It's 2017 and I still can't believe that...

[jwolfer]

No excuse.  Free  condoms from planned parenthood. Also sometimes "unplanned" pregnancies are done on purpose.

For some having a kid is an achievement. Paying for anything for that kid is not important.

Americans are over medicated in general

LGMS428

How many people who are having these unplanned pregnancies really know about those programs or where they can find free stuff?  I'm not saying it isn't inexcusable but there is a huge level or willful ignorance that really is a day-to-day thing for a lot of people out there.  Really financially there isn't a benefit to having a kid, there is no way the tax benefits outweigh the expenses of raising a child. If I recall correctly isn't the average cost of a child somewhere between 12-18k these days? 

At least ten times that.

They dont consider associated costs.. They are not making budgets, planning for college etc. They think of the extra amout in aid only.

My friend cousin is a pill head.. She has 5 kids by 4 men... Getting them declared disabled so she gets more each month. Trades food stamp money for drugs. The way she sees it when kids turn 18 she looses income. She is 34 but looks 60


LGMS428

[ZLoth]

My friend cousin is a pill head.. She has 5 kids by 4 men... Getting them declared disabled so she gets more each month. Trades food stamp money for drugs. The way she sees it when kids turn 18 she looses income. She is 34 but looks 60

Actions have consequences, and sometimes those actions are unexpected or unintended.

[Takumi]

No excuse.  Free  condoms from planned parenthood. Also sometimes "unplanned" pregnancies are done on purpose.

For some having a kid is an achievement. Paying for anything for that kid is not important.

Americans are over medicated in general

LGMS428

How many people who are having these unplanned pregnancies really know about those programs or where they can find free stuff?  I'm not saying it isn't inexcusable but there is a huge level or willful ignorance that really is a day-to-day thing for a lot of people out there.  Really financially there isn't a benefit to having a kid, there is no way the tax benefits outweigh the expenses of raising a child. If I recall correctly isn't the average cost of a child somewhere between 12-18k these days? 

At least ten times that.

To clarify I meant annually, definitely isn't something that is cheap these days especially if you want a kid to go to college without loans or a scholarship.

Nope. I decided I'd rather spend my life traveling instead.

[Max Rockatansky]

No excuse.  Free  condoms from planned parenthood. Also sometimes "unplanned" pregnancies are done on purpose.

For some having a kid is an achievement. Paying for anything for that kid is not important.

Americans are over medicated in general

LGMS428

How many people who are having these unplanned pregnancies really know about those programs or where they can find free stuff?  I'm not saying it isn't inexcusable but there is a huge level or willful ignorance that really is a day-to-day thing for a lot of people out there.  Really financially there isn't a benefit to having a kid, there is no way the tax benefits outweigh the expenses of raising a child. If I recall correctly isn't the average cost of a child somewhere between 12-18k these days? 

At least ten times that.

To clarify I meant annually, definitely isn't something that is cheap these days especially if you want a kid to go to college without loans or a scholarship.

Nope. I decided I'd rather spend my life traveling instead.

It certainly doesn't help with the prospects of that, most people I know don't really go much of anywhere and blame it on it being too expensive with the kids.  Funny thing though, when I was a kid the best times I had with my Dad was just traveling on the road with him around the country.  He never spent a ton of money (granted a lot of times he was being reimbursed) but we saw a whole of what was out, he was the one who actually got me into this hobby.  I think that these days its probably better for people to wait until they are in their 30s when they have stable careers and incomes to support things like children.  Usually it is the people who get someone knocked up in their teens or early 20s that really end struggling through the rest of their lives.

Incidentally, something that really sucks about 2017 in general that is that it truly does in almost every circumstance take two incomes to raise a family and live comfortably.  It seems like the era where that was a thing was mostly post WWII to maybe the early 1990s.  I suppose it couldn't last give businesses got smart about things like over paying wages and benefits but really that was an era we'll probably never get a wiff of again.

[hbelkins]

What prompted my musing about an unplanned pregnancy...

I know someone who had a miscarriage a few years ago while experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. Now this person has a college degree (it may only be an associates, but still) and is employed with a decent career track. She's ended up pregnant again by someone she's only been dating a short while. It just boggles my mind that she wasn't on birth control if she was going to be sexually active (and that's assuming she is medically capable of using any of the several types of birth control available for females) or she didn't insist on her partner wearing a condom -- or she didn't allow him to have intercourse with her and instead chose another way for them to achieve orgasm.

And, why does no one call condoms rubbers anymore, as we did while I was growing up and well into my 20s and 30s?

[kkt]

Sex is not a completely rational thing.  Some people are excited about taking risks, some people's hidden or not-so-hidden desire for a baby overrules their good sense.  Some birth control methods have high initial costs (yes, I know the costs of any of them are much smaller than the costs of taking care of a baby), hormone methods have bad side effects for some women, barrier methods require fiddling with them in the heat of passion.