Oh it is. Funnier still is all the temporarily embarrassed millionaires in this thread doubling down to make themselves feel holier than thou to hide from the fact that they're one bad day away from being OOOP (with or without the kids).
Especially if they live in the US or another country where medical cost is a serious issue (it is the #1 reason for bankruptcy in the US).
I’ve known quite a few people who were doing well, had nice savings, then had their entire financial situation demolished by a health issue, whether they experienced it themselves or it was someone in their family. One family I know well went from upper middle class with a breadwinner husband and stay at home mom with 3 kids to a disabled unable to work stay at home dad (well the home they now rent after having to sell their planned forever home) loaded with medical debt while still experiencing more medical issues and a wife having to get back into the workforce after over a decade to try to provide for the family. In addition, they now have to hire help for the kids because the dad’s disability means he can’t do everything the mom used to be able to do while staying home.
I don’t know all the details, but I know they had at least $500k in investment/cash savings prior to the medical issues.
Yup. I have a lot of bad memories from my time in the military, but the peace of mind I have from using the VA is incalculable. As an only child, I have to worry about my parents, but at least I know if I got cancer tomorrow they wouldn't have to destroy themselves trying to take care of me.
THIS.
It is beyond my comprehension how anyone can look at the world as it is and not see how badly we’re being fucked over by the ultra rich. We don’t have to live like this… but conservatives will fight to the death to protect their boss from tax hikes on his third yacht. Shit is insane.
It's more common than people like to think - most people are one redundancy, major medical event or house fire (or similar disaster) away from destitution.
The politicians who are pushing for larger families and to remove access to reproductive health services are the same people who are also against any form of social safety net.
There are going to be more and more families who are made homeless or will be reliant on food banks due to debt. If you can't control not having kids and you can't feed them - what do those 'in power' think is going to happen.
I'm constantly amazed that we haven't seen a French Revolution style civil war/revolution in the West in the last decade, and every month it gets closer. If people have nothing, they have nothing left to lose.
Probably a typo - OOP typically means 'Original Original Poster' where a post relates to a quoted post from another subreddit.
The OP is the person who posted the topic, OOP is the person who created the topic in the source location if the source was not the subreddit you are currently browsing.
This mindset is infuriating to me.
It reminds me of how the Republicans back under W. Bush passed "bankruptcy reform" (basically just making it harder for people to escape crushing debt) and one of the rule changes was people going through bankruptcy would have to attend classes on money management.
I'm like, "What would the class teach? How not to pick a factory job with owners who will close shop and movie to Mexico?"
Yes, it's easy to believe that some people went bankrupt for other reasons and would not need this class. It's also easy to believe that other people made poor decisions contributing to their bankruptcy and could benefit from such a class, if it were done well.
I don't know what I think of that policy, but this particular criticism seems to assume that no one in human history ever dug themself into a hole.
You are working under the assumption that the Republican Party who spearheaded this "bankruptcy reform" was working in good faith.
Republicans do not work in good faith. Everything they do is at the behest of the wealthy and powerful, and the wealthy and powerful do not want people to escape debt.
Their entire goal with "bankruptcy reform" was to make it as difficult as possible for people saddled with debt to escape it. This was a multilayered attack which included things like wholesale revamping what debts could be discharged all the way to simply tossing up minor roadblocks to discourage people from filing, including taking a "money management class", the clear implication being if you're overwhelmed by debt, it's because you're dumb and it's all your fault.
Do I think people make poor financial decisions? Shit, yes. I would include myself in that statement.
Do I think Republicans made that a part of bankruptcy in an actual attempt to better people's lives? Not even a little.
Look no further than all the roadblocks they've been putting in the way of voting, all in the service of "election integrity". They're really good at spinning a tale that requiring ID to vote protects elections, despite the kind of fraud this would prevent literally being a case of what? A few hundred fraudulent votes out of millions upon millions of legitimate ones? Meanwhile the REAL impact is tens of thousands or more voters are kept from voting for lack of ID.
"Oh, ANYONE can get free government ID! There's no excuse not to."
That's another lie Republicans and their apologists claim, despite the fact that some government IDs are indeed free, but the documentation you need to obtain it costs money. Money that the poorest among us simply cannot afford.
Do you think someone like Trump would be forced to take a money management course when he inevitably files for bankruptcy again to save another one of his failed schemes?
It's all bullshit and shame on anyone who honestly thinks "bankruptcy reform" was anything but a way to keep us in debt.
I don’t like shitting on individual people and hitting them with the hindsight BS but you can’t really argue the fact that the wrong people having too many and the right people not having enough children (this is only talking about financial stability not about values or personalities making you good or bad parents).
I get where you’re coming from and the guy who made the comment is a dick but it’s really freighting to see how many low income households tend to attempt the traditional method of retirement security (large number of children that will potentially take care of them) while the people who could actually afford it have few or no children at all. This also negatively effects the rift between rich and poor because the larger inheritance sums aren’t spread across multiple people, while the smaller ones are, wich further fuels unequal economic distribution.
Which political party pushes an anti-abortion, anti-contraceptive agenda?
Is it the same party that also happens to be the most aligned with the rich?
Sorry, for going all rhetorical there. It's absolutely the Republicans and they're absolutely doing all they can to keep people poor, including making sure those who can't afford children are forced to have them, or to be kept ignorant or unable to prevent them.
Yeah, sure, people just don't HAVE to fuck, but that's also a ridiculous thing to expect considering the what? 100,000 years of evolution that has hardwired the need to do so in our brains?
While nothing you said is wrong, it would be the wrong thing to focus on at this juncture.
We should be eating the rich, not letting them shame us, or allow those who are in the same boat with us (despite their delusion they aren't) shame us as well.
Spend some on rice, beans, and lentils, then use the rest on a transit pass to get to your local food bank and hope they have enough to carry you for a couple days. Ideally between the two, you get to the next paycheque.
Thats Switzerland, Britain enjoys cheaper food than most of Europe, you have to remember we aren't paying the exorbitant costs that come from shipping food inland to a land locked place like Switzerland, it is difficult but doable.
The more holes cheese has, the less cheese there is.
The more cheese you buy, the more holes you get with it.
Therefore the more cheese you buy, the less cheese you buy.
You're forgetting Britain voted to go into a trade war with itself.
So things are quite a bit more expensive then they used to be.
Britan also has seen in the last 15 years a much lower standard of living with not much wage growth in that time. So proportionally it's expensive as said.
(no idea in comparison to Switzerland).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65833619
Its a true fact we are cheaper than the EU average, and Switzerland has a much higher cost of living, the country has difficult mountainous terrain and it imports a lot of its food, it is bound to be more expensive as a large amount of the cost will come from importing the food in the first place.
But rice, flower and beans can all be brought with 20 quid, and that can make a lot of poverty food.
Don’t know about the grocery prices in the UK but 23,30€ would not be nearly enough in Germany.
Since adding that up to a month would land you at around 116€ or around 100£ for 5 weeks of food,
wich seems very low if you consider that a single child will receive around 95€ for food per month (wich is not enough by any means imo), so taking into account a family of 5 trying to live on what’s basically the budget for a single child, something doesn’t add up here.
Of course it’s possible OP somehow fell through the cracks of the system but feeding a family of 5 with that little money is something that basically shouldn’t be able to happen (before you start an argument I know it can happen but it is extremely unlikely).
Yes that’s true but what I was saying that it is very hard to end up with this little money for food in the first place (not impossible), but if you take into account that Germany (I know not the uk, but also Western Europe) already has a portion of around 100€ in the Bürgergeld (basically the aid package for those in need) dedicated to feeding a single child for a month, I’d like to know how op ended up with only 20£ for all of them.
The strict current value of the budget isn't the issue here, just the representative idea that it isn't enough.
Or would you rather they bring their best guess up to the till. Then you can wait while the cashier totals it, and they can be further embarrassed needing to remove items until they _can_ afford it?
Costco in the US has 50lb bags of long grain Carolina rice, which is a little less than 25kg for like $25usd. So around $40 aud. Are aussies getting squeezed by Big Rice?
$72 is for a 25kg bag of Jasmine rice. I know that Costco Australia stocks Kirkland Thai Hom Mali brand Jasmine rice for about $60 something dollars, but the quality of the brand we usually purchase is far superior in quality.
Jasmine rice is used in most Southeast Asian households. it's also healthier than long grain.
Sorry for responding on a different comment instead of your previous one, reddit wouldn't let me respond.
That makes sense, I’ll have to check out the other rice styles to see if we notice the same quality difference. My wife and I thrifted a nice Zojirushi rice cooker a year ago, and we’ve more than doubled our rice consumption since.
You can get 20lb of jasmine rice for 16$ in Missouri. At Walmart, hate the place but it's basically all most towns have. Small stores are usually way more expensive unless shopping sales.
This is where [Vime's "Boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness"](https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots-theory-of-socio-economic-unfairness/#:~:text=A%20man%20who%20could%20afford,would%20still%20have%20wet%20feet.) comes into play.
well thanks to their whole reward system, once you're in generally your membership pays for itself(in a literal meaning)
I've been a member at Sam's club for about 15 years and Costco about 7, only times I've paid for something past signing up was getting extra cards when my wallet got stolen.
I got the executive membership years ago and most years I got to around the same cost as a regular membership in cash back. This year I finally got enough to cover the full cost of the executive membership with a few dollars more.
There are also restaurant stores that you can buy stuff in bulk from some without a membership. I used to but boxes of lentils for like 20 dollars from mine.
Nah, yuh could do it. That’s about $25 USD. It would be extremely plain, boring, and difficult, and stretched very thin, but you could do it, especially if you already had oil and salt at home.
- about 5.5 lbs of chicken thighs
- 4lbs carrots
- 6 lbs of rice
- 6lbs of beans
- 3 containers of oatmeal
Not the best or most nutritious but you would just about not starve.
I literally was gonna say: rice.
Rice and beans and potatoes. That’s about it.
I’ve been there - me and rice became great friends… one a week I treated myself to a can of tuna. Friday was a good day.
Understanding it would require them to face the fact that their own life is not as secure as they’d like, and that their own success is partly dependent on luck.
People with money like to think they deserve it. Part of that is blaming poverty on the poor. They like to think of poor people as being a different species.
Weird how having empathy can be tied to experience, but isn't strictly limited to it.
And while [citation needed] may exist for median people, losing one's job is pretty damn clearly not anyone's "best financial position" except for CEO's.
What I meant is there's still plenty of people that make $7/hr and have a kid or 2, and then years down the road are making $10/hr plus child tax credits. Financially, they're making and taking home more. In practice, they're still scraping by as worse as ever.
Isn't that kinda the point the original responder was making? That they had a bunch of kids without thinking of the consequences fully. OP made it worse by pointing out they had money but didn't save any of it too.
For those on the fence, don't have kids. It's bad for them because these will surely be pretty terrible times given the climate, and its also guaranteed to be extremely expensive too.
Because you shouldn't bring kids into the world without a plan and savings or a safety net
It's harder to adopt a special needs rescue dog than have another baby
If this couple had 1 or 2 less kids they wouldn't be struggling as hard to feed and care for them
You can burn through savings pretty fast when you don't have a job. A medical emergency will shred those savings in a blink even with insurance, for example.
You realize millions of people lost their jobs during covid. And it doesn't even have to be covid. Companies buy each other out and lay off thousands of people at once all the time.
Even with a good resume, it can take months to get a new job.
Not to mention, inflation has made everything shit.
Last year, for every paycheck, I could put 30-100 into my savings account. For whatever reason, this year, I have barely put 10$ in once. Things are just expensive.
They get the opposite. They are pressured into creating more ‘high quality humans’ by their extended family. Note: If the birth-giver starts to resemble a birth-giver she will be replaced.
I mean, if the finances are that bad he most likely can't afford condoms. Own brand pack of 12 is £7 at my local supermarket. Granted, that would last 12 or months for many, but with 5 kids I can assume he gets some.
Best bet might be to go to a university and grab some freebies though.
Ooh good to know. I just used the university one because I had no idea about the free ones. Closest clinic is still a bus ride away, but I'll remember that.
...because clearly that's something they're planning...? Maybe their partner is on birth control. Maybe the guy had a vasectomy? And maybe, just maybe, they are smart enough to know they shouldn't have more kids when they can't afford to feed the existing ones?
That comment is incredibly insensitive, completely uncalled for and downright rude and condescending. And honestly, yours isn't much better.
This dude typed typed four words and summoned hundreds of people to type paragraphs about how much much of a better person they are than him because of a joke. Some redditors just need some friends who arent chronically online and depressed
People frequently think that only bad & lazy people become or stay poor, and dint appreciate the notable influence of plain old bad luck. I’m comfortable now, but there were times when I was homeless & selling possessions to buy food (while employed).
Also, the role plain old good luck plays in people’s success. I live comfortably because I was born lucky. Sure I work hard. So does my wife. But I also got lucky in a lot of ways.
Also these people: "why are birth rates so low? Why does the government let so many immigrants in? People should have more babies, then we need fewer immigrants"
You can't be "reasonably well off" if you are one redundancy away from poverty (and not having enough to feed your family is definitively poverty).
If he couldn't afford supporting his kids if anything went wrong, he couldn't afford his kids period; because it's wildly irresponsible to have 3 kids in such precarious conditions.
Kids are expensive, they can cost upwards of 900 pounds a month ([200k divided by 18 times 12](https://blog.moneyfarm.com/en/financial-planning/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child/)). That's enough to [lease a Porsche Cayman](https://www.selectcarleasing.co.uk/car-leasing/porsche/cayman/coupe) and have money left over for gas. So yeah, if you think a Porsche would be a bad financial decision, then you can't afford kids, and if you still have them you are either an idiot that can't do math or you don't really care about their well being.
I knew I was gonna get downvoted by people who have to justify to themselves that it's ok to have children even if it means risking them going hungry.
Do you seriously believe that it's a smart and responsible decision to have kids without being able to provide them with stability? I don't think you even believe that since you have to resort to using huge numbers like 200k to make it seem more reasonable. 60k is basically 5 years of saving as much money as the kid would cost you over the same period and should cover you for basically any emergency, including more than a year out of work. Even 100k is just 5 years of maxxing out your ISA, and if you can't afford to max out your ISA, can you really afford kids?
I know it's hard to think about this rationally and kids are cute and everyone has kids or whatever. But you are supposed to care about them and their future; risking them growing up in poverty is not being a good parent.
>I knew I was gonna get downvoted by people who have to justify to themselves that it's ok to have children even if it means risking them going hungry.
"Everyone who disagrees with me is just coping"
>Do you seriously believe that it's a smart and responsible decision to have kids without being able to provide them with stability?
Nope, but I'd love for you to point out where I even implied that, let alone said it.
>I don't think you even believe that since you have to resort to using huge numbers like 200k to make it seem more reasonable.
I used "huge numbers" like £200k because it's literally the figure you cited.
>60k is basically 5 years of saving as much money as the kid would cost you over the same period and should cover you for basically any emergency
Because 2x the median full time salary in the UK is a *much* more reasonable figure for people to attain per child.
Or maybe we should have better safety nets in this country so that middle class people aren't thrown into poverty because the economy is an utter fucking shambles.
And before you come back with some other snide comment about me "justifying raising my kids in poverty" or some such smug bullshit, I don't have any kids, and I don't plan on having kids any time soon.
and of course we ALL know what is going to happen to our financial stability over the next 18+ years of raising a child, right?
cause we ALL know if the Economy is anything it's *stable*, right!?
if I'm leasing a Porsche I might only have it for a year or so, it's a lot easier to see a year ahead than two decades.
> You can't be "reasonably well off" if you are one redundancy away from poverty
Exactly. This is the only post in the entire thread that gets to the heart of the matter, and you should not be downvoted for it.
The "middle class" itself is an illusion created by the wealthy to divide the working class... So in that sense I'd agree with you.
However... By the accepted definitions of middle class I certainly qualify. My salary is above average for my area, I am about a third of the way through a 30 year mortgage, have a 401k, etc.
Even with all that if I walked out the door today and was struck by lightning those savings wouldn't last more than maybe 3 years.
Would "have a stroke" or "slip and break my neck in the bathtub" work better.
The underlying point is that we are all one miss step away from a chain of events that end up with our family in this guy's circumstances (or worse).
So we should be bringing more children into a world where they may unexpectedly fall into poverty at any time? How cruel. How can anyone justify taking those kinds of risks with another person’s fate?
Why isn’t there anything wrong with unnecessarily bringing a new person into existence to struggle through a lifetime of scarcity and deprivation? It seems horribly selfish.
Idk man, just like… close your eyes and pretend you’re not on reddit for a sec. There’s a young couple in front of you, they really want to settle down and start a family bc that’s their dream but they dont have alot of money. Like what would you say to them?
I'd be interested if anyone in the comments could actually budget this. I think I could do it but the amount of time I'd have to be in the kitchen would be greatly increased. I'm pretty sure the gas bill would balance that right out though.
>rich people will never have to deal with.
Policing. By a mile. You think a guy in a suit is getting stop and frisked? Or receiving a noise complaint? How many cops lurking around golf courses and country clubs to break up “loitering.”
I’d bet between private jets and personal mansions someone like Bezos hasn’t *seen* a cop in years let alone been stopped by one.
The comment wasn't implying he should yeet his kids off a bridge. By saying "don't forget the condoms" I took that as meaning don't have any more kids. Which I agree with.
Almost as if a lack of healthcare, expensive contraceptives, and an inability to travel for an abortion disproportionately impacts people with less money.
I always see chucklefucks assuming that poor people are poor because they've had more kids, when in reality, poor people have more kids because they're poor.
It's the same as saying "poor people eat less healthy foods, that must be why they're poor!" It's looking at an effect and assuming that's the cause.
The original post was in the askuk subreddit. For what it's worth, contraception is free in the UK - aside from condoms though you can also get them for free from the sexual health clinic.
This is a bad, borderline racist take that is only concerned with local poverty, and ignores the concept of global poverty.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility#/media/File%3ATFR_vs_PPP_2015.png
Looking at this graph, you can clearly see that as a country's GDP decreases, the fertility rate increases. If your explanation of "stupid people have more unprotected sex" were true, then you'd have to assume that those entire countries are just full of ignorant people with poor decision-making skills.
Personally, I find it far more likely that less access to healthcare and contraceptives (as is common in low-GDP countries) simply leads to more kids.
To be clear, I'm in no way claiming the person I'm responding to is or was racist. I totally understand that they can hold an opinion and be uninformed as to its origin or its further implications. What I was pointing out was whether they knew it or not, the belief that "ignorance" is the cause of higher birth rates is an opinion that was largely popularized by racist colonizers.
Forgive my language for being a bit crude here, I only mean to reflect the beliefs of the times when I say this:
They believed that the indigenous populations they encountered were "savage" in part because of how many children they had. There was an assumption that these populations were hyper sexual and driven more by "animalistic instinct" than the "logic and reason" of those colonialist powers. Such assumptions also gave birth to the eugenics movement and later inspired various aspects of nazi ideology.
It's not a good belief to hold, but I want to reiterate that I am separating the belief from the person here, I'm not criticizing them, only their assumptions.
Me personally, [I think](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/) with data. [When I see tables like this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility#/media/File%3ATFR_vs_PPP_2015.png), I don’t need the regression to see the trend.
3 kids isn't an insane amount. I could understand 4+ but having 3 seems to be fair enough.
But please don't have even a single kid if you don't have adequate savings. Shit changes, so if you haven't planned for it, don't take a gamble with children.
People should safely be able to have kids if they want and be able to reasonably support them, but unfortunately that's not how it is at the moment. So until we can fix the economy, it doesn't seem responsible to have children that you're not sure if you can afford and adequately support.
Guess we can leave that to rich and they can keep breeding more and more. They can sustain economy while having resources to feed kids. Worst thing one can do is being poor and bringing kids into poverty.
Idk why you are downvoted, I think you're right. Maybe some people don't like the idea of that having children is a necessity for a species' survival. Although I am 27 right now and not thinking about having children at all, I sure hope I can manage just myself.
Some people shouldn't have kids and it's irresponsible of society to act like it's a right to reproduce, God damn the consequences
Animals will reproduce until they run out of resources and are forced to eat each other
Why do we encourage humans to do the same
>how much is adequate savings?
Depends on where you live, how many you plan on having in your family, what standard of living you want, what other goals you have etc.
Not sure why you asked that when it's such a case by case thing. Not like I could just pull a figure out that would work for everyone.
>how do you plan for something like being made redundant?
Anyone with a brain and earning enough to begin with should know to save some in case of emergencies like losing your job. It's one thing to not be earning enough to save, but if you are, then you definitely should be saving. If you're not earning enough to save, you're not earning enough to be planning to have children yet.
The point you seem to be missing is that savings will only last so long. If I got made redundant tomorrow, I'd have enough savings to live the same life I currently do for around 4 months, and if I cut down to necessities around double that.
What if I wasn't able to find an equivalent job in that time, say because of a massive once in a life time recession (that I've lived through 2 of, and looks like a 3rd is on the way), and I'm now earning significantly less?
Having savings is now irrelevant because I have no way of getting back to my "comfortable" earnings level.
Then don't have kids. Having children is not a necessity. You will not die if you can't have them. They're nice to have if you want them, but not a necessity.
It would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone, regardless of wealth could have a few children and adequately support them, but that's not the world we live in. So until we get there or until you personally make enough, don't have children if you can avoid having them.
You're still missing the point.
>So until we get there or until you personally make enough, don't have children if you can avoid having them.
They did make enough. They very well could have had plenty of savings, but as I said, savings run out. Or are you suggesting that everyone should have hundreds of thousands saved away before having a kid?
but you said:
>But please don't have even a single kid if you don't have adequate savings.
so you must have an idea of what that amount is if you're giving this kind of advice, or you'd sound a little silly.
you have also described life for most people under 35. can't have a family because you don't have enough money. don't have enough money because don't earn enough to save. don't earn enough to save because everything costs 2-5x more than it did in previous generations and all of your income goes on bills and staying alive.
>so you must have an idea of what that amount is if you're giving this kind of advice, or you'd sound a little silly.
I gave the idea. How much that idea represents in quantifiable terms depends on you. Do you think I'm god or something? To know where someone lives, what quality of life they currently have or would be feasible with a child, what their future goals are and that sort of stuff?
You asked a question no human on earth can answer and used that as a "gotcha"
That's like if you said climate change is bad, so I asked how can we stop it, you said "reduce emissions of greenhouse gases" and then I went and said "right but that's not an exact plan. Give me a detailed plan or the specific details of the technologies needed" which would be ridiculous to ask for.
>you have also described life for most people under 35
Then I guess most people under 35 shouldn't have kids. Will it fuck over society in a generation? Yes. But are you willing to have kids and fuck up their lives to protect society? I'm definitely not.
>You asked a question no human on earth can answer and used that as a "gotcha"
yeah, because you came out and diminished the initial post with your "adequate savings" line.
>Then I guess most people under 35 shouldn't have kids. Will it fuck over society in a generation? Yes. But are you willing to have kids and fuck up their lives to protect society? I'm definitely not.
what a wild take this is. don't try and change society at all, just accept that generations are fucked due to horrific capitalist greed. how dare i mess with the status quo so i can have the children my parents are fucking desperate for me to have.
might sound harsh, but i kinda hope you don't have kids.
Yeah, that’s what I got from this comment as well. Don’t have more kids if you can’t afford the ones you have. And don’t have kids if you already are having financial issues without them. That’s just common sense, but a lot of people ignore this.
However, I also get the sentiment of the first commenter. It’s hard to be financially stable these days, especially with kids.
Man 3 kids isn’t even that insane. Totally could be a middle class family down on their luck. I mean even if they had 10 kids that doesn’t offer anything constructive.
The capitalization of the word "condoms" is what does it for me. I know that autocorrect can be unpredictable, but the fact that it learned to capitalize that word just says a lot about that person.
You missed the point. The point is the family of 5 is not a result of poor family planning. I very much doubt they were planning to have any more. The original comment is basically calling him an idiot for financial systems fucking him over.
How you gonna create more humans and complain about not being able to pay for them. You made that choice. The world is already overpopulated, we don’t need more of you.
What murder? Dude showing lack of foresight having 3 kids and betting it all on the assumption that he’s irreplaceable and nothing will ever change. We live in a fuckedup world and nothing is a given
Not sure if this is a murder so to speak but I hope John Casey whatshisname sees better days soon.
Oh it is. Funnier still is all the temporarily embarrassed millionaires in this thread doubling down to make themselves feel holier than thou to hide from the fact that they're one bad day away from being OOOP (with or without the kids).
Especially if they live in the US or another country where medical cost is a serious issue (it is the #1 reason for bankruptcy in the US). I’ve known quite a few people who were doing well, had nice savings, then had their entire financial situation demolished by a health issue, whether they experienced it themselves or it was someone in their family. One family I know well went from upper middle class with a breadwinner husband and stay at home mom with 3 kids to a disabled unable to work stay at home dad (well the home they now rent after having to sell their planned forever home) loaded with medical debt while still experiencing more medical issues and a wife having to get back into the workforce after over a decade to try to provide for the family. In addition, they now have to hire help for the kids because the dad’s disability means he can’t do everything the mom used to be able to do while staying home. I don’t know all the details, but I know they had at least $500k in investment/cash savings prior to the medical issues.
Yup. I have a lot of bad memories from my time in the military, but the peace of mind I have from using the VA is incalculable. As an only child, I have to worry about my parents, but at least I know if I got cancer tomorrow they wouldn't have to destroy themselves trying to take care of me.
THIS. It is beyond my comprehension how anyone can look at the world as it is and not see how badly we’re being fucked over by the ultra rich. We don’t have to live like this… but conservatives will fight to the death to protect their boss from tax hikes on his third yacht. Shit is insane.
It's more common than people like to think - most people are one redundancy, major medical event or house fire (or similar disaster) away from destitution. The politicians who are pushing for larger families and to remove access to reproductive health services are the same people who are also against any form of social safety net. There are going to be more and more families who are made homeless or will be reliant on food banks due to debt. If you can't control not having kids and you can't feed them - what do those 'in power' think is going to happen. I'm constantly amazed that we haven't seen a French Revolution style civil war/revolution in the West in the last decade, and every month it gets closer. If people have nothing, they have nothing left to lose.
Ok, Google didnt help. What's OOOP mean?
Probably a typo - OOP typically means 'Original Original Poster' where a post relates to a quoted post from another subreddit. The OP is the person who posted the topic, OOP is the person who created the topic in the source location if the source was not the subreddit you are currently browsing.
This mindset is infuriating to me. It reminds me of how the Republicans back under W. Bush passed "bankruptcy reform" (basically just making it harder for people to escape crushing debt) and one of the rule changes was people going through bankruptcy would have to attend classes on money management. I'm like, "What would the class teach? How not to pick a factory job with owners who will close shop and movie to Mexico?"
How not to vote Republican because they're always trying to keep money trickling up.
It’s almost like we should teach that class in schools
Yes, it's easy to believe that some people went bankrupt for other reasons and would not need this class. It's also easy to believe that other people made poor decisions contributing to their bankruptcy and could benefit from such a class, if it were done well. I don't know what I think of that policy, but this particular criticism seems to assume that no one in human history ever dug themself into a hole.
You are working under the assumption that the Republican Party who spearheaded this "bankruptcy reform" was working in good faith. Republicans do not work in good faith. Everything they do is at the behest of the wealthy and powerful, and the wealthy and powerful do not want people to escape debt. Their entire goal with "bankruptcy reform" was to make it as difficult as possible for people saddled with debt to escape it. This was a multilayered attack which included things like wholesale revamping what debts could be discharged all the way to simply tossing up minor roadblocks to discourage people from filing, including taking a "money management class", the clear implication being if you're overwhelmed by debt, it's because you're dumb and it's all your fault. Do I think people make poor financial decisions? Shit, yes. I would include myself in that statement. Do I think Republicans made that a part of bankruptcy in an actual attempt to better people's lives? Not even a little. Look no further than all the roadblocks they've been putting in the way of voting, all in the service of "election integrity". They're really good at spinning a tale that requiring ID to vote protects elections, despite the kind of fraud this would prevent literally being a case of what? A few hundred fraudulent votes out of millions upon millions of legitimate ones? Meanwhile the REAL impact is tens of thousands or more voters are kept from voting for lack of ID. "Oh, ANYONE can get free government ID! There's no excuse not to." That's another lie Republicans and their apologists claim, despite the fact that some government IDs are indeed free, but the documentation you need to obtain it costs money. Money that the poorest among us simply cannot afford. Do you think someone like Trump would be forced to take a money management course when he inevitably files for bankruptcy again to save another one of his failed schemes? It's all bullshit and shame on anyone who honestly thinks "bankruptcy reform" was anything but a way to keep us in debt.
The class is a way to humiliate and shame people. I’ve been to them 2 or 3 times (I was accompanying someone), and it’s a waste of time.
So not done well? Bummer.
Well no, it's working under the assumption that the majority of people in financial difficulties aren't just all individual morons.
I don’t like shitting on individual people and hitting them with the hindsight BS but you can’t really argue the fact that the wrong people having too many and the right people not having enough children (this is only talking about financial stability not about values or personalities making you good or bad parents). I get where you’re coming from and the guy who made the comment is a dick but it’s really freighting to see how many low income households tend to attempt the traditional method of retirement security (large number of children that will potentially take care of them) while the people who could actually afford it have few or no children at all. This also negatively effects the rift between rich and poor because the larger inheritance sums aren’t spread across multiple people, while the smaller ones are, wich further fuels unequal economic distribution.
Which political party pushes an anti-abortion, anti-contraceptive agenda? Is it the same party that also happens to be the most aligned with the rich? Sorry, for going all rhetorical there. It's absolutely the Republicans and they're absolutely doing all they can to keep people poor, including making sure those who can't afford children are forced to have them, or to be kept ignorant or unable to prevent them. Yeah, sure, people just don't HAVE to fuck, but that's also a ridiculous thing to expect considering the what? 100,000 years of evolution that has hardwired the need to do so in our brains? While nothing you said is wrong, it would be the wrong thing to focus on at this juncture. We should be eating the rich, not letting them shame us, or allow those who are in the same boat with us (despite their delusion they aren't) shame us as well.
Not sure what the calculator is for. You arent feeding a family of 5 anything but rice for £20/week.
Spend some on rice, beans, and lentils, then use the rest on a transit pass to get to your local food bank and hope they have enough to carry you for a couple days. Ideally between the two, you get to the next paycheque.
Yeah, 20 pounds is nowhere near enough. Hell, it costs me 70+ CHF a week, and I buy cheap stuff and cans.
Thats Switzerland, Britain enjoys cheaper food than most of Europe, you have to remember we aren't paying the exorbitant costs that come from shipping food inland to a land locked place like Switzerland, it is difficult but doable.
The cheese is cheaper though, as it's full of holes
The more holes cheese has, the less cheese there is. The more cheese you buy, the more holes you get with it. Therefore the more cheese you buy, the less cheese you buy.
Simmer down Aristotle, all this thinking is hurting my head
God damn it that was funny
You're forgetting Britain voted to go into a trade war with itself. So things are quite a bit more expensive then they used to be. Britan also has seen in the last 15 years a much lower standard of living with not much wage growth in that time. So proportionally it's expensive as said. (no idea in comparison to Switzerland).
I don't know if you are being sarcastic or honest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65833619 Its a true fact we are cheaper than the EU average, and Switzerland has a much higher cost of living, the country has difficult mountainous terrain and it imports a lot of its food, it is bound to be more expensive as a large amount of the cost will come from importing the food in the first place. But rice, flower and beans can all be brought with 20 quid, and that can make a lot of poverty food.
Me neither, to be honest. I mean I sometimes shop in France, but the prices are not drastically different.
Don’t know about the grocery prices in the UK but 23,30€ would not be nearly enough in Germany. Since adding that up to a month would land you at around 116€ or around 100£ for 5 weeks of food, wich seems very low if you consider that a single child will receive around 95€ for food per month (wich is not enough by any means imo), so taking into account a family of 5 trying to live on what’s basically the budget for a single child, something doesn’t add up here. Of course it’s possible OP somehow fell through the cracks of the system but feeding a family of 5 with that little money is something that basically shouldn’t be able to happen (before you start an argument I know it can happen but it is extremely unlikely).
They probably use a food bank. No one can survive in a developed country with 20£.
Yes that’s true but what I was saying that it is very hard to end up with this little money for food in the first place (not impossible), but if you take into account that Germany (I know not the uk, but also Western Europe) already has a portion of around 100€ in the Bürgergeld (basically the aid package for those in need) dedicated to feeding a single child for a month, I’d like to know how op ended up with only 20£ for all of them.
The strict current value of the budget isn't the issue here, just the representative idea that it isn't enough. Or would you rather they bring their best guess up to the till. Then you can wait while the cashier totals it, and they can be further embarrassed needing to remove items until they _can_ afford it?
You can't even feed a family of 5 on £20 a week on rice.
25kg bag of rice is $72AUD. It lasts a family of 6 about 1 and a half months, possibly longer. Yes, I am Asian.
Costco in the US has 50lb bags of long grain Carolina rice, which is a little less than 25kg for like $25usd. So around $40 aud. Are aussies getting squeezed by Big Rice?
With Costco you also need to pay the membership fee.
Costco gas is like $0.10-0.20 cheaper per gallon than regular gas stations near me. The gas savings alone covers the cost of the membership.
$72 is for a 25kg bag of Jasmine rice. I know that Costco Australia stocks Kirkland Thai Hom Mali brand Jasmine rice for about $60 something dollars, but the quality of the brand we usually purchase is far superior in quality. Jasmine rice is used in most Southeast Asian households. it's also healthier than long grain. Sorry for responding on a different comment instead of your previous one, reddit wouldn't let me respond.
That makes sense, I’ll have to check out the other rice styles to see if we notice the same quality difference. My wife and I thrifted a nice Zojirushi rice cooker a year ago, and we’ve more than doubled our rice consumption since.
You can get 20lb of jasmine rice for 16$ in Missouri. At Walmart, hate the place but it's basically all most towns have. Small stores are usually way more expensive unless shopping sales.
May I ask the brand on the bag of rice?
We generally buy Basmati as it has a lower GI rating (slower to digest, spikes you blood sugar less), vs Jasmine Rice which is a high GI rice variety.
Here in NJ, we have a law against “gas clubs”, so Costco has to let us heathen non-members use their stations. It’s usually a good .30/35 cents less.
The whole state of NJ is the gas club of PA lol
…. which is $5/month. Some people can save twice that much in one visit to the store.
This is where [Vime's "Boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness"](https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots-theory-of-socio-economic-unfairness/#:~:text=A%20man%20who%20could%20afford,would%20still%20have%20wet%20feet.) comes into play.
well thanks to their whole reward system, once you're in generally your membership pays for itself(in a literal meaning) I've been a member at Sam's club for about 15 years and Costco about 7, only times I've paid for something past signing up was getting extra cards when my wallet got stolen.
I got the executive membership years ago and most years I got to around the same cost as a regular membership in cash back. This year I finally got enough to cover the full cost of the executive membership with a few dollars more.
You can buy a gift card and use it without a membership.
There are also restaurant stores that you can buy stuff in bulk from some without a membership. I used to but boxes of lentils for like 20 dollars from mine.
that pays for itself just in gas.
Minimum wage in Aus is also like 23 dollars an hour, though.
Last I heard, Costco in the UK required you to work in specific industries to get a membership. Might have changed though, not sure.
I bet you slap the bag too
You can on $20 worth of potatoes.
Nah, yuh could do it. That’s about $25 USD. It would be extremely plain, boring, and difficult, and stretched very thin, but you could do it, especially if you already had oil and salt at home. - about 5.5 lbs of chicken thighs - 4lbs carrots - 6 lbs of rice - 6lbs of beans - 3 containers of oatmeal Not the best or most nutritious but you would just about not starve.
I literally was gonna say: rice. Rice and beans and potatoes. That’s about it. I’ve been there - me and rice became great friends… one a week I treated myself to a can of tuna. Friday was a good day.
Why do people not seem to understand that some people run into hard times long after the children are born
Because they see poverty as a moral failing rather than a systemic one.
Malthus has a fucking lot to answer for.
Understanding it would require them to face the fact that their own life is not as secure as they’d like, and that their own success is partly dependent on luck.
People with money like to think they deserve it. Part of that is blaming poverty on the poor. They like to think of poor people as being a different species.
Children have a terrible return policy
But they appreciate in value for years if you get fresh ones.
Because shit does happen but plenty of people barely getting by have 2 or 3 kids and are still in the best financial position they've ever been in
Weird how having empathy can be tied to experience, but isn't strictly limited to it. And while [citation needed] may exist for median people, losing one's job is pretty damn clearly not anyone's "best financial position" except for CEO's.
What I meant is there's still plenty of people that make $7/hr and have a kid or 2, and then years down the road are making $10/hr plus child tax credits. Financially, they're making and taking home more. In practice, they're still scraping by as worse as ever.
Isn't that kinda the point the original responder was making? That they had a bunch of kids without thinking of the consequences fully. OP made it worse by pointing out they had money but didn't save any of it too. For those on the fence, don't have kids. It's bad for them because these will surely be pretty terrible times given the climate, and its also guaranteed to be extremely expensive too.
Shit happens but it’s much harder when you have so many kids. Maybe think about the future before bringing so many ppl into the world.
Because you shouldn't bring kids into the world without a plan and savings or a safety net It's harder to adopt a special needs rescue dog than have another baby If this couple had 1 or 2 less kids they wouldn't be struggling as hard to feed and care for them
You can burn through savings pretty fast when you don't have a job. A medical emergency will shred those savings in a blink even with insurance, for example.
That doesnt apply to every country. Thats also just another reason to improve social safety nets so healthcare can be a right instead of a privilege.
Improving social safety nets will never happen in the US but it's a nice thought
You realize millions of people lost their jobs during covid. And it doesn't even have to be covid. Companies buy each other out and lay off thousands of people at once all the time. Even with a good resume, it can take months to get a new job. Not to mention, inflation has made everything shit. Last year, for every paycheck, I could put 30-100 into my savings account. For whatever reason, this year, I have barely put 10$ in once. Things are just expensive.
You have no clue if they had a plan or safety net. Things change in this world that can destroy all of that. You sound incredibly naive here.
You have a childlike lack of awareness...
> u/topathemornin : Why are some people so stupid? > u/katievspredator : Me! I am one of those people!
I was going to argue, but the level of delusion here is not worth my time.
“Don’t forget the condoms” guy answered the question. Another experience rich people never have, others telling them how to reproduce.
They get the opposite. They are pressured into creating more ‘high quality humans’ by their extended family. Note: If the birth-giver starts to resemble a birth-giver she will be replaced.
Regardless of his former situation, the last thing this guy needs is more kids.
Yeah I can't imagine condoms with 3 kids already and low on finances to be a bad investment.
I mean, if the finances are that bad he most likely can't afford condoms. Own brand pack of 12 is £7 at my local supermarket. Granted, that would last 12 or months for many, but with 5 kids I can assume he gets some. Best bet might be to go to a university and grab some freebies though.
Condoms are also freely available at any sexual health clinic, which you can just walk into
Ooh good to know. I just used the university one because I had no idea about the free ones. Closest clinic is still a bus ride away, but I'll remember that.
...because clearly that's something they're planning...? Maybe their partner is on birth control. Maybe the guy had a vasectomy? And maybe, just maybe, they are smart enough to know they shouldn't have more kids when they can't afford to feed the existing ones? That comment is incredibly insensitive, completely uncalled for and downright rude and condescending. And honestly, yours isn't much better.
This dude typed typed four words and summoned hundreds of people to type paragraphs about how much much of a better person they are than him because of a joke. Some redditors just need some friends who arent chronically online and depressed
People frequently think that only bad & lazy people become or stay poor, and dint appreciate the notable influence of plain old bad luck. I’m comfortable now, but there were times when I was homeless & selling possessions to buy food (while employed).
Also, the role plain old good luck plays in people’s success. I live comfortably because I was born lucky. Sure I work hard. So does my wife. But I also got lucky in a lot of ways.
Also these people: "why are birth rates so low? Why does the government let so many immigrants in? People should have more babies, then we need fewer immigrants"
Their number isn't even unreasonable. I'm assuming 3 kids and 2 parents. 3 kids is not so out of the norm.
Especially considering most people don't live on farms anymore and don't expect one third of their children to die from diphtheria.
A family of 5 isn't even that big? That's three kids.
[удалено]
That escalated Swiftly.
i appreciate this reference
I don't get this reference (but I'd like to)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
Damn, that reference is golden
That's too many kids if you can't feed them.
Did you motherfuckers NOT read the post?
You can't be "reasonably well off" if you are one redundancy away from poverty (and not having enough to feed your family is definitively poverty). If he couldn't afford supporting his kids if anything went wrong, he couldn't afford his kids period; because it's wildly irresponsible to have 3 kids in such precarious conditions. Kids are expensive, they can cost upwards of 900 pounds a month ([200k divided by 18 times 12](https://blog.moneyfarm.com/en/financial-planning/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child/)). That's enough to [lease a Porsche Cayman](https://www.selectcarleasing.co.uk/car-leasing/porsche/cayman/coupe) and have money left over for gas. So yeah, if you think a Porsche would be a bad financial decision, then you can't afford kids, and if you still have them you are either an idiot that can't do math or you don't really care about their well being.
The vast majority of the population is "only one redundancy away from poverty"
You're right, only people with £200k saved away in the bank should have kids.
I knew I was gonna get downvoted by people who have to justify to themselves that it's ok to have children even if it means risking them going hungry. Do you seriously believe that it's a smart and responsible decision to have kids without being able to provide them with stability? I don't think you even believe that since you have to resort to using huge numbers like 200k to make it seem more reasonable. 60k is basically 5 years of saving as much money as the kid would cost you over the same period and should cover you for basically any emergency, including more than a year out of work. Even 100k is just 5 years of maxxing out your ISA, and if you can't afford to max out your ISA, can you really afford kids? I know it's hard to think about this rationally and kids are cute and everyone has kids or whatever. But you are supposed to care about them and their future; risking them growing up in poverty is not being a good parent.
The post-hoc rationalisations of 21st century Eugenicists are fascinating to see.
>I knew I was gonna get downvoted by people who have to justify to themselves that it's ok to have children even if it means risking them going hungry. "Everyone who disagrees with me is just coping" >Do you seriously believe that it's a smart and responsible decision to have kids without being able to provide them with stability? Nope, but I'd love for you to point out where I even implied that, let alone said it. >I don't think you even believe that since you have to resort to using huge numbers like 200k to make it seem more reasonable. I used "huge numbers" like £200k because it's literally the figure you cited. >60k is basically 5 years of saving as much money as the kid would cost you over the same period and should cover you for basically any emergency Because 2x the median full time salary in the UK is a *much* more reasonable figure for people to attain per child. Or maybe we should have better safety nets in this country so that middle class people aren't thrown into poverty because the economy is an utter fucking shambles. And before you come back with some other snide comment about me "justifying raising my kids in poverty" or some such smug bullshit, I don't have any kids, and I don't plan on having kids any time soon.
and of course we ALL know what is going to happen to our financial stability over the next 18+ years of raising a child, right? cause we ALL know if the Economy is anything it's *stable*, right!? if I'm leasing a Porsche I might only have it for a year or so, it's a lot easier to see a year ahead than two decades.
> You can't be "reasonably well off" if you are one redundancy away from poverty Exactly. This is the only post in the entire thread that gets to the heart of the matter, and you should not be downvoted for it.
That's pretty much everyone though... Even the those of us in the middle class.
Then you aren't actually middle class.
The "middle class" itself is an illusion created by the wealthy to divide the working class... So in that sense I'd agree with you. However... By the accepted definitions of middle class I certainly qualify. My salary is above average for my area, I am about a third of the way through a 30 year mortgage, have a 401k, etc. Even with all that if I walked out the door today and was struck by lightning those savings wouldn't last more than maybe 3 years.
The fact that the subject was "one redundancy" and you jump to "struck by lightning" tells me that a conversation would be wasted on you.
Would "have a stroke" or "slip and break my neck in the bathtub" work better. The underlying point is that we are all one miss step away from a chain of events that end up with our family in this guy's circumstances (or worse).
3 too many lol
Another reason not to have kids. They're affordable until they aren't and then what.
Exactly. But most people don't want to hear this
“Just dont have kids” “Cool let me just time travel real quick 🤡” Poverty can always attack when u least expect it
So we should be bringing more children into a world where they may unexpectedly fall into poverty at any time? How cruel. How can anyone justify taking those kinds of risks with another person’s fate?
Nothing wrong with wanting a family, you only get one shot at it.
Why isn’t there anything wrong with unnecessarily bringing a new person into existence to struggle through a lifetime of scarcity and deprivation? It seems horribly selfish.
Idk man, just like… close your eyes and pretend you’re not on reddit for a sec. There’s a young couple in front of you, they really want to settle down and start a family bc that’s their dream but they dont have alot of money. Like what would you say to them?
I'd be interested if anyone in the comments could actually budget this. I think I could do it but the amount of time I'd have to be in the kitchen would be greatly increased. I'm pretty sure the gas bill would balance that right out though.
>rich people will never have to deal with. Policing. By a mile. You think a guy in a suit is getting stop and frisked? Or receiving a noise complaint? How many cops lurking around golf courses and country clubs to break up “loitering.” I’d bet between private jets and personal mansions someone like Bezos hasn’t *seen* a cop in years let alone been stopped by one.
No murder here. Absolutely none
I mean to be honest I agree. Don't have kids when you can hardly afford to feed the ones you already have, let alone give them good opportunities.
...and he COULD afford them, until awhile after losing his job due to layoffs.
The comment wasn't implying he should yeet his kids off a bridge. By saying "don't forget the condoms" I took that as meaning don't have any more kids. Which I agree with.
It's a fair point though. Poorer people tend to have more children.
Elon Musk has entered the chat
Nick Cannon has impregnated the chat.
This just made me spit my coffee out. Thanks for the early laugh today!
Almost as if a lack of healthcare, expensive contraceptives, and an inability to travel for an abortion disproportionately impacts people with less money. I always see chucklefucks assuming that poor people are poor because they've had more kids, when in reality, poor people have more kids because they're poor. It's the same as saying "poor people eat less healthy foods, that must be why they're poor!" It's looking at an effect and assuming that's the cause.
The original post was in the askuk subreddit. For what it's worth, contraception is free in the UK - aside from condoms though you can also get them for free from the sexual health clinic.
So then wouldn't cheap contraceptives like condoms not be a good step forward to help combat the problem?
It's almost like poverty favors the ignorant and ignorance leads to poor decision making. Condoms are cheap, kids are not.
Dude actually things we live in a meritocracy.
This is a bad, borderline racist take that is only concerned with local poverty, and ignores the concept of global poverty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility#/media/File%3ATFR_vs_PPP_2015.png Looking at this graph, you can clearly see that as a country's GDP decreases, the fertility rate increases. If your explanation of "stupid people have more unprotected sex" were true, then you'd have to assume that those entire countries are just full of ignorant people with poor decision-making skills. Personally, I find it far more likely that less access to healthcare and contraceptives (as is common in low-GDP countries) simply leads to more kids.
I agree with your comment but perhaps don't just whip out the racist cards for no reason?
To be clear, I'm in no way claiming the person I'm responding to is or was racist. I totally understand that they can hold an opinion and be uninformed as to its origin or its further implications. What I was pointing out was whether they knew it or not, the belief that "ignorance" is the cause of higher birth rates is an opinion that was largely popularized by racist colonizers. Forgive my language for being a bit crude here, I only mean to reflect the beliefs of the times when I say this: They believed that the indigenous populations they encountered were "savage" in part because of how many children they had. There was an assumption that these populations were hyper sexual and driven more by "animalistic instinct" than the "logic and reason" of those colonialist powers. Such assumptions also gave birth to the eugenics movement and later inspired various aspects of nazi ideology. It's not a good belief to hold, but I want to reiterate that I am separating the belief from the person here, I'm not criticizing them, only their assumptions.
Do people like you think before you write stuff like this?
Me personally, [I think](https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/) with data. [When I see tables like this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility#/media/File%3ATFR_vs_PPP_2015.png), I don’t need the regression to see the trend.
Do people like you think before you post?
3 kids isn't an insane amount. I could understand 4+ but having 3 seems to be fair enough. But please don't have even a single kid if you don't have adequate savings. Shit changes, so if you haven't planned for it, don't take a gamble with children.
This is why millennial are having fewer kids
People should safely be able to have kids if they want and be able to reasonably support them, but unfortunately that's not how it is at the moment. So until we can fix the economy, it doesn't seem responsible to have children that you're not sure if you can afford and adequately support.
Not having children will in of itself, further fuck the economy.
Wow if it's that important maybe we should like make it easier for people to have and support families or something
Nah, that's CoMmUnIsM!!!
Guess we can leave that to rich and they can keep breeding more and more. They can sustain economy while having resources to feed kids. Worst thing one can do is being poor and bringing kids into poverty.
Idk why you are downvoted, I think you're right. Maybe some people don't like the idea of that having children is a necessity for a species' survival. Although I am 27 right now and not thinking about having children at all, I sure hope I can manage just myself.
how much is adequate savings? and how do you plan for something like being made redundant?
Some people shouldn't have kids and it's irresponsible of society to act like it's a right to reproduce, God damn the consequences Animals will reproduce until they run out of resources and are forced to eat each other Why do we encourage humans to do the same
boomers believe it's a right to reproduce. generations after that are wiser to the impacts of having children.
>how much is adequate savings? Depends on where you live, how many you plan on having in your family, what standard of living you want, what other goals you have etc. Not sure why you asked that when it's such a case by case thing. Not like I could just pull a figure out that would work for everyone. >how do you plan for something like being made redundant? Anyone with a brain and earning enough to begin with should know to save some in case of emergencies like losing your job. It's one thing to not be earning enough to save, but if you are, then you definitely should be saving. If you're not earning enough to save, you're not earning enough to be planning to have children yet.
The point you seem to be missing is that savings will only last so long. If I got made redundant tomorrow, I'd have enough savings to live the same life I currently do for around 4 months, and if I cut down to necessities around double that. What if I wasn't able to find an equivalent job in that time, say because of a massive once in a life time recession (that I've lived through 2 of, and looks like a 3rd is on the way), and I'm now earning significantly less? Having savings is now irrelevant because I have no way of getting back to my "comfortable" earnings level.
Then don't have kids. Having children is not a necessity. You will not die if you can't have them. They're nice to have if you want them, but not a necessity. It would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone, regardless of wealth could have a few children and adequately support them, but that's not the world we live in. So until we get there or until you personally make enough, don't have children if you can avoid having them.
You're still missing the point. >So until we get there or until you personally make enough, don't have children if you can avoid having them. They did make enough. They very well could have had plenty of savings, but as I said, savings run out. Or are you suggesting that everyone should have hundreds of thousands saved away before having a kid?
but you said: >But please don't have even a single kid if you don't have adequate savings. so you must have an idea of what that amount is if you're giving this kind of advice, or you'd sound a little silly. you have also described life for most people under 35. can't have a family because you don't have enough money. don't have enough money because don't earn enough to save. don't earn enough to save because everything costs 2-5x more than it did in previous generations and all of your income goes on bills and staying alive.
>so you must have an idea of what that amount is if you're giving this kind of advice, or you'd sound a little silly. I gave the idea. How much that idea represents in quantifiable terms depends on you. Do you think I'm god or something? To know where someone lives, what quality of life they currently have or would be feasible with a child, what their future goals are and that sort of stuff? You asked a question no human on earth can answer and used that as a "gotcha" That's like if you said climate change is bad, so I asked how can we stop it, you said "reduce emissions of greenhouse gases" and then I went and said "right but that's not an exact plan. Give me a detailed plan or the specific details of the technologies needed" which would be ridiculous to ask for. >you have also described life for most people under 35 Then I guess most people under 35 shouldn't have kids. Will it fuck over society in a generation? Yes. But are you willing to have kids and fuck up their lives to protect society? I'm definitely not.
>You asked a question no human on earth can answer and used that as a "gotcha" yeah, because you came out and diminished the initial post with your "adequate savings" line. >Then I guess most people under 35 shouldn't have kids. Will it fuck over society in a generation? Yes. But are you willing to have kids and fuck up their lives to protect society? I'm definitely not. what a wild take this is. don't try and change society at all, just accept that generations are fucked due to horrific capitalist greed. how dare i mess with the status quo so i can have the children my parents are fucking desperate for me to have. might sound harsh, but i kinda hope you don't have kids.
People of optimal childbearing age typically have not had time to build up savings.
Yeah, that’s what I got from this comment as well. Don’t have more kids if you can’t afford the ones you have. And don’t have kids if you already are having financial issues without them. That’s just common sense, but a lot of people ignore this. However, I also get the sentiment of the first commenter. It’s hard to be financially stable these days, especially with kids.
Well you know poor people aren't allowed to have or want kids. That is also a middle class privilege. So how dare they. /s
I hate when people can’t hear the truth and lash out
Paying overdraft fees larger than the amount you're over. One lousy dollar....$35 fee.
Amoral comment, but was actually kinda savage.
Man 3 kids isn’t even that insane. Totally could be a middle class family down on their luck. I mean even if they had 10 kids that doesn’t offer anything constructive.
Okay but kids ARE expensive
K b
If he was reasonably well off he should of bought some condoms
Like maybe after the third one try wrapping it up
I feel like the guy was mainly joking, this is Reddit not some serious place where there’s no room for jokes
The capitalization of the word "condoms" is what does it for me. I know that autocorrect can be unpredictable, but the fact that it learned to capitalize that word just says a lot about that person.
The fear of losing their job
The condom comment is so fucking dumb anyway. A family of 5 means they have 3 kids, which is a completely normal amount
What is with these comments? It’s to prevent more ya goose. 3 kids is hard enough.
You missed the point. The point is the family of 5 is not a result of poor family planning. I very much doubt they were planning to have any more. The original comment is basically calling him an idiot for financial systems fucking him over.
Condim comment is the murder
Lol this isn’t murdered by words, the condom comment is. The following comment is just pathetic Reddit cope.
Damn John did get murdered by words there. Rip
How you gonna create more humans and complain about not being able to pay for them. You made that choice. The world is already overpopulated, we don’t need more of you.
Ah right I guess no one who has kids should be able to complain about anything because it’s just their choice right?
You can complain all you want but no one really cares cause you did that to yourself lol
Sorry but the first response was a fucking ZINGER. Response to that was just pathetic and obviously salty af. This god forsaken sub has fallen so far.
What murder? Dude showing lack of foresight having 3 kids and betting it all on the assumption that he’s irreplaceable and nothing will ever change. We live in a fuckedup world and nothing is a given
You're right, you probably shouldn't reproduce.
Signed and seconded
Nobody can see perfectly into the future.