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In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have childre

• wonderwonder 7y ago
  These are generally the same people who protest so vehemently against abortion. I have always been amazed that I live in the richest country in the world and at night tens of thousands of kids go hungry or fall asleep in a car.
  • empath75 7y ago
    also the same people that are fine with putting immigrant kids into cages.
    • marpstar 7y ago
      ...does that make abortion right? I think both are wrong.
• nomel 7y ago
  > for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want Also, this belittles the cases where one parent was making a great choice, by leaving the other.
  • lopmotr 7y ago
    That doesn't correct the problems caused by making the worse choice of having children with that unsuitable parent in the first place.
    • edmundsauto 7y ago
      What could possibly correct that mistake?
      • mjevans 7y ago
        A systemic answer is required to improve this case. I very much doubt there is any single magic bullet thing that will make the problem better.
        • Justsignedup 7y ago
          There is one: Treat every child in poverty as a societal responsibility. Everything will stem from there. a.k.a. start with societal empathy.
          • pinkfoot 7y ago
            i.e. the tax payer's responsibility?
          • AstralStorm 7y ago
            By everything you mean solutions such as what? State paid orphanages? Free best education? Then free healthcare on top of that right? Let's continue with cheap and nutritious enough free food, likewise housing. Where will you find enough qualified teachers and nursing staff as the parents are obviously unsuitable? Cooks? Farmers? State would literally have to order at least some of those people to take such jobs. Maximum of factor is perhaps 10 per person, likely much less than that to provide proper quality. Unless you will invest heavily in teaching and nursing staff. It is an interesting model of a society halfway ran like military. Ultimately not too bad and orderly, but the problems of allocation are hard to solve and corruption is still likely. The old adage is that the more you want to control, the more you have to control. (Providing strong incentives might be enough.) Mind you EU socialdemocratic model is only halfway there, and thus limited in results. (Orphanages and nursing are too few, poor people are not relieved off parenthood. Free housing and food is very limited using merit as allocation through social services.)
• mech1234 7y ago
  What programs tackle child poverty?
  • hmschreck 7y ago
    SNAP and WIC are one of the first to come to mind. The effect of poor early life nutrition can have a measurable impact throughout a person's life.
  • JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
    I used to work for a company that partnered with (and is now owned by) a non-profit called Youth Villages. They focused on in-home rehabilitation to help avoid having kids enter into foster care by working with the parents. There are a few foster care programs that target poor youth and aim to provide them with more resources and opportunities. I am not sure what other types of programs would focus specifically on childhood poverty.
  • ben_w 7y ago
    I’m not sure which country you’re in, but I would argue a significant part of our socioeconomic structure is aimed at that, and has been since whenever schooling became mandatory. It’s not perfect, and I don’t think “fix poverty” is necessarily main reason for the plans, but the effect has been to reduce it greatly compared to bygone times. </armchair>
• UnpossibleJim 7y ago
  We also have no requirement to become a parent. No education requirement once you become pregnant or a parent from the local schools or clinics. Good parenting is not just some "God given talent", but can be improved through education to help parents of all wealth levels. If you want to raise the "potential of the country", help with sex education and parental education.
  • xrd 7y ago
    Honest question for you: are you doing that? If not, why not? If so, can you share the successes and failures? I agree with you 100%.
    • sansnomme 7y ago
      Make contraception as common and mandatory as school vaccination programs. Vasagel exists for males (and more technologies will show up down the line) and female contraception is relatively mature. Have the implants tied to RFID with expiry dates signed by manufacturers. Verifiable chain of trust. Make having babies similar to driving licenses. Whitelisting instead of trying to prevent it from occuring after the fact. The technology is there, just that everyone would hate the idea and implementation. Not to mention the societal ramifications.
      • AstralStorm 7y ago
        What will you do when someone eventually breaks the law?
• newnewpdro 7y ago
  > In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. This is used as a reason not to provide any social support to those families as they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. But these children didn't make those choices and they now exist in their circumstances through no fault of their own. Is it really unexpected/surprising? Ever since population sizes grew large enough for paternity to matter, where children didn't just fall into a common pool, we've cared more about our resources contributing to our own children's outcomes and not those of others. Children born in poverty are just at the extreme low end of the spectrum, but anywhere on that spectrum there's economic disparity between families affecting the probabilities of outcomes for their respective children. It's arguably irrational to care about someone else's children in this scenario, when you have your own. They're competitors, you want to give your children as much advantage as possible and disadvantage everyone else's, if you're playing aggressively. As the population continues to grow larger, there's only increasing pressure on parents to be aggressive, if they're paying attention.
• hmschreck 7y ago
  More and more research is showing that poverty has a severe impact on the brain, and left unchecked it can become nearly unbreakable. Many of the decisions made by impoverished people are either somewhat sensible for their situation in the short-term (e.g., asking a 16 or 17 year old child to drop out and start working) or are sensible when viewed through certain forms of skewed perspectives (e.g., spending a small windfall immediately because 'that money will just be gone soon anyway'). Children of impoverished parents overwhelmingly learn these lessons, and the stress of poverty is an ever-present part of their lives, so they are often debilitated by it from the very start.
  • asdff 7y ago
    Or perhaps some decisions are just depressingly sensible given the odds of actually escaping poverty. Having your near dropout 16 year old enter the workforce is perhaps a better bet for their future than letting them drop out and associate with malevolent role models who prey on kids like this.
• baby 7y ago
  It’s the recurrent “blame the user, not the system”.
• ailideex 7y ago
  > In discussions about low income families I often see somebody comment along the lines of blaming the parents for making bad choices and choosing to have children they couldn't afford/care for/want. So just to be clear on some points before I get accused of holding positions I do not hold. I am all for helping children who were let down by their parents. I don't think they should be condemned. I also grew up very poor, my parents had to go into debt to buy basic necessities and I still have to support my parents financially and will likely always have to do this. When it comes to this issue, you need to pick a lane and stay in it. Either people have agency and are responsible for their actions and ultimate responsibility lays with the parents - or people do not have agency and nobody is responsible for anything and concepts like democracy makes no sense. I personally pick the lane that people do have agency and do bear ultimate responsibility for their actions. I do make exception for those who are severely mentally ill but this is not the root of poverty. Consequently, while social support for those who were let down by their parents is good - this alone cannot fix all problems. Maybe in a place like Norway with very low unemployment it is enough, but it will never be able solve the problems in places like South Africa where the unemployment is ~30% (calculated in the same way as unemployment reported for US and EU economies is calculated). So sure, lets help the children - but lets stop making excuses for those who put the children in that position to begin with. I don't think it is okay to run cover for absolutely horrible human beings who bring children into this world that they cannot adequately provide for.
  • allovernow 7y ago
    >When it comes to this issue, you need to pick a lane and stay in it This is a good example where black and white thinking is dangerous. Some people have more control over their circumstances than others. That includes parents providing (or not) for their children. You don't need to be an apologist for bad parenting to acknowledge that human circumstances are due to some combination of choices, intrinsic nature, and environment.
    • ska 7y ago
      Don't forget luck, it's a pretty important factor.
• Justsignedup 7y ago
  Hey, its the Biblical way. Okay stupid comments aside... I had a convo with a guy arguing that "I don't have kids and shouldn't pay to support the kids of others. If you can't afford to send kids to school don't have em." Nobody thinks: "Those unschooled kids will then grab a knife or a gun and go and rob you or your very well educated kids out of desperation and end up killing occasionally." also... "why are you pro having a lifelong torturing of kids?" People really lack empathy for the pain of others, as if their suffering will lessen one's own.
• wang_li 7y ago
  You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible ways to those who don't. It's also a curious way to characterize it that "we're consistently condemning the children for the sins of their parents." Seeing as "we" had nothing to do with creating the plight of these children, "us" not acting to change it is not us condemning them. That's like saying "we" are responsible for that child that fell into the well and drowned recently as we didn't save him. Or that "we" are condemning that fat guy to an early death because "we" aren't forcing him to eat salad and go to the gym. Not to mention that for every poor kid in this country (assuming you meant the US when you said "the country") there are a five to ten in southeast Asia with a lower standard of living. How do you justify tapping the productivity of a Boeing working in Renton to provide for a poor kid in Mississippi who has no more connection to that worker than a poor kid in Cambodia, while simultaneously not ensuring that that Cambodian kid has the same standard of living and opportunities you want to give to the Mississippian? I will agree that it's a very unfortunately situation, but I'm not going to lower the standard of living of my own family that limits their chances of having their best life so as to provide for the child of a stranger who doesn't give the same care and thought to me and mine.
  • newfeatureok 7y ago
    > You cannot rationally hold the belief that people can be allowed to have as many children anytime they want and that all children will be provided for regardless of the ability of their individual parents to provide for them. Such parents have shown they have no limiting factor, so the end result is that all children will be poor as you divert greater and greater resources from parents who act in more responsible ways to those who don't. Yes you can. Why not? Not to mention your (implicit) assertion that [poor] people, "have as many children anytime they want" is also ridiculous. > Not to mention that for every poor kid in this country (assuming you meant the US when you said "the country") there are a five to ten in southeast Asia with a lower standard of living. How do you justify tapping the productivity of a Boeing working in Renton to provide for a poor kid in Mississippi who has no more connection to that worker than a poor kid in Cambodia, while simultaneously not ensuring that that Cambodian kid has the same standard of living and opportunities you want to give to the Mississippian? This is true, but irrelevant to the USA's own government policies. Presumably other countries should do the same with their own children. Of course, we can take your line of thought and cut off the supply of public services to children and adults alike. Then see how quickly your own quality of life erodes. Indeed it's this very philosophy you hold that will explain why humanity will never take action on climate change or any global scale catastrophe that isn't imminent.
• SkyBelow 7y ago
  I think one problem is that there isn't a real distinction between childhood poverty and poverty. There is no way to solve childhood poverty that doesn't also improve the parents' situation. As such, any solution to poverty then enables, for a certain segment of the population, a minimum level of poverty that they can choose to not fall below by having children. Think about it like how the courts view jury nullification. They really don't like that the idea exists, but because it is a natural consequence of principles they follow concerning a jurors right to vote how they feel, they cannot stop it as long as the juror doesn't openly admit to it. In the same way, a solution to childhood poverty has to be a solution to poverty for a portion of the population, and thus one has to accept a bias in which adult we solve poverty for or extend the solution to all adults, at which point we are now discussing general solutions to poverty.
  • asdff 7y ago
    You are talking about going above the baseline poverty level, but right now having a child is a strain (not just in poverty, but broadly across the working class as well), when that could at least be made inconsequential to your personal economic situation.
• plutonicks 7y ago
  Unfortunately the resources to resolve the issue are rival and limited. This ultimately means that giving to the poor deprives another. The question then becomes should the parents and children of parents who make more sustainable choices be forced to support the parents and children those who don't. This is generally the current state of our welfare system. Tax burden and impact is predominantly on the middle class. The result is dysgenic, i.e. Better outcomes are punished, worse outcomes are rewarded. Its also a classic trolley problem, and thus both action (wealth distribution) and inaction are immoral. The next argument will be that we should lift everyone to a minimum standard. However this still fails the test above and fails to realise that wealth is unfortunately relative. Couple that with the dead-weight loss of the tax system and you actually create a spiral of poverty that starts to consume all except the richest.