Not sure if they do it deliberately, but there’s like this sorta expectation to sympathize with parents who despite being poor still have children. Didn’t they make a CHOICE though? Do you think they should be solely responsible for making it?
This is bait.
No its not
Yes it is. This isn’t a binary question. Some people choose to have kids they can’t afford, some don’t have access to birth control, some have the finances when they had the kid and then something happened to their career or health, etc.
This is pure bait to get people fighting in the comments.
Losing a job counts as a consequence they should’ve accounted for. Having health issues at some point in your life is a statistical inevitability (this one is just a simple fact). Soooo… What is their excuse? Somehow society has decided that having an expensive hobby (raising a child) is far more deserving of sympathy than having other expensive hobbies 🙂. So what do you think of that? Why have we decided that?
“Just don’t lose your job”
Damn why didn’t I think of that?
Nah, that’s not what I am saying. IMO, you just dont reproduce until you are 100% sure that even IF you lose your job, you’re going to be fine
In this economy, with record layoffs hitting many different industries, how can anyone be sure what the future holds?
That’s the interresting part, you can’t 😀 and so its even more reason not to condemn yourself and a kid to bearing the load of being on a punishing side of the Matthew Effect. Just saying… IF I were them as they say or whatever
you are 100% sure that even IF you lose your job, you’re going to be fine
That’s never a guarantee.
I mean you do realize those child are people right? What are you suggesting anyways, sending them to the orphanage if you lose your job?? lol.
Also there os a ferrari message. I mean if someone goes poor from buying a ferrari it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be helped but they should probably sell the ferrari you know. Like what are you gonna do, sell your children? Do you want/expect a billionare to buy them on the black market buddy, pal, friendo, amigo, pal, buddy?
Also why do add a smiley face most of the time, come on buddy, pal, amigo, friendo, you’re not telling me you had absolutely no idea how people would react? And why would you add a smiley face to messages answering to angry people… or something like that idk. If you were not getting satisfaction out of it?
Yeah, like I said, excluding rape and lack of education its your choice to make a baby so if you believe in personal responsibility then you should (I think) apply this same princible to that choice and its consequences, but for some reason people treat it like its exwmpt from that rule
Because we are living animals and the purpose of life/reason life exists is due to reproduction. Is it always a wise or well thought out decision? Absolutely not. Is it a “hobby”? No, that is oversimplifying it to the point of nonsense.
fair enough
Man, if you’re in the West, you’ve known people who can barely speak the language and still work full time or more and their kids are in school, have a roof over their heads and are eating well. They might not have the latest iPhone or go to Bali but still. It’s usually mental health issues (addictions included) or straight up selfishness what stops people from caring and providing for their children, from what I’ve seen.
Man, it’s like with that image we already know what you are.
Fuck off
Not nice bro
Another fucking fascist “just asking questions.”
Go back to Reddit.
Well, that’s not nice of you to call me that
It isn’t nice of you to post a bunch of troll questions.
I’ll take the bait.
So firstly, to blame the poor is propaganda. It is a long and well documented strategy for people who are better off than you to use people who are worse off as the visible threat to your lifestyle. You’ll likely never see a billionaire but you’ll see plenty of homeless and immigrants and it’s easy to point to them and say “that’s what you’ll be if you don’t follow the rules” or “those are the people making it hard for you.”
There are no people that are poor by choice, they are forced into that position by a social structure that needs the threat of poverty to operate. So to blame people for doing a natural part of human biology while poor is like asking “how dare those in debt spend the money they owe on food to survive?”
Empathy is the only thing that threatens this status quo. Quit judging people for being different and instead judge them on the harm they put into this world. Our society is so fucked that we produce excess food just to take up space in stores. Every human being on the planet could live the idealized American middle class life on 30% of the global GDP. The only reason anyone is poor is because we let awful people make the rules.
Ok ok, youve turned the wrong alley, buddy. Im not judging the poor or the rich or anyone or having🤐🤐 any thoughts or/and opinions about how society should and shouldnt be. Like in the other replies I am just asking why is it that in case of wanting children (a luxary) the judgement is different than in case of wanting a nice car (also luxary, albeit, less expensive 🙂)
It’s genuinely insane that you consider reproducing a luxury. It’s a basic biological drive and something that can happen by accident. Yes it can be prevented, where legal, but people uncomfortable with getting an abortion shouldn’t be pressured into it. Also society relies on reproduction to a certain degree.
It’s genuinely insane that you don’t.
The species needs a new generation, no individual putative parent has a need to reproduce.
people uncomfortable with getting an abortion shouldn’t be pressured into it
People uncomfortable with getting an abortion should absolutely be pressured into it. And pressured into being comfortable with it. Choosing to keep an unplanned pregnancy should be every bit as stigmatized everywhere as getting an abortion is in Utah today.
Fuck off with your attempts to control other people’s bodies
Then fuck off with your attempts to control other people’s wallets. Once we completely eliminate child support and put hard caps on the amount of kids someone can claim benefits for without hose kids being taken away and raised by a fit parent, then you can make that point. It’ll still be insipid as hell and pandering to horrible people and their religious bullshit, but at least it won’t be pure license for indiscriminate reproduction on society’s dime.
People uncomfortable with getting an abortion should absolutely be pressured into it.
Absolutely the fuck not.
Luxury*
Trying to ascribe individual blame in a system as broken as our global economy is pointless; we live in the system and we are forced to survive in it. The best we can do is act to reduce suffering and strive to fix what is broken.
To that end, sympathy is an empty gesture. I empathize with them. Then I stock the local food bank so that they and their children can eat.
Well, charity is nice ofc, but don’t you think they should have put more thought before mindlessly making a baby?
That does not matter to me, personally, and I cannot generalize intelligence, decision-making validity, or the motives for having children based on need for food. What I will say is that people who come to food banks and pantries are human beings who do not deserve suffering when resources exist and the barrier to their survival is currency.
Neither, I think it’s none of my business.
It depends. Education, situation, its not always cut and dry. Back in the nineties I knew a grandma who was talking about growing up down south and you kinda forget how not very long ago some stuff is. She was talking about how she was preganant before understanding where babies came from. She had be told the stork thing. We are talking a hundred years ago or so thought.
Well like I said here, we don’t take those cases into account. What drives people who do understand the consequences to do it and then complain?
Im not sure I ever met anyone in that situation honestly.
So there’s rarely an “We already live paycheck to paycheck” situation and its more often than not accidental pregnancies? I mean come on… Who the heck cannot afford condoms or birthcontrol? If you can’t then you probably shouldn’t be having sex in the first place, to be honest. Again, not like anybody’s forcing you (excluding rape)
again. education. upbringing. and just sensibleness. It reminds me a bit of a post a person had about people who were bad with money. Its like dude. Thats most people. Most people are not highly competent in all sorts of ways. Usually someone has some skil and ability with a few things at best. Think about everyone you went to high school with and people you have worked with if you have ever worked grunt work type jobs. Best we can do as a society is have good education and plenty of access to birth control. Giving it away a lot is a good thing. Even then though you are going to have it not work out for some. Just like we can never 100% get rid of homelessness you won’t 100% stop unwanted pregnancies.
Someone’s jealous that others are having sex while they’re trolling poorly on Lemmy hahahaha
Well, not nice, again
Is this your first day on the internet?
I can’t juat start calling you names and making fun of you becauase of the rules
This is related to consent. You are suggesting they consented to the existence of the child, thus are responsible for the results of that consent. This ignores the MANY people who did not consent, and ignores the many more who did not give INFORMED consent. You are wading into deeper waters than you might realise if you are going to argue either side of the question of whether consent requires the consenter to be informed.
Mentioned it in other replies, there are cases where adult people clearly do understand the consequences while not being forced into it by any 3rdparty. I exclude the cases where they are raped or uneducated
Humans are social beings, whose conditions economically stem from social relations to production and distribution. Nobody chooses to be poor. Nobody chooses who they are born to, and becoming wealthy is almost entirely luck-based. Placing the responsibility for raising the next generation of a social being purely on individuals, and not society itself, is a horrifically short-sighted viewpoint that punishes both the parent and the child for conditions outside of their control, and perpetuates cycles of poverty rather than building towards a better future.
Society functions best when people have adequate food, drink, shelter, education, and the ability to develop themselves to the furthest extent possible, as society is made up of people. Raising the next generation is a social task, because it means creating the next society that replaces us. A society of educated, well-fed people is better able to solve the tasks presented to us. A society that abandons the poor leaves a portion of society as under-privledged, which extends crime and hampers our ability to progress forwards.
It’s as much a moral failure as it is a developmental failure to abandon those in need. This is also why it is necessary to move beyond capitalism and into socialism.
But we don’t live in a socialist utopia and if you are sane you understand the consequences and responsibility of supporting another life in addition to your own. So the question is: what makes some people think they can support 2+ lives when they barelly have the resources to support 1? 🙂
So, you say, the poor should just die off? They do not deserve having children? Only those lucky enough to be able to afford children have the right to be parents? And what income makes one worthy?
Any case where children are hungry because their parents cannot aford them is a failure of the society. And it does not matter if that happened beacause of bad choices, bad luck, lack of education or limited access to family planning measures.
Any income below the level of being able to comfortably afford a child’s basic needs and wants (ideally pay for their collage tuition) while not choosing between groceries and rent for the month. I am not being cruel, I am being realistic, look around, you live in a capitalist world. Its like being mad at physics for not being able to jump off of 9th floor and go about your business casually. You may feel like society/your country has failed you, but don’t you have a mind of your own to evaluate the situation you’re in?
You are both cruel and unrealistic. Your position stems from a hatred of the disadvantaged, and a shortsighted economic ignorance. It is better for everyone to take care of the disadvantaged.
Like I said I am not making any political statement about what society should or shouldnt be and whether or not it should support the poor. I only question whether or not it makes sense to blame people who make a desicion to have kids and whether they should be responsible for that desicion.
“Im so disadvantaged so I am going to make myself more disadvantaged”. But do you absolutely have to? Is someone forcing you to have a kid?
You are making a political statement that we should hate the poor for situations inflicted upon them that are outside of their control, and reinforced socially.
The fact of the matter is that accidental births are higher in economically disadvantaged communities. This is because education is more lacking, as well as resources for abortions and birth control are more lacking. This is a social condition, not an individual choice. By abstracting away the social conditions in favor of hyper-fixating on individual actions, you are demonstrating extreme cruelty and ignorance as to how the world works.
Your talking points are Malthusian and fascist, and I do not say that lightly.
Ok then, lets exclude people who don’t know how babies are made. Do you still think a person who knows full-well that they won’t be able to support the kid should make one and that others should support them?
Is not having sex/wearing a condom/taking birth control/having yout partner wear a condom outside of your control? Just saying 👻
Is someone forcing you to have a kid?
Lack of reproductive health options absolutely leads to forced birth scenarios.
Living wage for a family with one child in the US is 80k yearly. Only 30% of americans make that or more. Only 30%ish of those people have enough savings to last a few months without income.
By your logic, only like a tenth of americans should have children, which would make society collapse in give or take 30 years.
I dunno, not making any assertions about how society will end up as a result of that, Im not a demographist
“We should fill the air with noxious smoke” “WTF no that would make it hard to breathe” “idk man I’m not a pulmonologist”
We don’t live in socialism, correct. I have no idea what that has to do with whether or not it’s correct to uplift the poor and focus on what’s good for everyone. Even selfishly, it makes sense to support poor families because it lowers crime and improves the economy overall. There is no reason to neglect the vulnerable and in need except cruelty and ignorance of economics.
From the people who brought you The Birthrate is Declining! and Abortion Murders Babies! comes the new blockbuster sensation Poor People Shouldn’t Reproduce!
Rated R for ridiculous.
deleted by creator
I never said that
I don’t believe you
ok
deleted by creator
Both I guess. I can still sympathize with people who in my opinion have made poor life decisions.
I don’t see why someone choosing something suboptimal would mean I shouldn’t have sympathy for them. Regardless, what if having a child is their dream and they choose the sacrifice? Why not help them out?
By that logic I should be helped, because I want a ferarri 🤣. But only poor families are afforded the sympathy (at least that’s the sentiment people IRL seem to have)
I think you can see how having a child and wanting to live decently is different from wanting a luxury. Very often poor families are poor for circumstances out of their control that happened since the birth of the child, as well, like loss of job, inflation, or divorce.
I feel like you made this thread just to talk about how you don’t like poor families.
Nah, I don’t actually. How? Like come on, Im tired of pretending I do see it lol 🤣. How’s having a child that you KNOW is going to end up costing you about the same as said ferrari (or maybe a couple of mazdas or corolas or whatever, you get the point) over the span of you supporting him/her different from wanting to buy something.But I can’t just straight up say that IRL, for obvious reasons without peopls looking at me like Im crazy 😀
It’s because a baby is a person, and having one is a natural part of human life, whereas a ferrari is a luxury. Also, once you have a child you cannot get rid of it ethically, so the parents should be helped. The sympathy comes from “this person cannot live a dignified life because of situation”.
I also think that everything that is necessary for life should be free, so the idea that people don’t deserve a decent life for any reason or decision is foreign to me.
I don’t know how to explain to you that you should have empathy.
Well, so is wanting luxary. Like come on, would you drive a corola if you buying a ferrari was 0.1% of your yearly net income or whetver?
You WANT luxary, its just you can not AFFORD it. 🙂
Same with kids: you WANT them, you just can’t AFFORD them.
But in 1 case you “deserve” empathy and in another you “don’t”.
Or am I missing your interpretation of “a natural part of human life”? How’s wanting offspring is more “natural” than, say, wanting a box of cool lego or getting a nice figure (yeah, I’d like the government to subsidize my weight loss, like why not? What if I am miserable enough being fat)?🙂
It’s natural because we would all die if it weren’t, but you’re avoiding my main argument. I said that the sympathy comes from “this person cannot live a dignified life because of situation” and the situation being bringing another person into the world.
Your Ferrari analogy fails because in that case you want “luxury” but in the child case they already have a child but you can’t afford to live, instead of being able to live but not having a luxury they want. I would feel sympathy for someone who, say, bought a luxury then lost their job, and are now having a really hard time because they no longer have any savings.
Also, don’t you think it’s a bit sad that having children, something people have famously done since forever, is now something you can be priced out of? (Also where I live the government does subsidize weight loss, if it’s bad enough to really impact your life)
edit: lmao dude stopped responding the second someone made an argument he couldn’t just wave away with the same premade argument
- So your description of “natural” is “something we would die off without”? Ok. But that only makes sense on a populational level, an individual won’t die without producing offspring. And my question was specifically targeted at individual judgement. We aren’t a hivemind, you can act differently than the people around you.
- Like I said, any reasonable person understands that the possibility of life storms (such as being laid off, having health issues at some point in your life, child being born with disability) is the thing that should be accounted for. Otherwise… You haven’t thought that through, now have you 🙃?
🙂 And who is to blame for that? And if you believe in personal responsibility and freedom of will, shouldn’t it be treated like an unreasonable desicion then? Same way you treat eating at a fancy restaurant and then not having any money to eat for a week.
- What do you mean, “the situation”? It sounds like you’re suggesting that having a kid is something out of your control. Which it isn’t (unless you like believd in determinism or whetever, but we’ll just go with a mainstream belief that is that people can control their actions). You make it happen.
FFS it’s spelled “Luxury”
There it is. You have an agenda and want to shit on parents.
!childfree@lemmy.world would be a better fit for you.
Just you being outraged at the question doesn’t mean its not genuine 🙂 or trolling
Lol
I should be helped, because I want a ferarri
By your fucking stupid logic, and the fact that you want money, you should impregnate women who want children. That’s the stupidest argument I have read today.
But children are a luxary that people CHOOSE to have
I have been on 4chan way longer that you have been alive. Your shitty troll skills don’t affect me. Also learn to have some empathy, it helps.
Children are going to be made whether we can afford them or not. It’s our biological imperative. A small segment of the population at any given time can restrain these imperatives for more opportune moments or choose not to.
In that light, it’s best to just have sympathy for life and those who make it and respect those who do choose otherwise.
Also, shitty question. Instigating a bunch of finger-pointing and arguing with loaded questions is childish. Don’t do that here.
A genuine one tho. What deives people who KNOW they are going to go broke and struggle IF they make a child? What’s a “biological imperative”? Are you suggesting we are animals who cannot choose?
What I am suggesting is that there is something disingenuous about your posts. You’ve been here 4 days, have posted 4 topics, with one cross-posted, that seem written in a way to stir up arguments. You’ve made 30+ comments but none outside of your own topics.
Do you always join communities and immediately start posting provocative questions while ignoring all the other content?
What’s your purpose for being here in the fediverse?
Thats your assumption. I am just not interested enough in other people’s shit, thats all. Why would I be? 🙂 Is it a bad thing? I mind my own business and do my own thoughts
But your answer tells us a lot more about your purpose than you probably meant to. If you came here with the intent to only interact in the topics you post, a narrative you’re crafting with the shape of the aggregate of questions, revolving around divisive social topics, then you’re not here to be a contributing member of a community but instead came with an agenda.
It doesnt really conclusively tell us that I have an agenda and I don’t
Sure it does. Did you forget that everyone can see your vote history?
I mind my own business and do my own thoughts
This is clearly a lie.
I mind my own business
You’re weirdly fixated on wanting to blame people for having kids. That’s not even close to minding your own business.
There’s no right time to have a child, and generally younger is better (within reason). I don’t blame someone for having a kid at a bad time. I do blame someone continuing to have kids despite already struggling with the kids they have.
Well… My point kinda is. Should you? 🙂 Like at all? (if you can’t afford it)?
Your parents probably shouldn’t have.
