Allow them to be born? Got new for you, curlcoat, it is not up to you to decide who does and who does not get born. Forced hysterectomies, forced abortion, and forced infanticide are not acceptable to society, so cut the crap about all of us who love children allowing children to be born into poverty. You are one sick puppy.
You should probably seriously rethink this statement, unless you actually mean to suggest that if (through some twist of fate or bad luck) I lose my job I should give my daughter up for adoption until I find another one.
It’s eminently plausible in 2011 that there are people who had kids in 2005-2006 when they had stable paychecks who are now living hand-to-mouth waiting for something in their field to become available again. Minimum wage counter slave at McDonalds doesn’t buy a lot of extras, regardless of whether your degree and last-place-worked say “engineer” or “middle manager” or whatever.
Yo a soshulist or sumthin?
IIRC, less than half of the salary paid at schools is for the teachers.
W T F :mad:
This jives with my experience. When I taught HS, the 3 highest paid people were the Superintendent, the Principal and…the Janitor/Handyman. He was in his 30’s.
No, I am not making it up.
Yes, whenever I would bring this up to people as an outrage…the most common response was on the order of ‘but he works’/‘that sounds right to me’.
There is a reason I don’t teach anymore.
Just looked it up via Internet.
40% of the salary for the school district I used to teach goes to teachers. Imagine how much goes for supplies!
I still remember working with the district psychologist. She was younger than me and I was YOUNG! Her advice was simplistic and milktoast. The district was mainsteaming a problem student that the district was paying $100K a year to have ‘incarcarated’. A couple of other teachers and I just got together and worked it out ourselves and it worked out well.
I then found out she was paid 3 times…3 TIMES more than I was. When I would bring up this outrage, the normal repsonse was… ‘But she is a professional/has a masters degree’. Well, peeps, so do I…but I guess that doesn’t count for teachers.
There is a reason I don’t teach anymore.
Hey now! That kind of attitude could lead to the extreme position that someone deserves medical care because they are sick or food because they are hungry.
Watch the slippery slope man!
I would be interested in seeing this - do you have a link?
I’d rather not, I still have friends there. I don’t want to do anything no matter how remote the chance of causing trouble for them.
The school district is small though and that probably has an effect. But still.
It’s probably available online. I watched The Cartel (available on netflix) a few weeks ago. They showed how easy it is to go to the various state’s department of ed sites to get this data.
I’m a fiscal conservative, and I’m here to tell you. You’re NOT helping. I am furious with people who blithely shirk life’s responsibilities, drives me nuts, it does. I have been on both sides of the issue and managed to fight my way up from dirt poor as well, and the full-on confiscation of kids’ sparkly happy new school supplies is NOT something that I am for either, so on one level, I can understand what you’re getting at..
…but, has it never occurred to you that in many cases the dirt poor parent of a 5 year old, was at ONE time the co-parent of a fetus in a reasonably financially successful relationship? And that the best laid plans of mice and all that?
Not every parent of a snot-nosed bratty kindergartener decided 5 years and 9 months previously “hey! you know what? I’m going to REALLY mess up some responsible tax-payers’ lives and pop out a few future welfare babies”!!! Chances are, a lot of them started out saying “I do”. 3.7 years down the road and it’s “sayanara baby, good luck getting DCS to find me, oh yeah and I emptied the bank account and took the car”.
Now, I’ll grant you that yes, there ARE irresponsible people out there that shouldn’t have had kids and shouldn’t have kept the ones they DO have (mostly for the kids’ own sakes), but that does not then equal being poor. Poor and irresponsible aren’t interchangeable terms. But you act as if they are.
I said the possibility of “humiliating” a few kindergardeners, which is far different than me advocating shaming them. But of course you know that.
Shows what you know - I was well into “doing OK” when I met him, much less years later when we got married.
The one that has TV programs about how to do it, that has articles about teens who get pregnant to “have someone to who love me”, that has an article in today’s LA Times about one that got pregnant so she might get on one of those TV shows. If they don’t want to get pregnant, why are they and why do they stay that way? They can’t all be anti-abortionists and/or too damn stupid to use birth control.
Since the subject was parents who abuse and neglect their children, I fail to see why you have a problem with taking the children away from them. And if the billions paid out to support the mommies was transferred to the foster care system, things would be far better for those children.
If you’re referring to that rancid reality show, from what I’m told it’s more about pointing at them and laughing (or pointing and raging, same thing). You know, like all reality shows.
And you think those are an accurate representative of the thousands of teenagers out there ? Like **Starving Artist **is convinced that, from one news story about one pair of 12 year olds having sex during class, every 12 year old in America is a randy fuckbunny ? Do you, like Starkers, think teenage pregnancy is a strictly modern phenomenon ?
You’d be surprised just how many teenagers and young adults are too stupid (or too drunk/stoned/whatever) to use birth control, especially when sex ed has been flushed down the shitter by the “abstinence, wee !” crowd. Or how many get raped, for that matter.
ETA: oh, and condoms break, pills fail and IUDs don’t block every last swimmer even when used properly, obviously.
Considering this is the US we’re talking about, a large proportion of them are going to be either:
A) too poor to even afford an abortion since the State won’t hand them a dime for it,
A.1) be from a State where abortions are retardedly hard to get in the first place,
B) from a religious fucknuts bachground or
4) can’t make their minds until too late because pregnancy itself fucks with your brains.
Or V) don’t even realize/are in denial about being preggers until too late, that’s far from unheard of as well.
I’m sure I’m forgetting some other clauses, but yeah. “I wanna be on TV with mah cuddlebaby !!” isn’t exactly the root cause of teenage pregnancy in America.
Err, no, the subject was parents who couldn’t afford their children. Hence why they receive welfare support, see ? There’s no financial support for abuse or neglect that I know of.
As for the state of the US foster care system, the less said the better, it’s 5 in the morning and I’m in no mood to RAAAAEG.
Well, for one thing, if there are any pregnancies or births that you all think are “not opportune” you do a good job of hiding it. Right here on this board you all had a major hissy fit when I suggested to someone who had very few resources & was struggling like hell that maybe she shouldn’t have had/kept her baby. It’s like “oh gosh, I’m pregnant and the only right choice is to keep it, whether I can afford it or not, whether I’ll make a decent parent or not” is the only acceptable attitude.
Also, as long as your government continues to support all of those crack whores, teenagers and welfare moms, they are sending the message that it is OK with you all that they continue to have babies.
They might, their mothers don’t.
Uh, you are making my point. The current status quo is to throw money at the mothers in the hope that they will spend it on their kids, and they will for some reason decide to get off the dole; or in the case of abuse, the current “wisdom” is it is better to leave children with their parent(s) unless and until it is obvious that abuse is ongoing and not going to stop. The reality is that most of the kids stay with their mother and simply repeat the cycle. People who cannot afford to raise children or can’t do a decent job of it shouldn’t have them - hell, we have laws about that for pets and livestock, but for some reason it’s OK to raise a kid in conditions illegal to house pets in?
Quit handing mommy money, start handing her food stamps that will only buy food for the children. Hand her a Medicaid card for the kids. She wants food and clothes? She can jolly get a job.
So you are saying that we aren’t already living with a “FUCKING HUMANITARIAN DISASTER”? All children are currently being raised in clean, safe homes with plenty to eat, clothes to wear and a good education?
The children are suffering because we are supporting the parents - the money, the EBT, the food - it all goes to the parents and they decide what to do with it. One thing they do with it is buy cigarettes and booze and use the EBT at fast food outlets. How is that helping these children you claim to love?
Do you even have a clue as to how these kids live? Have you ever lived the way these folks do?
Yeah right - I was doing OK yet I felt the need to eat a napkin. That makes about as much sense as anything else you say. :rolleyes:
Again you cannot be bothered to read what I post. I am not talking about the minority who had children and then suddenly thru no fault of their own, lost everything. I am talking about those who are already poor and having trouble making ends meet, but they still have kids because they want them and they aren’t going to wait, such as my across street neighbors Or those who kick their pregnant teenagers out on the street as if it isn’t their fault. Or those who let the teenager decide if she is going to keep the baby, and then also let her fend for herself as if she is old enough to deal with all of this. Who in their right mind lets a teenager decide whether or not to keep and raise a baby?
You need to open your eyes and deal with reality. As the economy goes further in the crapper, more people will be having babies they can’t afford, because there is no social pressure to wait until they can afford them and quite a bit of social pressure to have them as soon as possible. The last time this was brought up, I cited stats that children born on the dole tend to stay there all their lives and you all spent time nit picking instead of addressing the message - government support doesn’t encourage people to be self reliant and responsible. All you do is wail “think of the children” as if living on the dole is something good.
There is nothing wrong with ideals, as they give us something to work towards. The problem here is that you all seem to think the status quo is good enough and keep closing your eyes to the huge number of children living in far less than ideal circumstances, while getting crap for an education, and then going forth and repeating the cycle.
And that “selfishness and irresponsibility”? That is exactly what it is.
No, you are. You immediately jump to “forced hysterectomies, forced abortion, and forced infanticide” from what I said, which of course had nothing to do with any of that.
As I have said MANY times, I am talking about those who have children knowing (or at least, they should know) they cannot afford them.
OTOH, those who had kids in 2005-2006 without having savings and a plan as to what they would do should one or both parents lose their jobs are also to blame. I ended up on disability in late 2007 and my husband was laid off in early 2008. Because we always have savings and don’t carry much debt (i.e., we plan ahead), we were able to easily live on the pittance of unemployment and state disability for the nine months Mr Curl was off work and could easily have purchased crayons and a glue stick. Contrast that with those who have one or two car payments, a high mortgage payment, tens of thousands in credit card debt and the 2.3 kids with their clothes, cell phones, video games, etc. - if one of them gets laid off they may not be able to afford those crayons and glue, but are they really any less irresponsible than those who have children while without money?
That’s one of the points people keep trying to make here, and that you keep ignoring. None of us have any way of knowing what percentage of which class (the poor but kept the baby vs initially doing okay, but circumstances changed) “did the right thing” when deciding to have kids or are now “on the dole” so to speak, vs which ones are merely the working poor.
In addition, you’re illogically and incorrectly equating “poor and struggling” with “being an abusive and inadequate parent”. Yes, it’s true in some cases, but being poor doesn’t then mean the parent is either abusive or inadequate.
Appropriate wealth and savings are not even in the top 5 criteria for the TRUE meaning of being a good parent. That lies in who the parent is… their character, strengths, traits, kindness, love, and so on. Those are things that no savings account can possibly provide.
Character and strength may very well LEAD to an appropriate savings account and wealth, but not the other way around.
Right, I keep forgetting, you’re an amazing paragon of fiscal responsibility and bad shit never sinks you. I’m sincerely glad you didn’t lose too much of your savings in the recession, and I’m sincerely glad you can ride disability while your husband brings home the bacon from three separate pigs.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the median household income in the US is $44k. $6k of that is back out the door in taxes. Another $4.4k for long-term retirement/IRA (at 10%, as typically recommended). If you’re living in a small city with an average cost of living, and you want to have a separate bedroom for the kid, that’s around 10k for rent. Now, assume that one of the parents has a college degree and is paying back their loan–even if they went to a public college and saved for it, that’s gonna average around $2.5k. So now we’re down to 20-21k. That’s still a fair bit of money and adequate to raise a child and save some, but it doesn’t leave a lot of room for error or bad luck before your choices are “scrimp everywhere” or “suck up the penalties for tapping the IRA”. Now add in the fact that there are people who are out of work FAR longer than 9 months, and that at least some of them are such through no fault of their own.
If you read what I write and not what hysterical hyper-liberals say I write, you will see that I am well aware that poor people can be responsible. If nothing else, the reason I am not longer poor is because I made responsible choices far more often than irresponsible. However, their definition of responsible does not appear to agree with mine, since I have little patience with people who assume long term debt - house, cars, children - without any fall back plan other than the government.
There are several of them on the Lifetime channel alone, so I don’t know which one you are talking about
No, but throwing showers for them, allowing them to stay in the regular schools, giving them the choice as to whether they keep the baby, etc - these all seem to be modern problems.
I imagine I would not be surprised at how many pregnancies don’t result from things like that tho. However, your point about what passes for sex ed is valid and another thing that needs to be changed asap.
When I was of that age, one could get a cheap (relatively) abortion from Planned Parenthood. Back then, most parents would pay for it too, if the teen was brave enough to tell them in time.
As for the rest of that, having an abortion is not the only solution, there is also adoption.
I didn’t say it was.
Not this part of it - go back and read the posts.
I’d say that any child begin raised on welfare has a far high chance of being abused or neglected and because the government just throws money at the problem and then ignores it, no one is checking on them until the abuse/neglect gets to the point that it can’t be overlooked.
Curlcoat, is it true that you personally are not even self-supporting, and instead depend on the kindness of others?
Goddamn parasites.
Says the person who rode out a relatively short unemployment only with the help of two forms of government assistance - unemployment and disability. And I’m guessing you didn’t sell your house, cars, and stupidly expensive dogs before you went to Uncle Sam with your hand out.
Maybe you grew up somewhere were that was true, but I highly doubt most parents were just down with paying out for an abortion, particularly in the bible belt. And what about parents who can’t afford to pay? I know, you can say “they shouldn’t be parents then”, but that hardly helps the teen who can’t scrape together enough dough.