If you had kids then you wouldn't need to live in your car because the government would volunteer to pay your rent.

Great news for the 2.5 million homeless kids in the US.

http://www.dailynews.com/social-affairs/20141117/homeless-ch...

Yeah, that was a stupid comment. My experience was basically that while living on a minimum wage job my coworkers who had kids were way better off than the rest of us. Agitating because they were the people who really seemed to care the least. Even with their kids they only wanted to do the bare minimum.

Clearly that isn't always the case though, thalami you for pointing that out

Its nice that you think its that easy. People who have never been poor for very long seem to bizarrely overestimate the welfare state.

Most people that fall into financial hardship can either pay the same bills you do or end up homeless. Some portion of the long term disadvantaged can eventually find their way into programs to help them out after years of waiting.

My experience with it first hand was that people I had worked with who had kids had a higher standard living than I did, and couldn't have been struggling that much since they still had money for cigarettes alcohol and weed, whereas I would barely be able to pay my rent and eat and couldn't afford air conditioning. I'm sure that isn't always the case though, I've probably just had an unusually bad experience with the people I've happened to know.

Was it not your choice to have the kids?

I'm tired of this cultural excuse of "what about the kids!"

If you chose to have kids, either explicitly, or through choice of recklessness, you deserve to own up to your decision. If you can't, or won't, that's what CPS is for.

Let's stop giving people excuses just because they brought another person into the world. In fact, lets hold them to an even higher standard for choosing to invoke a LIFE without themselves being able to support it.

> Jesus you're a prick.

Whoa. You can't comment like that here regardless of how much of a prick someone is, or seems. Please don't do this again.

You can't comment like this on HN. We ban accounts that do so. Fortunately you've posted other comments that are fine for HN, so I'll read this thread as the sort of derailing that happens to most of us from time to time.

Comments on HN need to be civil and substantive. Heated rhetoric is neither, and personal attacks are right out. When you're hot under the collar, please cool down before posting.

I shared my opinion, and was attacked for having that opinion. You, or he, may choose to disagree with that opinion, but calling me a prick is bound to insight a response.

I don't normally make posts like that, but I'm also not normally attacked.

Ok, but you still can't respond like that. The rules apply regardless of whether someone else started it or was behaving worse. Otherwise everyone would have an excuse for everything, since it always feels like someone else started it.

Understood, I'll refrain from responding in that way in the future. In retrospect, I do realize that I shouldn't have said anything.

Thanks for understanding. Believe me, we know what the frustration feels like. The internet, including HN, is crazymaking sometimes.

Peoples situation changes in ways that can be hard to predict. People die. People get sick. People get divorced. Peoples family members become ill. People run into expensive legal issues. People have unplanned pregnancies and aren't willing to abort.

Most of the US isn't in financial position to weather more than temporary hardship without shit falling apart. Other countries deal with this by providing a safety net paid for by the increased earnings of all those who don't crash and burn and thus contribute in the end far more to society.

People who hold views like yours instead waste their breath telling others that they shouldn't pursue the single strongest biological imperative.

In sane societies people that make an effort to contribute to society ARE stable enough to have kids. Your view is warped by our warped society.

Imagine the kind of world we would live in today, if every form of self restraint was written off on the basis of biological imperative. Would you want to live in that world?

Truly, how dare I advocate for personal responsibility when it comes to perhaps the single handed most powerful decision any person has - to bring an innocent life into the world. How dare I even suggest that we hold each other to a higher standard when choosing to raise a child. What an insane notion, that while we human beings can put a man on the Moon, and land a robot on Mars, we should be able to consider our financial well being before copulating.

Ordinary people that work for a living ought to be able to have kids. As stated in nations with more sane safety nets not being upper middle class isn't synonymous with being financially and socially unstable.

When better than half your population has a small but non trivial chance of ending up in the gutter something is wrong.

The people that are hard up are people who differ from those who are getting by only small sets of circumstances.

I think we both agree completely, that working class people ought to be stable enough to have kids, and that any society in which that isn't the case likely has something wrong. I believe I've already mentioned that it is of my opinion that there is much wrong with our society, and the basis of that belief, stems from this point exactly. Working class citizens ought to be able to raise a family, but far too often in this country, they do not have the resources to do so.

That however does not remove personal responsibility from the equation, and it appears this is where you and I differ. I believe that bringing another human being into the world is a decision that should not be made hastily. It's one of the rare decisions in life, where every ounce of forethought and planning should be utilized. That is another HUMAN you are choosing to invoke, so you had best be sure you can care for that human and provide them a great shot at a happy life. Sadly, working for minimum wage as a waitress at Denny's probably isn't going to cut it.

Not surprisingly, I'm a strong proponent of things like raising the minimum wage, and universal health care. While I believe in personal responsibility as a fundamental value, I also believe your society should provide safety nets and support systems, to assure that everyone has a shot at raising a family, and being happy.