish, irresponsible and stupid. On the other...I got an incredible, hard-working, tough-as-nails boyfriend out of the deal.

For what it's worth, though, his mom used cloth diapers.

People who wait are my dad. Waited until he was in his 30s. It's a serious thing, bringing a child into the world, and a huge responsibility.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at August 1, 2013 8:52 AM

This is why if you do a lot of geneological research that you will see large numbers of men deferring both marriage and parenthood, until their mid to late thirties and early forties.

They were also mostly marrying women at least ten years younger than themselves.

The Greeks and Romans were very similar in their marriage customs.

My father did the same.

@Sabrina

I strongly sympathize with your losses. My wife and I haven't started yet--money isn't the problem for us, health is. My wife is trying extremely hard to improve her health to the point of carrying a child, and it's unbelievably annoying to see all of the irresponsible people charging ahead and having babies they can't care for and aren't ready for, while we suffer and wait to be responsible parents. And then we're expected to sympathize with and support the fools because they now have babies to take care of?

The divide in this country isn't between the rich and the poor, it's between the responsible and irresponsible. Unfortunately, there seem to be far more people who look at a single mom of 2 working for minimum wage at McDonald's who say "Oh, that's so sad!" than "Why did you have 2 kids?"

Quote of the day:

“If you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.”

Sam Levensen

@Brian.
I am so with you. It's incredibly obnoxious. But you can't say it out loud lest you be accused of "hating poor people".
I hope your wife is able to get healthy enough to carry. Wishes for best of health to you both!

We've already decided that we'll try to adopt if I can't stay pregnant after so many failed pregnancies. I don't know what the magic number is yet but I guess I'll figure that out as we go. I'm just not willing to continue to martyr myself for a biological baby. Eventually, I'm gonna have to make the call that it's just not meant to be... that way anyway. We know adoption will cost a LOT money too, but adopting is something we've always wanted to do anyway. So, biological baby or not, we'll eventually have a family so I try not to stress it too much.

Any bets on my ever getting a reply?

Depends™.

"The divide in this country isn't between the rich and the poor, it's between the responsible and irresponsible. "

Or, to put it another way, between the productive class and the entitlement class, as Brian implies. And who is in these classes does not necessarily break down along economic lines. There are poor people in the productive classes. There are some quite wealthy people among the entitlement classes.

"The following is a list if people who wouldn't exist if their folks followed such reasoning."

Okay, if I provide a longer list of convicted murderers who grew up in poverty, do I win?

Well, I think all the hardliners should volunteer to chastise these irresponsible women and inform the children that they should have never been born.

sincerely,
wanna be advice columnist

"Well, I think all the hardliners should volunteer to chastise these irresponsible women"

Which of my cousins would you like to start with? The high school dropout jailbird who lives in his car and can't keep a job doing yardwork but thinks having a baby momma makes him a man? Or the one from suburbia who had a baby because she just wanted something to love her unconditionally in between drunken suicide attempts (both of which the daughter was in the house for)?

The first kid is living in a trailer with the high school dropout mom who can't hold down a job at Hooter's. There are nine people over 3 generations in that trailer and you have to be careful where you walk so you don't fall through the rotted floor. The only protein that kid gets is low fat yogurt and kraft singles.

The second one - damn. You ever meet a kid raised by a self-diagnosed bipolar, and definitely alcoholic narcissist? This poor kid has *no one* in her life who loves her best, and she knows it. And the best nutrition she gets is chicken nuggets and strawberry flavored milk. She does have some nice clothes though because her mom has taught her that looking sexy is the most important thing.

I mean, it's like toothpaste, you can't put it back in the tube. All you can do is try to mitigate the amount of suck for the child. But . . . damn, some people really are not in a place in their lives to give a kid every shot they need (much less every shot they deserve). Is there *any* doubt that cousin #1's kid would have been better off if even one of her parents had managed to finish their GED and get a job first? Or if cousin #2 had worked out her issues with a dog first?

My friend "J" used to date "M" a long time ago, and they are still friends. I know them both.

"M" (the guy), in a nearly unfathomable display of bad judgment, fell in love with a pregnant stripper. I'll call her "Crazy."

They got married, and she gave birth to the daughter she was pregnant with, and then they went on to have another child together.

Things were fine, until "Crazy" got bored with the whole domestic routine. She left "M", started dating a violent guy, had (the requisite) two kids with him, and then he attacked her with a knife. She went to the hospital, he went to jail, and those two kids went to live with the attacker's mother, who had already raised at least one violent psychopath. (The two kids "Crazy" had with "M" are still living with "M", where they get at least some stability.)

"Crazy" got out of the hospital and went on to have yet another kid with yet another violent guy, from whom she is now hiding.

While "Crazy" was in the hospital, "M" tried to get in touch with the relatives she supposedly had who lived in NYC. Turns out she doesn't actually have any relatives in NYC, although she has a mom in Puerto Rico who has six other kids. "Crazy" has gone by many aliases, apparently, and "M" discovered that she has several older kids, from before he even met her, who are living God only knows where. She may have as many as nine kids floating around out there.

That's not a vagina, it's a clown car.

"Crazy" will occasionally show up and want to spend time with the older of the two kids she had with "M" - the one she was already pregnant with when she met him. She wants nothing to do with the younger child, who knows his mother does not love him.

My friend "J" and "M's" new girlfriend "L" spend time with both children and try to provide support and stability and routine and do whatever they can for them. I hope it's enough to keep them from repeating their mother's mistakes.

Strawboss:

If you have the habit of cherry-picking - as is demonstrated by your example - you suck as a source of advice of any kind.

Because a cherry-picker can justify anything.

And these articles usually blame everyone in society except the mother. Sad state when we hold 300 million people more responsible than the actual parent. -- Trust at August 1, 2013 9:49 AM

Actually we only hold about 155 million responsible. The other 47% are on the roles and getting assistance.

Well gosh darn...turns out Beth gets diapers for Ezekiel for free!

Capper gets her diapers through Children's Institute Inc., a Los Angeles-based children's welfare organization that receives diapers from Baby2Baby and L.A. Diaper Drive.

Because Ezekiel is enrolled in the institute's Early Head Start program, she gets free diapers.

Honestly, it is unbelievable to me that a "diaper bank" exists at all. Turns out, all those years I was buying diapers I could have been getting them for free! I need to let my daughter know so she can get diapers for my grandson. /sarcasm

Buy some cloth diapers, or flour sack towels Beth! Or here's an idea, downsize your life since you're unable to work a traditional job. It's not up to society to feed and diaper your crotch spawn.

Hey, here's an idea - let some of those unemployed Boeing workers chip in with their generous unemployment benefits to buy diapers for the poor lass!

The only flaw with your argument, Amy, is that some women get caught while being responsible.

What happens when the condom breaks?

"and those two kids went to live with the attacker's mother, who had already raised at least one violent psychopath"

Oh seriously!!

Some wonderful parents have children who wind up sociopaths. It's mental illness, not parenting.

Some wonderful parents have children who wind up sociopaths. It's mental illness, not parenting.

Eh, okay. Maybe she is a wonderful mother. At any rate, if the knife-attacking father is mentally ill, and not simply violent because he chooses to be, then quite possibly his mental illness has been passed on to one or both kids. I'm not too optimistic about a happy outcome either way.

I try not to judge single moms (or dads) because I don't know how they got there. I know a woman who was a single mother of two... because her husband died unexpectedly while she was pregnant with the 2nd. She went through some rough times.

Imagine being happily married with one child, a tidy savings, husband has a good-paying stable job and you (the mom) work part-time. Things are great, so you decide to have another. A few months in, your husband is killed in a car crash by some drunk illegal w/o insurance. You're responsible, so you have your own, but it wasn't an instant death, so a good amount of the payment goes to medical costs. Thankfully, you have another car so you don't need to replace the old one, but you are pregnant and have a small child...

Needless to say, if there aren't relatives to help out, this could go from peachy-keen to OMG pretty fast!

So, I try not to judge.

As to the cost of a child, it is not really possible to gauge. I planned on nursing my 2nd (saving on formula), but she was so big I was never able to nurse her exclusively. And she had a allergies, so we went from paying $30 every 2 weeks in formula for my first to about $100 a week in specialty formula. That was certainly unexpected - and NOT covered by many insurance companies. We were prepared, but things were more uncomfortable that I would have liked.

ALL that being said, magical thinking doesn't help anyone - so while I try not to judge (because I don't know if there was stability & savings, etc), I agree that the lack of foresight is a major issue.

"I try not to judge single moms (or dads) because I don't know how they got there. I know a woman who was a single mother of two... because her husband died unexpectedly while she was pregnant with the 2nd. She went through some rough times."

Those cases are the rare exceptions, though. (Let me go dig up some stats later today.) If all we had to do was take care of the exceptional cases, the problem wouldn't be nearly so drastic. Not only would the numbers be a lot smaller, but the mind-set would not exist.

I try not to judge single moms (or dads) because I don't know how they got there. I know a woman who was a single mother of two... because her husband died unexpectedly while she was pregnant with the 2nd.

I can't find anything on the study, but I seem to recall that it showed that children of single parents whose partner died did better than children of single parents by choice.

Perhaps it has to do with the single parent's decision-making paradigm.

Oh I agree that the widow-type cases are exceptional and certainly not the problem. HOWEVER, if I were, heaven forbid, to be suddenly in such a position, I would hope that random people I encountered wouldn't go all ape-shit on me for making "dumb choices" etc.

That's not what's happening here, but so many people are more than willing to assume and then tell others they made wrong choices - that I make a concerted effort to NOT assume.

Sure, if I meet a random single mom, the chances she's widowed are slim. BUT, if I assume she's NOT widowed and I'm wrong, I'm likely to do something hurtful. I'd rather assume innocence & bad circumstances to idiots with entitlement issues than assume idiocy & entitlement issues of people in crappy circumstances. To me, that is the "assumption of innocence" we are supposed to have. Now, once the person lets out that it was a choice, I have no sympathy and am more than willing to judge!

I found an about.com article that says that 1-2% of single parents are widowed, but I'm trying to find a more reliable source.

And Conan, I did once have my finger on a study that showed that outcomes for children of widowed parents are about the same as for two-parent families. I posted it here on a thread a long time ago. Will try to dig it up again.

@Shannon and others,

It's not about rudely shaming single moms. I'm a libertarian; keep to yourself and I don't care what you do. If you're a friend and you get into a bad situation through the harsh bad luck of nature, such is life and you have my sympathy.

The problem is when single moms who are in that position because of their own stupidity expect the rest of us, who are trying to be responsible and save for our own families, to pay for them.

Whatever criticisms there are of Ayn Rand, she solidly hit this phenomenon accurately throughout Atlas Shrugged--if you accept the moral claim of the irresponsible impoverished to the wealth of responsible people, you encourage irresponsibility and discourage productivity. Starnesville was a dead-on accurate description of collapsed inner-cities today--where no one produced anything but babies, because babies gave you a claim to other people's wealth and producing something gave other people a claim on your wealth.

Rowling's parents weren't on public assistance--she was for a while, after her divorce.

And from that TV movie about her with the kinda hot red head I watched about 5 minutes of she was trying to get a job the entire time

That's the issue. You can't tell a 16 year old girl from the projects not to have a kid anymore than a 41 year old on disability. It's like you're telling them they can't breathe air.

No, but were I in charge of the world we would be telling them to fuck off when they ask for taxpayer money

Art is a great hobby, but a lousy profession - why do so many people insist on believing otherwise?

Cause the painting in museums are worth millions.
Ofcourse they are usually hunderes of years old, created by people with out a firm girp on reality who often died of starvation

So, why do people think it's okay to have kids they can't support, and never take cost into consideration? Because for several decades now, they haven't had to! At some point, "society" decided, oh boo hoo, these poor stupid people keep having kids, and we can't stop them, and we can't just let the poor kids starve. A few generations later, here's what we have - MORE poor stupid people having MORE kids, . . . repeat the same pattern. . . Nice work, everyone! - Pirate Jo

And when I crush the puny planet under my rule Pirate Jo will be put in charge of the treasury

Sure, if I meet a random single mom, the chances she's widowed are slim. BUT, if I assume she's NOT widowed and I'm wrong, I'm likely to do something hurtful. I'd rather assume innocence & bad circumstances to idiots with entitlement issues than assume idiocy & entitlement issues of people in crappy circumstances. To me, that is the "assumption of innocence" we are supposed to have. Now, once the person lets out that it was a choice, I have no sympathy and am more than willing to judge! -- Shannon M. Howell at August 2, 2013 9:20 AM

I generally don't run into a female in a situation in which I have to deal with their spawn that I get that close to even want to know the details.

Most of my encounters are the spawn being rude in a public place.

But if you figure that an active war is going on and every dead G.I. left behind a spouse and children and every car death (33K in 2011) left behind orphans and widowers, the number would still probably be under 100K. I wouldn't care if that 100K got the equivalent of 50K salary until they are 18. That would be about 5B per year or about 90B over 18 years.

The number on the dole is millions more than that.

I'm sorry, they are sucking at the public teat and 55 out of last 60 years the government has run deficits.

"If you're responsible and have an IQ above the speed limit, you know condoms break and have an IUD."

Just saw this.

There are other methods, that sometimes fail, like when using the shot, and a condom, and you still get pregnant.

Mostly.

Not always.

Like myself, for instance. Of course, I didn't find that out until three months along.