Having Children Does Not Cause Poverty

Having children does not cause poverty. 

 

Having children does not perpetuate a cycle of poverty. 

 

Having children while poor does not cause poverty.

 

Having children while young does not cause poverty.  

 

Having children without being married does not cause poverty. 

 

Having children while disabled does not cause poverty. 

 

Having disabled children does not cause poverty.

 

Poverty is caused by lack of money -- specifically, lack of sufficient income to cover living expenses. 

 

But "income" and "living expenses" are determined mostly by social context that can be changed. That should be changed. 

 

Having children adds to a parent's living expenses, as the parent has to pay the child(ren)'s living expenses as well as their own, but there is no reason why the living expenses of children should be borne by parents alone. Business owners do not solely bear the costs of running businesses. Land owners do not solely bear the costs of owning land. These activities are subsidized because they are viewed as benefiting society. 

 

Having children correlates with lack of income opportunity, as parents (especially mothers) may have to take time off work to care for their children, and employers are reluctant to hire parents (especially mothers). 

 

But we don't have to accept this as an unchangeable fact of life. Why do we, as a society, accept the normalization of long working hours and low pay that is incompatible with caring for children? 

 

Bearing and caring for children is valuable labor that benefits society. It's not for everyone -- not everyone wants to be a parent, and that's fine. But we're all better off for the fact that some people do, and some people are putting in the work of raising the next generation. 

We have a collective responsibility to help them do so. 

 

The U.S. political system and political culture is a two-party system in which one "side" advocates preventing poor people from having children by encouraging them to be celibate and wait to have children until they're married, and the other "side" advocates preventing poor people from having children by encouraging them to use birth control and wait to have children until they're 30+-year-old, upwardly mobile, college-degreed yuppies. But make no mistake, these two "sides" are actually one and the same, the eugenicist side. 

 

The premise that poor people should be prevented from having children isn't moral or responsible -- it's eugenics.