Reply #25: I Agree [View All]

[REP]

On a smaller level, in the "It's So Hard" or a "A Day In The Life" threads, the story often involves someone with more than one child, either a year apart in age or one teenager and one in diapers, and I always wonder, "who thought having another child was going to make things easier?" I don't think people should be punished (and the children had no choice, though the older ones could be doing housework - like I did growing up!) and while there are cases while one year things are great and then a layoff or other disaster comes, this isn't always true; more often, times were already hard when another baby enters the family. Is it a lack of access to birth control? Lack of financial education (people of any income level need to now how to make and manage a budget)? Rosy hopes that things will change in 9 months or that "the baby will make us family"? It isn't popular to say, but having a(nother) child when things are already stretched beyond belief (income that doesn't cover all the month's needs for food, rent and utilities) is not a good way to get ahead and not really fair to the child, either.