So this is something that I am personally very confused about as well. My wife and I both grew up poor (how poor depends on who's asking, we had food, we had cl

So this is something that I am personally very confused about as well. My wife and I both grew up poor (how poor depends on who's asking, we had food, we had clothes, we had housing, but not per se that very much more); both our sets of parents have maintained traditional morality around kids. To this day, I am always confused when people from similar economic places make substantially worse choices. We really weren't that special. A few books: - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005T5O9QW/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005T5O9QW/ This is a survey of late 90s Philadelphia very poor mothers, who decided to have kids very young. I think you might find this a fascinating work, harmonious with your family's experience, even if it's from a different time and place. - https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia-ebook/dp/B017QL8WIM/ https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia-ebook/dp/... This is a discussion of American lenses on the past and how we often misread propaganda or middle class expectations as being what really happened. I also am sort of loafing my way through a book, "Taming the Troublesome Child", on the professionalism of social work around children - I actually was hoping to learn how troubled kids were handled in the past, but it's actually about "social work". Ah well. A lot of what it is indicating is that poverty and, to some extent, immigration status (in the US) had a heavy interplay in how families were treated by social workers, considered by society, and understood. At least in the Northeastern US. I don't mean to say your sister thought ahead, or that you shouldn't be bothered by her choices, or any of that. For what it's worth, I noticed years ago that the really smart kids struggled in school. I have a few pet theories, mostly related to systemic disconnection in society (and here that circles back to churches - a good church design is a cross slice of society, not just 'the rich church', or 'the black church', etc). Individuals have a chance to shine brightly or be a dark spot against a statistical haze. It's always sad when someone really sets up a failure and pain pattern.