What, besides providing extra resources to underpriveleged children so they are not punished for their parents mistakes, can be done?

Are you suggesting we make their parents "pay" somehow? Or a program to prevent the parents from having 5+ kids when they don't have the resources?

There's a great scene from a Michael Winterbottom movie called Jude where --spoiler-- a child asks his parents why they had him if they could not afford him and his siblings. The child doesn't like the answer and ends up hanging himself and his siblings.

I don't know if there is a solution. People want to have kids, even if they can't - in my opinion - afford them. Some religions encourage having lots of children - it's a big thing in the catholic community, at least where I grew up.

Anecdote: My cousin is married to a catholic latina, he's already struggling to make ends meet taking care of the one kid they have. He lives with her grandparents and cousins in a tiny apartment in a low income neighborhood. There is no way I could talk him out of having another child, even though I know it's fiscally irresponsible in my opinion.

I think it's a conversation worth having but I just don't know how it can go anywhere, and I have struggled to come up with an answer that isn't just me being upset with the parents.

Due to the way government assistance is structured it encourages parents to 1) not get married, 2) have more kids, 3) not begin working if they don't already work.

If we changed government assistance to encourage parents getting married that would help reduce fatherlessness and all of the negatives that come with that.

If we changed government assistance to encourage parents to have less children they would be better able to take care of the ones they have.

If we changed government assistance to encourage parents to work it would reduce the number of people who grow up on government assistance and live on it their whole lives. This would have long term positive consequences.

That's not really a good idea. I know my godson's parents, and if they getting assistance was reliant on getting married, they would end up killing each other.

"If we changed government assistance to encourage parents to have less children they would be better able to take care of the ones they have."

How, exactly would you do this? And do it without punishing the kids by leaving their parents with even fewer resources?

I don't have as good of an answer for reducing children. It would probably be best to work on reducing the number of children by providing easier access to birth control.

You're completely and utterly ignoring the fact that raising children, especially multiple ones, is an extremely difficult task, even for two people. I know of very few people who would opt to do it themselves, even if the financial incentives to do so were worth it (they aren't even close).

I just want to point out there are a lot of poor women raising significant numbers of children. The woman next to my mom has 5-7 (it's hard to tell, and she just had a new one). They father (of some of them) is around a little, but mostly not around. And it looks like there are several fathers. Yes, raising children well is hard, but I would not describe what this woman does as difficult. Older kids are raising the younger ones, etc, etc.

So, I would definitely disagree with your assertion.

Out of curiosity, what have the sociologists concluded from China’s one-child policy?

You don't punish the problem away, you help people avoid it themselves.

Even better would be free birth-control medication or IUD's, as these put the birth control in the hands of women, while condoms especially might not be used in the face of social pressure.

Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here.

Unintended consequences. I believe it is generally accepted that the policies in the 70's led to the destruction (dismantling?) of the urban/poor family (yes, predominately African American).

Also, we've seen that this issue has significantly fueled the rise of people like our current POTUS.

It's a hard problem. I don't know what the solution is.

These problems existed long before then. For example, a famous and controversial report from 1965:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For...

The problems are largely due to systematic oppression of African-American people for generations, denying them access to adequate housing, education, income, credit, access to legal protections, and exposing them to risks of violence by the state and by white people.

Which policies of the 70s and 80s contributed and where is evidence of that? I ask because I try to be careful to distinguish between oft-repeated narratives and hypotheses with actual evidence.

Isn't that surprising; globally, number of children goes down with both prosperity and, even controlling for prosperity, strength of social safety nets (a common explanation for the latter being that with no or weak public safety net, your children are your old-age social safety net.)

The US has been proudly dismantling it's social safety net since the 1990s, and it already was notoriously weak for the developed world. Simultaneously, access to birth control and abortion is also under perennial assault, and even where access is maintained, well-funded shame campaigns are directed against both.

Strangely, the people backing all of those efforts are also the ones that complain the most about poor people having too many kids. And do so under the banner of “personal responsibility”, without any hint of intentional irony.

In other parts of society we'd say "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

I know this is a very unpopular opinion the world over right now, but: This applies loosely to sex as well (Don't have sex if you can't afford to have kids).

The fact is the child has no control over their home environment, and you're effectively damning them to a life of lower achievement based on the fact that their parents can't afford enough bedding. Is that really the kind of world you want to live in?

A parents lack of self/impulse control shouldn't be the child's responsibility. And we should strive as much as possible to prevent people from doing something that might cause that to be the case. Obviously once a child is born we need to work on making sure they have a bright and fulfilling future, but why not stop it at the source?

We are truly lost as a society.

because it's a ridiculous opinion that ignores human nature and provides awful advice.

It doesn't ignore human nature, it asks that you embrace your humanity. Until recently people would have argued that "unwanted advances" were "human nature." NO! As an adult human you're better than that. Control yourself.

I'm not really understanding why it provides "awful advice"? Why should your children bear the responsibilities of your lack of self control?

That is hardly the only problem. Society isn't at fault for all of the ills of low income areas.

This mentality is pervasive in the elementary and middle schools that my kids attend and it's unfortunate that adults haven't grown out of it. Thank you for your comment.

True leadership says that we need to work toward fixing the problem, while selfish ambition says, "not my fault, not my problem."

The sad reality is that in the other hand, thanks to the ever present tragedy of the commons, there are selfish people that take advantage of this thinking "someone will fix it, doesn't matter if I contribute to the problem for my own benefit".

[edit]typo: "doing" -> "going"

Our federal and local governments often make it harder for these people, and I'm all for fixing that (with my notion of what a "fix" looks like of course.) That's not the entire story though; how do you make fathers stick around? How do you solve for poverty? You don't, at least, we have never been able to do so, and now you get into philosophical territory about whether or not that's even possible.

My issue is that I have no idea how to fix it. Pumping more money into low income schools is not a cure-all. Don't get me wrong, it can help, but we have many cases where it made little to no difference because teachers and iPads can't do it all.

Anyways, that's a lot of rambling. My point is that I don't think the sentiment of "these people are oppressed" (which is what I assume most mean when they say it's "society's fault") is correct. It's far more complicated than that.

It actually doesn't. Everyone is a responsible as they're capable of being, given their genetics and their environment. If you're a very responsible person it's because you were fortunate to have your particular genetics and/or environment.

Some people are born into terrible environments but have the genetic luck to be highly responsible. Some people are born into great environments but have the genetic misfortune to be highly irresponsible.

No one chooses to be responsible or irresponsible.

The onus is on the genetically/environmentally lucky people to help the unlucky ones. There's absolutely no shame in being unlucky and no pride in being lucky. There isn't much the lucky people can do to improve genetics (yet) but there's a lot that can be done to improve environments.

Really? Everyone's level of responsibility is purely based on a genetic lottery and have nothing to do with one's own willpower?

edit: I can understand environment having an effect

And behavior isn't necessarily a static thing. This same person might read a good book (which would become part environment) which might move them to be more empathetic.

you seem to assume a lot about people "having 5+ children when you have no resources". even the idea of "no resources" has a number of in-built assumptions. what are they? do you work with populations of people like this? do you personally know people in this situation? are they truly hopeless?

certainly we can have an adult conversation, but don't beat around the bush. start the conversation with an earnest and reasoned argument, rather than an inscrutable lament.

My wife works in a low income school, largest and poorest in the area (a relatively large city.) Pumping more money in does not help. More after school problems does not help much. As far as academic achievement is concerned, these kids are completely stuck because they have what we would consider terrible situations at home.

Sometimes the parents just don't care, sometimes they just don't have the time (multiple jobs). More often than not there is only one parent at home. There's only so much a teacher/school can do if the parent is picking up the ball when the kid gets home.

I feel personally insulted when people say we shouldn't fund these afterschool programs because they don't feel they are working.

Having a good plan and the resources to execute is what works.

I know it sounds like I'm talking about a minor difference, but I think it's a lot bigger than that. You can add more money to a lot of the broken systems in the US. It helps, but it doesn't fix core problems and the systems are still incredibly inefficient.

BTW, one data point holds more value than zero.

[1]: http://review.chicagobooth.edu/behavioral-science/2018/artic...

What makes you say that's an actual problem that has a significant impact on American education?

Only if you're looking to blame something so you can feel smugly superior to them. If you're looking to actually provide services or improve conditions, that's not something worth talking about, because it doesn't change conditions now.

EDIT: And especially not when we're talking about Ohio, which is one of the states looking to outright ban abortion.