Having been born in a developing countries and went to US for university and work sometime there, I can say that US minimum salary and the other related perks are already significantly way better of most of emerging countries.
In fact, the US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in all of the following, and is much closer to Developing countries than Developed countries: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. [1]
I'm not sure most parents, Vanessa included, don't know that education is important to their children's future. She likely lacks the opportunity to send her children to a school where they would receive a good education.
> 2. Educate people to not have kids before they're financially and emotionally ready.
I would argue that most people look at having children in terms of opportunity cost. If you're wealthy and have a good career, you tend to put off having children or have fewer children. That's why the birth rate is so low in developed countries compared to that of the developing world.
Your anecdote doesn’t really mean much. “Significantly way better” is apparently still not enough.
Similar to why food stamps are cheaper than food education. The administrative burden is prohibitively expensive.
Let’s not consider the thesis at hand here; jobs aren’t the answer. That flies in the face of our corporate sponsored religion.
Of course believing that inherently threatens your status.
This site should best stick to discussion of technology. Whenever social topics come along, the community quickly reveals its ignorance of reality for the majority, and knee jerk defense of its status quo
Maybe take some money out of military spending? Educate the population, the economy soars, and then you can re-increase the military budget 30 years down the line.
Likewise, people know that getting pregnant at 16 is not a great life plan. But the fundamentalist right have been campaigning for decades to control women's reproduction, including to prevent sexual health education, prevent contraception, and to deny access to abortion.
Lack of a social safety net (including health care) means that if you get a few bad breaks you could be living in your car with your kids. Essential medicine (like insulin) which should only cost a few dollars actually costs someone on minimum wage all their disposable income.
Saying that its better than a developing economy misses the point, the US is one of the richest countries in the world, and ordinary people are systematically taken advantage of by their own system of government. It's just tragic.
(1) choose a better school district, i.e. buy or rent housing in a more expensive location -- not applicable to poor parents
(2) read with their young kids; help older kids with homework -- requires time and a good enough living situation and enough education of the parents. Encouraging reading to kids is one of the top parent-education strategies being tried. The amount of help a parent can provide is limited by their own education level and time availability.
(3) Provide a stable environment where kids have good food, space to work quietly and access to books and computers -- this can be hard to impossible for the poor!
(4) transport kids to school every day -- most families in the US are expected to transport kids to neighborhood schools. For the poor, this means walking regardless of weather. In bad weather, attendence of the poor is way down, understandably.
(5) extracurriculars -- other than in-school sports, these typically require fees, parents to drive kids places, and parental time. Not possible for many poor families.
That will do far more for the children of the future than anything else.
People love to tell me I'm insensitive but I say the community needs to step up and do it part to help raise the children. We won't do that. We harp on about "personal responsibility".
I think most* people who don't already have children (me included) should elect to not have children in the current situation. There is no benefit to having children in the west. We don't care after our parents. How can we expect our children to provide care for us? It makes no sense to have children on am individual level. Yes, a shrinking population can wreak havoc to GDP growth rate but what is this GDP growth doing for people out of work and unable to afford health care in Wisconsin?
There is a stigma associated with not having children. It needs to go away. It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children.
Also, there will always be some worse off country to say "look it could be worse, see how lucky you are?" I think that is such a disingenuous and irrelevant point.
But when a person of 16 makes a life altering decision, and we shrug our shoulders and say "they should have known better".
The real question is: why won't America care about children?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/07/16/the-rise...
This might sound harsh, but I do think it's better of for her to hand her children over to foster care or something. Having to support 3 kids with such salary is just too much for her. What I was proposing was "how to prevent future Vanessa"
America has a significant social safety net, but should responsible citizens pay for the upkeep of someone who has multiple children out of wedlock before the age of 20 without any means to support those children? Absolutely not.
People must take responsibility for their own actions.
I'm 100% on board with this. You can make a lot of mistakes in your life and still pull yourself up if you're unencumbered by marriage and kids. I know from personal experience. I was deep in debt and making poor life decisions in my twenties. It took until until my thirties to get my act together. It was hard, but would have probably been impossible if I had kids to worry about providing for. I'd even say that if you are financially able to support a family, I'd still wait until I get through my twenties before starting. With life expectancy up, there's no reason one can't wait.
> It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children.
I get where you're coming from, and I don't look down on anyone who chooses to never have children, but I don't agree on this point. I know quite a few people who have chosen this lifestyle. I thought for a long time I'd never have kids as well. But now that I do, I couldn't imagine not having any. I think it's more important to wait until you're emotionally mature and financially secure enough to do it. If it's not for you, by all means, don't have kids. Being on the other side of it now, though, I can say that it's quite a transformative experience.
>> financially secure
I think the point of the article is that based on the current trajectory, a big chunk of the population will never get there.
I just searched this on Google:
> According to a 2016 GOBankingRates survey, 35 percent of all adults in the U.S. have only several hundred dollars in their savings accounts and 34 percent have zero. Only 15 percent have over $10,000 stashed away.
https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/7323d18...
As an aside, my wife and I are good friends with a couple who only recently let us know that the husband (single earner for the family) has been unemployed since last year, and that they were completely broke and on assistance programs. We were floored, we had no idea, but in hindsight it explained some behaviors we'd witnessed. Anyways, I mention it because they have two young kids, and are trying to have another one. I just can't fathom how, given what they're going through, that having another child is in any way a sensible decision.
It's a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. Housing prices are astronomical, healthcare costs keep increasing, all while wages remain stagnant. I have great empathy for what people are going through. I'm always mindful that you never know what can happen, one major health issue and it can all go away.
But somehow I think you meant we should improve the lot of the parents in the hope that that would help the kids.
Something has to give. Perhaps people like me will offset others who want multiple children staying at home.
The meta is that in general people will want fewer children if they are better off. Does that mean poor people will have more children by design? Does that mean we can never get rid of poverty?
Well, the grasshopper's parents couldn't get a bank loan because they were PoC so they had poor investment options, missed out on promotions for similar reasons. Grasshopper got arrested for standing on the street while black and spent 2 months in jail because he didn't have a spare $10k for bond, and lost his job, even though charges were dropped. Ms grasshopper got sick while pregnant and had to pay $30k in hospital fees with an expensive loan. Loss of income meant they couldn't service the loan and they declared bankruptcy. Now they can't get credit for decades. Meanwhile the ant went to college and gets a good job, maximum access to tax breaks, social mobility etc.
So yeah, the poor choice to be born disadvantaged. Seriously, go back to your troll hole.
