"Yesterday 12:27 crunchymint
LemonShark Plenty of people if they took the approach you advocate, would never have kids. If you are poorer and likely to remain so, you do just need to take the approach of, we will make it work."
I think if you postpone it even a few years though, you can have a much better chance of being in a more stable position before you have a child. Not everyone will go into further education, many people end up on NMW jobs their entire life, many people can't afford to save anything. But if you delay and plan for a child for a few years there's a lot of benefit to it. In terms of family stability it gives partners time to see if they're really compatible and past infatuation (assuming we're talking teenagers still), it ensures you're in a job with some kind of security even if low paid, it enables you time to at least see what you can save if anything for a buffer when the child comes along. More than anything, it's much harder to study and progress as a parent if you don't have a lot of external support, so it does give you chance to look into training, free courses, decide what work you want to do if you're not happy working in a local shop or cleaning (nothing wrong with those), and if you do train or get some education it's much more likely you'll be able to succeed than if you also had to worry about a child and childcare on top of studying and working.
I don't think it's as simple as being poor and deciding to have a child straight away because there's no possibility, however difficult, of being able to improve aspects of your circumstances beforehand. And if you're rock bottom poor and struggling to support yourself, I still maintain it's grossly irresponsible to bring a child into that situation. I'm cringing a little typing this as it sounds so right wing and I'm as left wing/labour as it comes. But I do feel it serves individuals and society better to try and work to change the viewpoint you mention than to just accept it and have babies born into insecure financially unstable households who may then grow up with fewer opportunities and perpetuate the cycle.
I understand you're giving the alternative perspective btw not that you necessarily believe it's a good thing so this is more me thinking out loud.
I recognise I come from enormous privilege in many respects (I'm in England, I'm white, I had two parents growing up who valued education) although I've struggled in others (parental divorce, siblings in prison, substance misuse and MH issues in the home, poverty growing up). I was fortunate to be able to go to uni for an undergrad with loans and bursaries and then a further masters in a profession, which was the key to a decently paid career doing something fulfilling. To get that MA I had to work eighty hour weeks delivering pizza on top of full time studying and placements, which was utterly exhausting beyond belief, for two years. I used to work 9-5 at placement then 530-1am at the pizza shop. One lesson it taught me was that if I'd had had a child early when I was still in the first seven or eight years of my working life only able to access NMW zero hour jobs in retail and factories etc, I would not have been able to go on to do a masters as I simply could not have worked the hours necessary to fund it and support myself, let alone a child. I couldn't have worked 80 hour weeks with a child at home. And there were few other ways to get into the career I'm in. I'd still be working retail on NMW struggling to support myself.
When I was growing up as a teenager my mother always made it clear if I ever got pregnant there'd be none of this 'staying at home to get help with the baby' nonsense, it'd be have a termination or move out and support myself like a grown up. I respected that immensely and was always careful not to get pregnant, and believed I would terminate if ever caught out (never happened thankfully). I wonder if I'd have been different if I thought it was an option to get pregnant and continue being supported by my parent, but I do know that postponing having kids until being in a better place meant I could work on my life and take the steps necessary to ensure that I'm self sufficient, being paid enough to live, in a secure relationship. A child sadly would have put the kibosh on that if I'd got pregnant young. I often wonder with teen parents what potential for their future they're cutting off unknowingly that they could have reached if they'd been able to wait until they'd had chance to be teenagers, then young adults, to figure out their path before closing so many doors with an early baby?
Again, before I get flamed, I'm working class. Born on a council estate. Worked crappy NMW jobs doing factory work and retail for the first eight or so years of my working life, I fully understand being in a position where your only hope and all you can see ahead of you is working in the local Morrisons. For many years I thought that was all I could ever do.
I think teenagers now, like PP say, don't grow up thinking that having kids is an inevitable part of their future. So they're more careful. As it isn't a case of 'well I'm pregnant earlier than hoped but I was gonna do it anyway so why not now'. They have higher ambitions I think. I reckon a lot more men are affected by the same thing, and I see teen males who are way more concerned with not getting saddled with a child and 'throwing their life away' than they are with the temporary pleasure of unprotected sex. I'm 29 and as a teenager none of the boys I slept with would have gone bareback, not one, and the majority were determined to use condoms as well as me being on the pill just to be sure. I think a baby is seen as a bit of a death sentence for your life.
And the modern attitude of it not being expected you'll marry and have kids also contributes towards that for men. In my parents generation my dad was married and adopted a baby by 21. I don't know a single man who's wanted a child before their mid to late 20s at the absolute earliest and those have been the anomalies. I think most young people these days expect to spend their teens and early twenties having fun, their twenties working on their careers and their early and general thirties settling down and having children, marriage optional. Of course if this is your expectation you're not going to want to have a baby in your teens as it'd be bringing your plans forward by a decade or two not just a few years.
It's a fascinating topic, and a brilliant thing that teenage pregnancy rates are reducing. there are plenty of teenagers who make great parents, I don't think they can't be brilliant parents, but it's sad to see children having children before they've been able to establish their own lives. I have a friend who had two kids by two dads by 18 and she has always said it was pure rebellion and wanting someone who'd love her as much as she loved them, and she regrets doing it so soon as she couldn't give them what they needed emotionally or resource-wise as barely an adult herself. Work needs to be done supporting those who are in that position, and their children, but I can't think of any downsides to reducing teen pregnancy rates other than the stigma the ones who do go through with it have to deal with.
It's a touchy subject and I hate it when people reduce it to 'so you're saying only rich people should be able to reproduce/having kids is a fundamental human right so you can't expect people who can't afford it not to' as it's such a complex and nuanced topic. But I don't think it's a bad thing to educate kids to really be able to assess before getting pregnant what it takes to raise a child well, how to assess your finances and career prospects and maternity pay and stability of your relationship and qualities to seek in a co parent and accommodation and emotional resources, so that when you have a child you give them the best start in life possible instead of just 'making do' and believing you'll figure it out somehow when you're already struggling to afford to live yourself.