1) She got unexpectedly pregnant.

2) She got divorced.

3) Her spouse died.

Due to the fact that women live longer and men are, on average, about 4 years older than their wives, 90 percent if the time, when someone is burying their spouse it is a woman burying her husband. (for hetero couples, a stat that will change with same sex marriage)

I did the homemaker thing. I have 6 years of college. My post divorce life has been far less lush than that of my ex.

What a strange statement. This would be true if, for example, poor people were 33% men, 33% women, and 33% children.

It would also be true that "most poor people in the US are men and their children."

Did you mean to say something specific about single mothers and the children who live with them? Or was the phrasing an attempt to import that image while saying something much less meaningful?

Here's something that is specific and true: The vast majority of homeless in America are men. There are many, many centers set up to help women and children in poverty exclusively, while resources just for men are rare-to-nonexistent.

Extreme poverty is massively gendered against men, and the resources to address it are massively gendered towards helping women.

My mother cheated on my father and he left her because of that.

He was required (by Texas law) to pay child-support to my mother up until we were 18 (I am 29) to my mother who cheated on him; he still owes back pay on that and refuses to pay until they put a warrant out for his arrest.

My mother demonized him to us by crying about not knowing why he left her; she never once mentioned until 5 months ago that she cheated on him.

Dad regrets leaving us (his kids, not my mother) because it put a rift between us. We never knew the truth until recently when my mom let it slip in a conversation.

At this point I feel like he has been punished enough by the state of Texas for leaving my cheating mother.

Recently my eldest brother had a girl and my father has been in her life as much as he can and I'm incredibly happy for that (not jealous one bit) because at least my niece will have something my brother and I never had because he was soured by her behavior.

We grew up poor because of my mother's infidelity...

This may show my bias growing up in a traditionally christian environment, but for years the rub on the right has been to disregard two of those realities and handwave the other as: she got unexpectedly pregnant, because she lacks personal responsibility, and is therefore not entitled to the support of the state or society. When the Haves "get unexpectedly pregnant," it's an accident or a surprise, when the Have Nots do, it's a sin. Even some of the responses here dogwhistle the sentiment that the people in this position kind of deserve it, which disgusts me.

And to the other reply to your comment: Good thing this isn't a sympathy contest, and that humans do not have a finite capacity to care for their fellow humans, so we can feel bad for the dead people and still work for the benefit of the people left behind. "These are nice points, but wave of hand I'm not going to listen to them, honey." Of course they needed a throwaway account to say it here, too bad that attitude prevails in so many of our interactions every day.

At the societal level, attempting to hold people to a lofty standard of moral purity doesn't seem to be particularly effective considering even clergy have trouble remaining celibate.

The hope is that it prevents future unexpected pregnancies by making people pause and think before they act "Hmm, maybe if I do this unprotected thing I want to do that it will financially screw over the girl I want to do it with. Maybe I shouldn't do that thing without protection."

Personal responsibility is about incentivizing good choices, so society has to pick up the tab for fewer children born into poverty. Unfortunately, this probably doesn't work out in practice since people (particularly teenagers) are going to have unprotected sex regardless of consequences. So there is a point even if the point is broken.

There are 44 million people in poverty in the US. There are 10 million single mothers in the US, with 17 million children. Since the majority of single mothers are not in poverty, your statement is false.

https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/

My phrasing is fine if someone is engaging in good faith and trying to actually understand my points rather than looking for some trivial means to justify dismissing them.

You really seem to be reaching here. So I will likely not reply further.

EDIT: Others have independently expressed similar confusion as well.

EDIT2: I'm being throttled, but in response to Doreen:

Here's where you say women live longer (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16055356). I don't see how that can mean anything other than "men die younger". Again, no need to resort to "bad faith" when "miscommunication" suffices. Here's the full text for convenience/posterity:

> Most poor people in the US are women and their children. Most of those women were solidly middle class until one of three things happened: 1) She got unexpectedly pregnant. 2) She got divorced. 3) Her spouse died. Due to the fact that women live longer and men are, on average, about 4 years older than their wives, 90 percent if the time, when someone is burying their spouse it is a woman burying her husband. (for hetero couples, a stat that will change with same sex marriage)

Nowhere did I say that. That framing sounds incredibly bad faith.