Do you think someone receiving assistance should continue to have children?

[Beth76]

I Heck, breast feeding helps the new mother for not getting pregnant again so soon after too.

Oh goodness gracious. That simply is not true. You can most certainly get pregnant while breastfeeding. You can get pregnant even before you get your period again. Let us not spread that myth as fact (or even possibility) to people who should not be having more children.

 

[PaulaSB12]

I think we are so hung up about people's rights we are forgetting that for every right there is a responsibility. For example
I have the right to children
but its my responsibility to look after them
I have the right to drive
but its my responsibility to not drive drunk, to pay my car tax and insurance and to put my car through its mot test every year (ministry of transport test to make sure its at least safe to drive it on the roads)
I have the right to watch tv
but its my responsibility to pay for the tv license (£135 per year)

We can't forget the rights but lets not also forget the responsibilities.

 

[CEDmom]

This thread has gone waaaaaaaay off topic. I apologize OP. Instead of bashing this woman for the choices she's made, I'm in there, week after week, teaching her parenting skills, and doing what I can to make sure these kids get what they need. Again, I see what you guys are saying. I wish you had attempted to see my side. Obviously that's not happening. And this changes nothing. I welcome any and all of you to get more involved, and make changes. Even if I don't agree with the changes you would like to make, we can all agree that what's happening now isn't working. And who knows, I'm not arrogant enough to say that I am right and you are wrong. It's an opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. You could very well be absolutely on the money. I don't happen to think you are. But if the changes you would like to see happen were put into place, and there were no more children going hungry or living in gang ridden apartments where they can't go outside to play, I would be the first person here eating crow.

I applaud you and I think others do as well for making sure these children get love, nuturing, food, clothing etc. What I and others have an issue with is your being ok if this woman decides to have another child. You see 1st hand what her behavior is doing to the children she has so where's the outrage at the thought she might have another ?

As far as what am I doing to make things better, I do work and have a child care for as well as a DH to keep happy. However since you asked, in my spare time I'm raising $1000 and training to bike 200 miles over 2 days in early Sept for the Rescue Mission and soup kitchen in our area. Both these organizations help adults get their lives together and offer support for families as well. So, I guess that's my small way of trying to make a difference. It takes all my free time to train (1700 miles since late April) for this but it's for a great cause and I've got buns of steel and rock hard thighs from all the training so it's a good trade off

Oh, and for the record I have one of those beautiful daughters from China. Unlike many birth mothers here her's made the responsible and very difficult decision to ensure her child had the life she could never give her. Not a day goes by that I don't give quiet thanks to this woman and pray that she somehow know her child is loved more than she can imagine. If more women realized their limitations and placed their babies up for adoption we wouldn't need to even have this discussion. I don't want to gov't to intervene but sometimes it needs to save people from their own stupidity and selfishness.

 

[aprilgail2]

Oh goodness gracious. That simply is not true. You can most certainly get pregnant while breastfeeding. You can get pregnant even before you get your period again. Let us not spread that myth as fact (or even possibility) to people who should not be having more children.

My cousin bought into the myth too-she now has 2 kids born 11 1/2 months apart!!!

 

[ducklite]

If I had my way? Birth control for every person who collects welfare (is there a male shot out yet?). Mandatory sterilization for child abusers and these who sexually abuse children.

No free ride. You receive welfare? You get your butt outta bed every morning, drop your child off at daycare (provided by the state) and go do a service job (garbage pick up?).

So much more. I am sure I would be flamed

I couldn't agree more. By giving people the crappiest jobs on the planet (cleaning rest rooms in train stations and parks), it will encourage them to find a real job and get off the dole. The alternative to a job would be job training, and I've got no problem with the government providing job training programs (food service workers, nurses aides, construction such as drywall and tile, etc.)--I do have a problem with free college degrees. Take student loans like everybody else.

As far as people who are currently receiving benefits getting pregnant, no way. IMHO those who are receiving benefits whould be required to use birth control, and should they get pregnant anyhow, then give them six months to figure it out and get off the dole or risk losing thier kids. There is a male shot--it basically makes them unable to perform, for lack of a better way of saying it. They give it to released sex offenders as a condition of parole sometimes.

I think there are too many loopholes in the current system. All payments should be in the form of vouchers. Food vouchers that operate like WIC, where each voucher is good for "X, or X, or X" and not just a cart full of chips and soda and convenience foods would replace food stamps. The vouchers would not be valid for any junk or convenience foods. Vouchers good at Wal-Mart/K-Mart/Target/Family Dollar could be issued so people could buy other specific neccessities--cleaning supplies, clothing, school supplies, etc. By giving cash we give people the option of buying drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. Stop those payments, or make them genuinely minimal, say $25 per month for a family of three.

And anyone with enough income to take a vacation should be tossed off of all public assistance--that's just absurd. Discounted health insurance, free formula, subsidized child care, Section 8, Medicaid, the list goes on and you've got the money for a vacation? Get real. You're basically living the high life on the taxpayers backs. If you can't pay for your kids, stop having them. Period. And if you can afford a vacation, you should instead use that money to take care of your families needs rather than the wants.

As far as illegal immigrants, I think they should get a one way ticket back to where they came from, period. I dont believe that they--or their children--deserve any services, even if it means they are starving or bleeding to death. They are the problem of their government, not ours. Maybe we start billing their governments for their emergency care. When they came here illegally they took a chance, it didn't work out, so go home. I do beleive we need to have a guest Visa program for farmworkers--let them come here legally for a specific amount of time. If we make it easy enough for them to do so, they will leave and come back, and be taxed on their income which will benefit everyone. If they are here legally they will also be accounted for and be paid fairly.

It's not playing God and deciding who can and can't have kids. It's having common sense and telling people that if they want kids, great--but figure out how to pay for them without expecting the rest of the country to support your choice.

Anne

 

[mickeyfan2]

Many assistance recipients already receive free daycare and work minimum wage jobs. The daycare is being paid their weekly rate by the government, sometimes $200-$300 a week for what? So these people can go work for $7.00 an hour? That just doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense does it?

Yes it does. The kids of that women will see how hard she worked and want to better themselves. The other way they see how making babies while in your teens equals $$$$$.

To answer the OP - No more children once you are on public assiastance.

 

[Fitswimmer]

I think we are so hung up about people's rights we are forgetting that for every right there is a responsibility. For example
I have the right to children
but its my responsibility to look after them
I have the right to drive
but its my responsibility to not drive drunk, to pay my car tax and insurance and to put my car through its mot test every year (ministry of transport test to make sure its at least safe to drive it on the roads)
I have the right to watch tv
but its my responsibility to pay for the tv license (£135 per year)

We can't forget the rights but lets not also forget the responsibilities.

Exactly, and there's something else we're all forgetting....people on assistance VOTE. Poltician A promises to keep all assistance requirements minimal and promises INCREASES in aid. Politician B tries to impose responsibility and incentives to get people working-he's not cutting aid, but he is asking for people to take responsibility. Who do you think wins the election? In NJ, it's Politician A in a landslide EVERY time.

 

[jgmklmhem]

Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread and is also a concern is that something like over 80% of all kids born into welfare homes will still be there well into their own adult lives. By placing a limit or some sort of penalty on those who have children while not able to support them would hopefully in time lower the welfare rolls as well.

 

[PattnFmly]

Amen Ducklite! ITA!

 

[Charade]

So if she isn't capable of nurturing, but she ensures that they receive it from another source, she shouldn't have her children.

heck

 

[Charade]

I feel about this issue the same way I feel about abortion. The government should stay out of it. Choosing to reproduce or not is totally private matter. I want my privacy guaranteed.

Not when it's on someone else's dime. Those people should stop digging into my pocket to help pay for their "private" matters they can't afford.

 

[MrsPete]

A big issue connected to poverty: Failure to realize that one's actions affect one's outcome.

For example, you and I would stop and think, "Hey, if I get pregnant again, I'm going to be even further in the hole financially -- I'll be @#$! sure that I DON'T get pregnant." We would realize that another child would raise the grocery bill, would require clothing, would be a roadblock towards employment, etc. We would realize that we are largely in control of whether we become pregnant, and we'd take steps to prevent it -- at least until we were back on our financial feet. However, many people who live in the world of ongoing poverty and welfare simply don't get it -- they don't equate another child with increased responsibility and cost. Why would they? They've never paid much for the children they have. Their mothers never paid much for them. Nothing they've experienced has taught them that children = money or responsibility.

Since they genuinely don't know, cutting off the funds will not stop the behavior.

What will? I don't pretend to have the answer to this huge question, but I think I'd lean towards something like a halfway house where desperate mothers and children could come and live for free. They could live in dormatory-type housing. They'd be given food and clothing there, but NO money. They'd be required to work together to cook and clean, they'd have a strict curfew, they'd be required to attend job training during the day, and the older children would be required to attend school AND progress through the grades towards graduation. This place would afford little privacy and no luxuries. Bunk beds, cloth diapers, basic food. This would assure us that the children were safe and well fed, yet few people would choose to remain living there -- hopefully the majority'd decide it's better to work and have what they really want. I believe a system like this could work for less than our current welfare /food stamps /WIC /etc programs, and people'd be more motivated to get themselves off the public dole.

 

[tw1nsmom]

As far as illegal immigrants, I think they should get a one way ticket back to where they came from, period. I dont believe that they--or their children--deserve any services, even if it means they are starving or bleeding to death. They are the problem of their government, not ours.
Anne

Wow! Just, Wow! This has simply stunned me and pretty much rendered me incapable of taking anything you say seriously or anyone who thinks along these lines seriously as well. Anyone who doesn't care whether a child starves or bleeds to death is as much a part of the problem as the illegals/system abusers themselves.

When we demonize CHILDREN we've sunk to new lows and we've ceased to have any kind of dialog that will in any way be productive.

We all agree there's a problem. We all agree that changes need to be made and the abusers rooted out and punished in some way. MOST people will agree that we don't want the innocent children to suffer for the poor choices of the adults in their lives.

Work toward finding a solution. Know that whatever legal limitations you put upon others have a real chance to come back to bite you as well. Legal precedents are a slippery slope. Saying "you HAVE to use birth control (regardless of religious beliefs), or rendered impotent" in order to get food for your children, opens the rest of us up to those same strictures. Who sends their children to public school? It really isn't that much of a leap that someday, someone will decide they can dictate your reproductive choices because you USE the system to get a FREE education for your children. You say you pay school taxes, so you DO pay? Do you have any clue what it costs to educate a child? The only way it's doable is that people without children also get taxed. Should they have a say in your private lives because you're freeloading off of them? Should forced abortions be okay?

While I want a solution too I, for one, don't want to head down that road.

Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

 

[CJMickeyMouse]

I think the big thing missing these days is PRIDE.

DH and I qualified for public assistance the first few years we were married. I can tell you we would have done anything to stay off of it - and we did. We lived beneath our means and made sure that when we had children we could support them.

It just seems to me that while it used to be a "bad" thing to have to resort to public assistance..... now for some people it is considered a perfectly acceptable way of life and they are not looking to change a thing.

IMO, this means public assistance is providing too much for too many.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

No children while receiving ANY assistance?

What about people who received federally subsidized student loans for college but are still in the repayment period? They're on assistance.

Yes, by all means, let us make sure that the "sins" of the parents are visited upon the children.

 

[Carl]

Definitely - no.

 

[punkin]

And just exactly who would YOU help? Not children? What are you going to do with those children who are not being fed, clothed or cared for regarding health issues?

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?"

Some of the posts here are amazing. There is currently no economic incentive to have more children on welfare. People do it for a variety of complex social issues. (Please see Barkley's post)

I for one cannot fathom interfering in someone else's reproductive decisions, even when I don't agree with them. However, I cannot bear to see innocent children punished.

 

[ducklite]

Wow! Just, Wow! This has simply stunned me and pretty much rendered me incapable of taking anything you say seriously or anyone who thinks along these lines seriously as well. Anyone who doesn't care whether a child starves or bleeds to death is as much a part of the problem as the illegals/system abusers themselves.

I was being facetious. I do however think we should only treat life or death situations for illegals in our ER's, and mandate that hospitals report illegals so that INS can pick them up. Hospitals are complaining that they are going broke caring for uninsured illegals, yet they aren't doing anything about it. Of course I don't want kids to starve, but if we make it more difficult ehre in the US than it was where they came from and offer them a one way ticket back, they'll take it. And if they don't, we'll send them anyhow. I also think that children born to illegals in the US should not get automatic citizenship--ship them and their mothers back to thier country of nationality. Goodboye, don't let the door hit you.

Work toward finding a solution. Know that whatever legal limitations you put upon others have a real chance to come back to bite you as well. Legal precedents are a slippery slope. Saying "you HAVE to use birth control (regardless of religious beliefs), or rendered impotent" in order to get food for your children, opens the rest of us up to those same strictures.

no, if you don't want to use birth control then don't have sex. Easy. End of story. There isn't a single religion that requires couples to reproduce and collect welfare.

Who sends their children to public school? It really isn't that much of a leap that someday, someone will decide they can dictate your reproductive choices because you USE the system to get a FREE education for your children. You say you pay school taxes, so you DO pay? Do you have any clue what it costs to educate a child? The only way it's doable is that people without children also get taxed.

I have one child, and I can guarantee that my school tax portion of my property taxes over ten years will more than pay for what it cost to educate him. I couldn't afford another child, so I only had one. it's called personal responsibility, something that's seriously lacking in this country of "gimme's."

Should they have a say in your private lives because you're freeloading off of them? Should forced abortions be okay?

I'm not sure who I'm freeloading off of, and of course I don't think we should force abortions, but we should make it very clear taht there will be repurcussions for irresponisbility. No further benefits and get off your butt and get a job. And I actually don't have a problem with mandatory temporary sterilization until they are off public assistance. I'd rather spend $40 a month on a Depo shot than pay for prenatal care, delivery, and the cost of raising a child for the next 18 years. For those who don't want kids and jsut get pregnant because they dont' take responsibility for birth control, that problem will be solved for them. For those that do want kids, it will make them work harder to be financially independent of the taxpayers so they can start their family.

While I want a solution too I, for one, don't want to head down that road.

Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem.

The solution os to make people be responsible. Some people won't ever take personal responsibility until they are forced to. Make the choice for them.

You can't legislate that people aren't stupid. But you can legislate that they aren't allowed to make stupid choices. As long as people are dependent on the taxpayer for support, then yes, the taxpayers should be allowed to control peoples reproduction.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

No children while receiving ANY assistance?

What about people who received federally subsidized student loans for college but are still in the repayment period? They're on assistance.

Yes, by all means, let us make sure that the "sins" of the parents are visited upon the children.

There's a big difference between a government guaranteed loan and a handout.

Anne

 

[cardaway]

No children while receiving ANY assistance?

What about people who received federally subsidized student loans for college but are still in the repayment period? They're on assistance.

Yes, by all means, let us make sure that the "sins" of the parents are visited upon the children.

I think it's pretty clear people are talking about welfare, not loans.