Why are the people who can't afford to have a lot of kids, exactly the people who have so many kids?

Question

I never understood this. Please explain.

Answer 1

I work with families like this, and they get free money from the state for the children they have and WIC benefits, and free daycare if they work or go to school, and low income housing, etc... Meanwhile here I am, a middle class married woman who thinks long and hard about how many more children I will have because I am trying to save for their future and want to make sure I can afford to do do. It doesn't seem really fair.

Answer 2

Yes because god knows kids are expensive...
wait no they're not.

Once you get the clothes, cloth diapers, and toys for the first one you just pass them down. Then family and friends give you waaaay more than you could ever need.

And I know I was scarred for life because I couldn't afford to go on certain fieldtrips and had to pay my own way through school.


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In addition in answer to a differnt answer people in 3rd world countries have a lot of kids because a) they have religious that preclude birth control and b) farming families need to have lots of children to run the farm. The whole population explosion happened when people settled down to start farming. More kids = more crops = more profit or at least sustainability.

Answer 3

Public aid pays more if you have more kids. At least, thats my take on the issue. Me, I can afford to have kids, and want the kids, so naturally I can't have kids without extensive medical assistance.

Answer 4

In my opinion, they dont have other pleasures in life.. They cant afford anything that could generate pleasures and off course the education needed for them to know the right way to raise a family. They indulge themselves in intimate acts resulting to increase number of children not thinking of the consequences they will face in the future...

Answer 5

I believe people who have many kids are noy always poor i come from a family of 7 kids and we were rich as hell with love and happiness.i would not change that 4 any thing .peop[le who have only 1 child at times cant afford it so what????

Answer 6

Melissa Said it best. I am a mom of 2 and baby 3 on the way. I support my own children, and put up for their future, with no support from their father. I work, and do whats best for my kids.

The government allows the dead beat parents to sit on their *** and continue having children. They pay for their food, housing, medical, EVERYTHING at little or NO cost to them. They could work but dont because " They might cut their bennifits" ohhh poor baby, I think it should be 2 years and off..... 90% of those people have income they dont turn in, or a live in that works full time, but they wont work, god forbid they have to work and pay money they worked for on food , medical, and housing..... Thats just unhead of in the welfare world. ( dead beat parents are those who could work but dont , because they expect the government to provide.)

Men should pay support, however people laying on welfare having children they cant afford are JUST AS bad as a dead beat father....... A mother even if she is on welfare should get off her *** and atleast have to MATCH whatever the father pays with work dollars 50% !!!! If she doesnt know who the father is, she shouldnt have been so easy.... theirfor maybe a 2nd job would meet the bills. Maybe less time on her hands would prevent another baby being born.

Some may think thats harsh but how can the government keep paying for people to be so lazy. THEY CANT and shouldnt HAVE TOO.

I think its horible to bring children into poverty. If you cant afford health insurance and food, you cant afford to properly raise a baby

Answer 7

Basically, having babies is a blessing for most ppl and thats why they want to have lots of kids...then there are things like food stamps and hudd and welfare and all that so not having a job now adays still gets you paid! Then again some ppl are just really horny and fertile lol and it just happens! hahahaa

Answer 8

Because a lot of them are poor and uneducated. I used to think the same thing about these countries where all these poor children are starving to death or dieing from curable diseases. If that's the case why are they having 10 kids then?

Answer 9

well.. from your comment i can see that you are dome what against it. but that doesn't;t matter because everyone has the right to their own opinion and because we have that right we use it against all odds. but you know what....if the people that can't afford to have a baby had an abortion, you would judge them anyways so it doesn't matter. no matter what choice one makes there will be someone somewhere to judge them whether you are poor, rich, both, or whatever.

Answer 10

Ah, another complex issue being turned into a Yahoo! Answers "becuz they get more welfare" mud-sling...

I don't know why "Probably because they feel that they don't have anything else to give to society but children" got thumbs down. It's not entirely off track. Poor people have children for a lot of the same reason the better-off do.

If you're genuinely interested:

"Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage"

http://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage/dp/0520248198/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4899696-0099337?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173595546&sr=8-1

Anybody who honestly believes there's a notable amount of people having children "to get more benefits" would be well-advised to check out just what sort of shoddy "benefits" these really are. That, and non-'punitive' social programs are far more effective in getting people off welfare. In brief: if given stable housing, enough to eat, and some social supports, the odds of getting an education and a job are excellent.

Which is not the case if you are living like these people:

http://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Her-Children-Homeless-Families/dp/0307345890/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4899696-0099337?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173596020&sr=1-1

See also:

"While welfare reform in the mid-1990s meant new employees and equipment for some welfare offices and perks like interview clothing for some welfare recipients, it also meant harsh guidelines aimed at punishing welfare recipients who did not follow strict protocols. In Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform, Sharon Hays, using her research from two towns, focuses on single mothers who have at least occasionally relied on welfare for support. She finds that they are often pushed into dead-end employment with no career stability, while the government's emphasis on "family values" encourages them to marry men who can support them. These mixed messages, put forth via a rigid bureaucracy, pull welfare recipients and well-intentioned case workers in multiple directions. Hayes's subjects tell stories of the extreme poverty, broken families, sexual abuse, homelessness, and the lengths to which they go in attempts to juggle multiple part-time low-paying jobs, but they do not portray themselves as victims."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195176014/sr/ref=pd_cp_b_title/102-4899696-0099337?ie=UTF8&qid=1173595546&sr=8-1

If you're genuinely interested, I encourage you to hit the library. It's not as though you're the first person to wonder about it, and it's hardly an unstudied area. It does make for some compelling reading.