I find it funny how middle class people all talk about how it is too expensive to have kids. Meanwhile, a single mother in poverty with 4+ kids is a regular sight depending on what side of town you are on. Yet, "I'm too poor to have kids" is not a phrase you'd ever hear from such a person.
I don't think "poverty level" is the correct term here. I believe once below the poverty level, everything is basically free (if you have kids to claim at least). Free rent, school, food, healthcare, etc. But there are many other "levels".
I know for a fact that 5 years ago in small town Texas you got food stamps and extremely reduced healthcare costs if your yearly take home pay was less than $40k and you had two children. I know because my brother-in-law's wife would give us all the free junk she'd get from the SNAP program that she didn't want. Sugary juice, snacks, etc. We'd throw it straight in the trash. She tried breast feeding but gave up in an hour because she got free baby formula and she could then dump her kids on anyone to babysit without a need to worry about feeding the infant. Once her two boys were 3 and 4 years of age, she qualified to put them on a bus at 7am (they were still in diapers) to be taken to a preschool that was restricted to low income families only. She would then spend the next 8 hours sitting at home and trolling my wife on facebook. My wife only posts pictures, to which this woman would then critique in the most Karen way possible. "Your kids are too small for that car seat", "That car seat should be rear facing", "That doesn't look safe", etc. If we called her out on anything, she'd get mad and spend hours digging through our old photo albums to put the red angry face on whatever she deemed necessary. Felt extremely invasive. Absolute crazy lady. We put up with that for nearly two years before blocking her. Which then made family meetings awkward so we quit going to those as well. Which that just turned us into the "stuck up" "snooty" rebels of the family. But oh well, we are much happier now. No clue why I just typed all this, but what ever.
> Meanwhile, a single mother in poverty with 4+ kids is a regular sight depending on what side of town you are on. Yet, "I'm too poor to have kids" is not a phrase you'd ever hear from such a person
"I'm super happy and am living a great life" is probably also a phrase you'll never hear from this person.
Because what people are really saying when they say "I'm too poor to have kids" is "I would have to sacrifice a great deal of the comfort and stability of my life to have kids" and they are choosing not to do that.
From one perspective it's a selfish choice.
From another, having kids when you can't afford them is the selfish choice.
From yet another, having kids at all is a selfish choice.
I don't think "poverty level" is the correct term here. I believe once below the poverty level, everything is basically free (if you have kids to claim at least). Free rent, school, food, healthcare, etc. But there are many other "levels".
I know for a fact that 5 years ago in small town Texas you got food stamps and extremely reduced healthcare costs if your yearly take home pay was less than $40k and you had two children. I know because my brother-in-law's wife would give us all the free junk she'd get from the SNAP program that she didn't want. Sugary juice, snacks, etc. We'd throw it straight in the trash. She tried breast feeding but gave up in an hour because she got free baby formula and she could then dump her kids on anyone to babysit without a need to worry about feeding the infant. Once her two boys were 3 and 4 years of age, she qualified to put them on a bus at 7am (they were still in diapers) to be taken to a preschool that was restricted to low income families only. She would then spend the next 8 hours sitting at home and trolling my wife on facebook. My wife only posts pictures, to which this woman would then critique in the most Karen way possible. "Your kids are too small for that car seat", "That car seat should be rear facing", "That doesn't look safe", etc. If we called her out on anything, she'd get mad and spend hours digging through our old photo albums to put the red angry face on whatever she deemed necessary. Felt extremely invasive. Absolute crazy lady. We put up with that for nearly two years before blocking her. Which then made family meetings awkward so we quit going to those as well. Which that just turned us into the "stuck up" "snooty" rebels of the family. But oh well, we are much happier now. No clue why I just typed all this, but what ever.