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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
This makes me sick
I was watching The Nate Berkus show and Ellen Pompeo was on.
She's supporting some cause with Pampers or Huggies or something. She said that 1 in every 3 families in the United States cannot afford to diaper their baby.
Whaaaat!? That's insane. Am I missing something, or should you maybe not have a baby if you can't afford to supply the bare essentials? I realize there are some circumstances you cannot avoid like losing your job or having a massive hurricane or tornado hit your town, but those unexpected circumstances definitely do not account for the majority of the 1 in THREE families.
It's sad for those children. Does this number shock anyone else but me?
Re: This makes me sick
I think I've heard so many crazy statistics that not much surprises me. I do agree with you that if you can't take care of the bare minimum for your child you shouldn't be having a baby.
But, isn't this the same theory we've all said about most things? For example, when a bride is complaining that mommy and daddy won't pay for the wedding and we go on to tell her that she needs to plan the wedding she can afford. I think it's similar. There's this sense of entitlement that people have.
If you can't afford to pay for the wedding, maintain the car, furnish the house, or buy diapers for the baby you just shouldn't do it.
Sorry, I got on my soap box. I'm done now.
Yeah, the world is a strange place.. it seems in so many cases, people who shouldn't be having babies are having them and the people who are ready and able, have all kinds of issues having kids.
I will never forget the day that I had to run into a Walgreens on my somewhere away from home, and saw the most precious looking baby being plopped into the cart and wheeled into the store while wearing just a diaper. It was a cold day, I was all bundled up I remember and this poor child was pretty much naked. Then, the mom wheeled the baby up to the register and starting putting in her order for what kind of cigarretes she wanted.
I wanted to tell her stop worrying about your cigarretes and start caring for your poor defenseless child!
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But a wedding or a house is quite a bit different than bringing a human life into this world.
I guess I never realized THAT many people were having babies that can't afford them. I knew it was too many, but that's a lot when you sit down and think about how many 1 in 3 really is.
This might sound bad... but I can't think of another way to put it...
If they can't afford diapers, then they can't afford birth control....and so the cycle continues.
No, that makes sense. Sadly.
However, there are ways to prevent pregnancy that don't cost money.
I will spare you all and not even get on my soap box about this and ditto what Tiffany said.
If you can't afford f'ing birth control, how the heck do you expect to afford a baby?
My Ovulation Chart
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Yeah, it is my understanding that you can even get free BCP's at certain income levels.... however its along the same twisted lines that there are tons of homeless shelters/food and assistance for less fortunate people, and yet they choose to stay on the streets anyway.
Oh brother.... I could get real wound up on this topic, but I will spare you all. I will say that if you are interested to see this statistic played out in real life, just go to your local health department. You can sit for only a few minutes and watch your tax dollars be drained from your check.
I am sure this will come off cold hearted, but I have no sympathy or tolerance for people that continue to have children and expect my hard earned money to pay for it.
While I do have to say I totally agree with this, it's the image in my mind of the poor baby freezing in a cart in Walgreen's that makes me pull out my wallet. I am beyond pissed off at the mother, but the baby has no choice in the situation.
THIS!!! My older sister wanted kids so bad. They tried and tried and it just wasn't going to happen. They adopted 2 very amazing kids but my sister still wanted the pregnancy feeling. Well last year our cousin got pregnant by some guy she didn't know very well, she didn't have a job and lives at home with her mom. My sister would get so annoyed at cousin because she would complain constatly that she was pregnant and over it. She wanted to be able to drink, party, and was worried the baby would mess up her body. My sister went off on her one day and said, if you are so unhappy now why don't you just give the baby up for adoption. There are plenty of women out there who love to experience child birth but instead you take the gift and throw it away. I hate that women so willing and able to have children can't. But then I wouldn't have my niece and nephew that just fit so perfect with the family.
I didn't know the statistics were that high. It's sad! And like someone else said I know that most of the time they can't afford the birth control but like Tiffany said there are other ways of making sure you don't get pregnant. I feel so sorry for the babies brought into those situations.
I think that statistic may be exaggerated...but I could be wrong
I do not agree with Tiffany's comment (although no hard feelings
). Having been to PP recently, I see that there are MANY options open to low income people, THEY choose not to take advantage of. It is all about priorities!! They would rather spend money on other stuff, beer, cigarettes, fast food, going out, rather than spending $10 a month on birth control!!
I had a couple that were "friends/cousin" ask us to borrow money once...UMM hello!! I only buy what I can afford and splurge if my budget allows it, but you get new sh*t all the time, cd's, clothes, movies, cell phones, etc, and ask us for money....I THINK NOT!
It boils down to priorities and responsibility!!
Of course a whole other topic could be that people (and I HAVE heard this) have babies JUST to get government assistance, such as food, but then treat and "care" for their babies horribly
THIS is my mother! She had me and my sister and my grandmother raised us and then 18 years later had my little brother and my aunt is raising him! All the while my cousin and her husband were having trouble TTC. It's very sad and frustrating!
THIS!
I bet that was hard on your sister. I can't imagine not feeling a little bit of resentment towards your cousin if I were your sister.
And I don't know, it's a stretch, but people could try not having sex to prevent pregnancies.
LOL, your not disagreeing with me at all. That was basically my whole point. My first statement was more sarcastic than anything.
P.S. I agree with everyone said that this is most likely statistically slanted to create shock value. I'd be interested in the data.
WHA, WHA, WHAAATTT!!
haha just kidding
I know my comments were harsh, but I truly feel that way. It is good that there are compassionate people like you to help.
I agree that preventing pregnancy doesn't have to be expensive. But the types of people who have kids that they can't afford are usually the ones that aren't responsible in the first place.
In my ideal world there would be some kind of test you had to pass to be able to reproduce.
Oh, haha, well that sarcasm went right over my head...which is strange because I am pretty sarcastic myself
ITA! And drug tests to get gov't assistance!
Oh man, I too am way too passionate about this subject to get too much into detail
...but I agree with the above, as well as a need for regulating unemployment abuse
Unfortunately, there are always bad eggs who ruin stuff for everyone
I would like to see the data from the statistics, too.
Ellen Pompeo mentioned something about how food stamps don't pay for diapers, and so that's why they're doing this, blablablabla.
Food stamps may not pay for diapers but there are programs like WIC for low income woman to get food for free at grocey stores that way they can have some money left over hopefully to buy diapers and such.
The sad part is that for these children, lack of diaper money is probably the least of their problems. I imagine they are subjected to all kinds of terrible things similar to what they show on the TV show Cops where they break into people's homes and every one in the house looks like the are high and has been beating each other up.
My Ovulation Chart
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Oh yes I completely agree.
It just makes me so angry when I think about all the women who want to have children so badly and can't, or struggle for so long, like you and Dana were saying. I've always felt that way. It just breaks my heart because there are a lot of women out there who would make wonderful mothers and will never get the opportunity to be blessed with the experience of pregnancy and having a child naturally, and so many people out there take advantage of it and mistreat their children.
It's definitely not a just world we live in.
As part of our Angel Tree last year, we picked two little girls who needed car seats. And we bought them but I just couldn't fathom that there were small children riding around in the area not in safety seats.
I know not every situation is as simple as "they just shouldn't have them" but I do feel a little like Renee.
I am on the fence about this too.
I don't want to keep feeding the problem and basically supporting the children of parents who think they can rely on the government and tax payers to support them.
But on the same hand, it's not the child's fault and they shouldn't have to suffer.
It's a lose-lose situation.