To understand why some women have children within a a short time with multiple different partners?

[Beautifulweeds]

Genuine question, arose in conservation today. An in law has 3 DC from 3 different Dads and is only 25 and is a single Mum to them. Their Dads are going about their normal lives, including sleeping with other women (probably more pregnancies) and don't have much to with their children. She's not the most invested Mum (meaning not at all) has to live off UC, leaves her kids with grandparents, who in reality look after them.

She has met another new fella, doesn't take precautions (oh I keep forgetting to take the pill) and it won't be long before she has another baby.

So, I guess my question was...hopefully you would learn from experience that you can and should take responsibility? Guidance doesn't always work, so same old patten repeated...meet someone, get pregnant, let someone else look after baby...taken away...fostering...adoption.

We've tried to help and intervene but a brick wall. X

From my experience (not me! but people I have known)...

Insecurity
Low IQ/educational level
Crappy family

Being with someone = being loved, needed, wanted.
Getting pregnant by them = permanent connection (they hope)
Producing a baby = being loved, needed, wanted

And then its familiarity, its what they 'do', it's their identity and purpose, which seems bizarre when you see people who seem not to give a crap about their kids and leave someone else to do the actual child raising...

Its also familiar if thats what all the other people around you do, or expect from people like you.

Breaking free of that model is hard, if getting pregnant quickly, usually by men who don't really give a shit about you, is what is expected of you, it easily becomes what you expect yourself.

Trying to remain in education, get a better job etc, is really hard - doing so with no role models from family or friends, surrounded by people who will likely take the piss or worse, actively try to undermine you is incredibly difficult.

Moving away from such circles is also incredibly difficult - leaving everything you know to start life somewhere else if you're battling a poor education, crappy upbringing, no security.. and the anxiety and fear that brings with it. Impossible for most.

It is certainly significantly more complicated than just stupid young women being promiscuous.

@Yesiknowdear That was a hard read, I am sorry for what you had to endure no child should go through that. I hope that you have managed to find peace and happiness now as an adult

I see threads from women like this on MN all the time, and they are always from women with young children. So they haven't yet experienced how to parent a teenager.

This is an interesting point about judgement and poverty. I think you are right that these kinds of scenarios spark some cognitive dissonance in lots of people, including myself.

The facts are that people are rewarded in our society for having children. If you have enough kids then you can make it a lifestyle choice and you suddenly become entitled to more benefits, better housing and a degree of respect from society for being a mother single handedly raising all these children in poverty. It is easy to see why women with not many other appealing options want to go down this route and why they aren't discerning about the fathers they choose for their children. Often these women were raised without a father themselves so don't think this is crucial for a child. I think instinctively many people want to disincentivise women doing this as tax payers are basically funding these women to continue to breed recklessly and with little thought for the actual children that are stuck being raised in pretty bad circumstances.

Conversely though, I think most people want to stop child poverty and find it very difficult to accept that a child should suffer as a result of the actions of their mother.

I don't know what the answer is but I do think that there is a strong link between reckless breeding and poverty. The children are poor because people are purposely choosing to have these babies knowing full well that they don't have the financial means to raise them properly and that the children won't have a present and contributing father.

Personally I think it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

You have a child with someone who you think is your life partner. For whatever reason that breaks down and they toddle off and shag around elsewhere.

You then want to feel needed, don't want to feel like the single mum who isn't attractive and no one wants. Therefore you have a relationship but it's not built on the right foundations.

History repeats itself.

So I do t think it's necessarily a life "choice". I think it's bad choices based on poor self esteem. A bit like the pattern of meeting men who are abusive.

The reason I think this is I was the opposite. I had a child with someone who then cheated. I haven't been able to have a relationship for many reasons but a big part was I was afraid of history repeating itself so actively avoided situations where it may well do.

So I don't judge but I wish there was a similar sort of programme to the freedom programme for woman who experience this life path to help them.

I grew up in poverty and this situation was common. Having a baby gives the woman a purpose because the alternative is an unskilled job and a baby is more fun than that.

@Bumpitybumper

I think your right and it's the elephant in the room when it comes to tackling child poverty in the UK. If you look at a charity like children in need then you have a cohort of children with disabilities and a cohort who are suffering from other disadvantage. It is this disadvantaged cohort where charities and the media skirt round the reasons the children are deprived in the first place. It is the portrayal of the deprived child that gains sympathy (which is fine) but there are questions about the social circumstances that brought about the poverty and I have a feeling that many in this bracket are the single mums with low educational qualifications with multiple children from absent fathers.

Well in your in law case OP, if the grandparents are raising the children she doesn't have to deal with the consequences of her decisions.

She might rethink if she had the full force of raising 3 young kids singlehandedly.

Child poverty to an extent exists when people with no or low income have children and I suppose there will be those that question whether these parents give any thought to the cost of child rearing. Is under to what extent schools have to mop up the psychological baggage of the children of these mums in terms of mitigating the effects of poverty through the provision of good education?

I think the men are a different question.

They're both having the sex initially, yes. Whatever might be said about choices there equally applies to both. Conception is where the male and female positions very much diverge. The women are at that point choosing to take on the reproductive labour, and after the first time they're doing so with the lived experience that it's more likely to be the mother who does more of the parenting. Essentially the men get to be much more selfish than the women. Even in a case like OPs relative, where the mother is shoving as much parenting as possible onto her own parents, I bet she still does more than the dad. So basically, the women are choosing something that's objectively more difficult, with a physical element they can't actually walk away from like men can.

I find the "not understanding " a sign of a weak and unformed mind.

I guess if you don't think a child needs all that much investment, then pregnancy doesn't seem all that much of a risk. Couple that with really liking having boyfriends and you end up with the situation you describe.

I don't.
I know why and can see why, but I still don't understand why because I am judging by my own values.

I am not weak and uninformed.

I’ve always just assumed that they must be addicted to pregnancy, or certainly like the attention it brings, even down to being looked after and nurtured by a midwife, maybe due to not being successful or rewarded for anything else in life?
Of course that doesn’t necessarily explain the different dads, but it might explain why they keep having more kids even after each relationship has ended.

Some people just make poor choices.

An acquaintance has done this and I'm staggered really.
I think some posters are right that if you don't think having a baby requires much effort in terms of investment, child rearing, understanding how much your child's aspirations rely on you... Then why not have lots.

I also know of many dc who end up living with gp or in foster care because the people who brought them into this world have literally, moved on.

Different families wifh different partners.

Yep, same as the articles you often read about the overcrowding of social housing. Families of six in a two bedroomed flat. Obviously it is absolutely terrible for the children involved to live in such cramped conditions but a lot of people will point out the obvious, the parents keep having more and more children in the full knowledge that the existing children aren't housed appropriately. It almost feels like some of these parents are playing chicken with the state, getting their family into such a mess that the state will have no choice but to step in and give them the big house etc that they want.

Meanwhile all the news stories about child poverty are portrayed as if the state is massively failing the children. The role of the parents is often not even mentioned or if it is then the parents are portrayed as martyrs doing their best in such difficult circumstances. The obvious fact that they have created the whole situation themselves never seems particularly relevant.

Before the 2 child cap on tax credits came in, a school gate mum proudly announced her 4th pregnancy (with as many partners) as "another kid means more money coming in, and I don't have to find a job for another few years".... around these time we decided not to have a third because we couldn't afford it.

Different strokes for different folks.

I think one interesting question is to what extent the benefits system motivates or supports these choices? It is noteworthy that Labour have not t removed the two child benefit cap despite a lot of pressure and I wonder if this decision is to ensure that there are financial disincentives to having large family sizes of the tax payer is finding that family?

reduce benefits and you may make people think harder about their lifestyle choices but will increase child poverty. It's a dilemma.

You do feel when asked to give food to a good bank whether you are compensating an absent non contributing father but I guess we are human and hate poverty in society.

It really shouldn't be though. She's using other people to look after her children, choosing to sponge off tax payers landing us with a huge bill for multiple children and, most importantly, is not looking after the kids properly. I don't know what the answer is for these situations as whatever you do, you're going to impact on the kids and it's not their fault their parents are pointless, selfish spongers.

The more kids the more free .only they get from the Tax payer. They did an experiment in one state in America, only paid for one child. Birthrate dropped through the floor.

At the end of the day we do have a caring society in which of you decide to have a child no matter your social and financial circumstances the state will provide. We provide free healthcare, free dentistry free education, free school meals in some cuirumsatnaces, subsidised housing etc. If you are in the right politically you will ask is their sufficient disincentive for people to make choices that the rest of society will have to pay for.

The irony is we have a filing birth rate due to cast swathes of the middle classes deciding they cannot afford many children due to the cost of living and ever increasing house prices yet there is a subsection society that have a vastly differing perspecrive.

Having children is a choice and especially the choice of a large family. I suppose the question is whether people should face the consequences of their choices?

I don't understand the men's attitude when they already know that there are 3 children from different men but I do know that we are all animals and this is a good way to ensure that one of our children survived.

Programs like the Pause Project give women an opportunity to 'pause' and have 18 months of support to stop the detrimental cycle, trauma and impact of them and their children experiencing social care involvement, care proceedings and removal. Is it available in your area?

To be fair, it's always women of low IQ from dysfunctional or certainly disadvantaged backgrounds that fall into this category. I suspect someone will probably quote a well known exception to the rule, but they're only well know because they are an exception. The type of people who have this "lifestyle" are the same ones who keep 4 half starving dogs and immediately get another when those are taken away. I know some posters will say it's because there's a safety net (benefits) but I think these women would have umpteen kids anyway.

Low intelligence.
Thinks she will hook a man by doing it.
Lack of ambition.
She knows no different.

There's a huge difference here to someone with multiple DCs who loves them and wants to do the best for them including looking after them, and not palm them off to grandparents at every given opportunity.