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I know it's a heated subject, but why is wanting kids enough of a reason to have them? If someone can barely afford to support him- or herself, why bring an expensive new life into the world only to expect others to contribute significantly to taking care of that life?
"It takes a village to raise a baby". There are parts of the world where people receive money for having children and there are places and eras in which helping raise the children is everyone's job and no one complains about it. In modern America, we are too isolated from those who should be our network of support and asking for help gives you the stigma of being a useless parasite... Not being able to care for your child on your own paints the picture of you as a bad parent. Does not being able to afford $100-300 a week of childcare really make one a bad parent? Of course not, that's ridiculous. As long as you care enough to find within yourself the ability to provide for a child everything they need to thrive and grow (though it might not be ideal) you are capable of being a good parent and I believe a child who grows up seeing their parent struggle and overcome often develops fine values. Sometimes lack of money and not having what it takes go hand in hand, but not always.
I know my opinion isn't popular, but the way I see it, if there are already soooooooooo many unwanted, uncared for kids, why bring MORE children into the world instead of caring for all the ones already here who need caring? And the ecological impact of every additional human being frightens me. If we can't take care of the humans already here--and in this context, especially the abandoned children already dying because no one wants them, I can't see it as responsible producing more kids.
I feel the same way about pets--no offense to anyone meant. We throw away dogs and cats, killing them by the tens of thousands per month, even as we pay for breeders to ... breed more dogs and cats. Just seems an unjustifiable waste to me in both settings.
Well I'm not a ginger so....
However, my hair does have a reddish tint and it's weird that you picked that up from a colorless photo.
On a side note, Karen Gilan is a totally bangable ginger, as well as the chick who played Donna in that 70's show, a girl I went to high school with and many others.
It's not their fault they can't afford them, it's the fucked system rich assholes have created to hoard wealth, so yes, poor people should get support to have kids.
Hey, I hear ya, and I don't want to come off as a monster, but I've been thinking about this question for a couple years now, and I don't think people should get support "to have kids." There are already many, many, many suffering kids. THEY should get support. But we don't NEED more human beings on a planet that's dying because of us. We already treat each other like crap, and the wealthy will never share. I think it's a cruelty to bring a child into poverty, given all the decades of research we have about the probability a poor child has of escaping poverty, and the harm childhood poverty can inflict regardless of whether someone eventually escapes it.
It's normal to feel this way. However, someone once said to me, "if people waited until they could afford them, they'd never have them." For most people, I suspect this is true.
Not everyone has to have kids, of course, but if you do want kids, that perfect time may never come. In life, in spite of our best plans, we are left to improvise and make the best of things.
On a plus side: breast milk is free. Cloth diapers are reusable and cheap. A baby shower gets you going. And by the time the real expenses start (school clothes, sports, college), your priorities will have changed to fit your new life.
(Said as a mother with two adult children..we had nothing in the beginning)
I agree its a very good idea to have enough money to raise a child before having 1.