If a parent could model behavior which reliably leads out of poverty, their children likely wouldn't be poor in the first place.

So, yes, having a not-poor father (or mother) as a role model would be great, but that's often not a practical solution.

those kids should have had the good sense to be born of a father that sticks around /s

Future mothers and fathers should exercise common sense to have a child only with a good partner. That's who that message is for, not the child.

If love was rational but it's filled with emotion. There are also plenty of partners above the poverty line that leave their families.

I'm not sure we'll ever get to a point where people don't make mistakes with important decisions.

This point comes out from time to time, I do not agree with it at all.

If history has showed us something, is that great people come from all sorts of backgrounds and situations, and that includes all sorts of families of course!

You can't generalize heuristics by looking only at outliers.

lol, good luck with that.

Even if a person made that decision, "nature uh uh finds a way".

Do you think sending large percentages of minority men to prison for long periods of time and then having a society that refuses to permit those who have been to prison to fully re-enter society might have an impact on the population of fathers that stick around?

Mentors can come in many forms. A father is one option but not the only one.