Whenever I read threads like this I am saddened by the lack of compassion and understanding, and the levels of unconscious privilege that some posters have. There's definitely a strong sense of deserving and undeserving poor: the nice middle class educated woman who has three children with her husband who then loses his job is one thing; the feckless benefit scrounger on the council estate who has three children by three different fathers is beyond the pale entirely.
Does anyone ever stop to think why a woman would do something as counter-intuitive as bringing several children into an impoverished situation? It's not going to be for shits and giggles, and it's certainly not for the champagne lifestyle a life on benefits offers. It's very easy to sit in judgement and pronounce on how easy it is to access contraception and use it correctly. Of course it is...if you're educated enough to understand how it works; confident in navigating the healthcare system; have a partner willing to use the most easily accessible type; and have some alternative focus in your life that makes holding off from having children worthwhile. If all you've ever known growing up is abuse, neglect, absent parenting, a hand to mouth existence, crime, unemployment, loan sharks, authority and its figureheads being something untrustworthy to view with suspicion and shy away from, sporadic education because no one cared enough to make sure you went to school, junk food because no one ever taught your mum to cook, and even if you wanted to learn you don't have the confidence to try or the money to waste on more ingredients if you get it wrong...how on earth can you expect someone from that environment and background to make good choices? To think about saving for the future, when the future looks like more of the same? To put off having children until they can afford to pay for them themselves when they will never be able to in a million years, and when their children provide the closest thing to love they've ever felt? To have any kind of ambition when life and society has taught them they're 'scum', they're 'chavs', they're 'thick', everyone looks down on them, they're going to get judged and knocked down and demonised whatever they do so why not stick two fingers up at a society that clearly hates them and screw it for what they can get? Let's face it, some of that judgement and hatred is visible right here on this thread so they're not exactly wrong, are they?
Of course some people can make their way out of that kind of unpromising beginning, but just because a few individuals with impressive strength of will manage to move away from their crowd doesn't mean everyone can unaided or that the effort to do so should be underestimated. We need to be investing much more in initiatives that give underprivileged women in particular options, and hope, and an incentive to change their lives for the better, not simply demonising them and deciding its fine for their children to live in poverty because they had the temerity to make decisions you consider irresponsible, and you believe that by squeezing them even harder some of the drops might fall your way instead - which they never do, of course.