My wife’s parents got divorced and her dad struggled to give them a roof over their heads and make things fun.
The free things they did are some of my wife’s favourite memories. They camped a lot, they did portage and walking trips for vacation, they had family dinner of samples and a hot dog at Costco, they played the same board games 1000 times and played cards together and they made memories.
Times can become tough even when you’ve done everything right. I don’t think it’s fair to say that just because they didn’t have everything they shouldn’t have been able to have kids, or suggest that they should have lost the kids when things got tough.
These anecdotal outliers are not the statistical mean. Of course, creative, thoughtful parents, who want their children to thrive, can find ways to provide meaningful childhood experiences. But that is not how it goes for most.
Society is built by averages. The median experience is more insightful than the particular experience you, or someone you know may have had in the margins of the bell curve. That doesn’t mean their personal experience are devalued. But it DOES mean that we cannot hold them up as the standard, nor pretend that there aren’t significant truths behind the realities of parents who struggle financially, emotionally, mentally, and otherwise. Moreover, the compounding factor in most destitute childhoods is that the parents never really wanted their children to love and rear, and develop into flourishing adults; instead, they simply followed the prescribed processes as they were instructed, or feared their own loss of status and position among their peers.
I hope you can expand your perspective to encompass more than just the winning stories; society is better measured by our treatment of the most vulnerable.
With all due respect I think we’re talking past each other on this thread.
I’m only saying you don’t need everything perfect to have kids, not having the en suite laundry shouldn’t be the dealbreaker. That’s a far way from saying people in poverty should be having kids, but even that feels like an unfair statement to make.
My wife’s parents got divorced and her dad struggled to give them a roof over their heads and make things fun.
The free things they did are some of my wife’s favourite memories. They camped a lot, they did portage and walking trips for vacation, they had family dinner of samples and a hot dog at Costco, they played the same board games 1000 times and played cards together and they made memories.
Times can become tough even when you’ve done everything right. I don’t think it’s fair to say that just because they didn’t have everything they shouldn’t have been able to have kids, or suggest that they should have lost the kids when things got tough.
These anecdotal outliers are not the statistical mean. Of course, creative, thoughtful parents, who want their children to thrive, can find ways to provide meaningful childhood experiences. But that is not how it goes for most.
Society is built by averages. The median experience is more insightful than the particular experience you, or someone you know may have had in the margins of the bell curve. That doesn’t mean their personal experience are devalued. But it DOES mean that we cannot hold them up as the standard, nor pretend that there aren’t significant truths behind the realities of parents who struggle financially, emotionally, mentally, and otherwise. Moreover, the compounding factor in most destitute childhoods is that the parents never really wanted their children to love and rear, and develop into flourishing adults; instead, they simply followed the prescribed processes as they were instructed, or feared their own loss of status and position among their peers.
I hope you can expand your perspective to encompass more than just the winning stories; society is better measured by our treatment of the most vulnerable.
With all due respect I think we’re talking past each other on this thread.
I’m only saying you don’t need everything perfect to have kids, not having the en suite laundry shouldn’t be the dealbreaker. That’s a far way from saying people in poverty should be having kids, but even that feels like an unfair statement to make.