McNocheHey dipshit, I make my own money and everything I have is paid for on my own dime (post college life). House, truck, skis, and so on. I'm 24 and if I had 4 kids instantly right now I could buy them each bad ass ski gear. So don't give me that bare minimum (food, roof) bullshit. People shouldn't be having kids only to feed them and house them. Horse shit, and I am complety sick of people in this world scrapping by. It's a choice to be poor. Plain and fucking simple. A fucking choice.
People come from different circumstances and have different priorities. My family hovered around the poverty line because my dad started his own business (which is doing awesome now) and my mom was a stay at home parent (our family took in foster kids). Obviously if my mom had a traditional job, we would have been in different circumstances, however we opened up our home to others in need.
Also, hovering around the poverty line doesn't mean we didn't have anything or weren't able to enjoy life (ie - we tried to get out to the mountains once/year), but it did mean we lived a bit simpler (ie - no new ski gear) and were grateful for the stuff we had.
And no, it's not always a choice to be poor. Do people choose to have physical/mental disabilities? Do people choose to go through traumatic situations that impact cognitive function? Do people choose to grow up in impoverished neighborhoods with limited access to healthy food, poor education, abuse, systemic violence and racism? These are just a few of the many, many legit reasons why people live in and continue to live in poverty. Count yourself lucky you've found a way to avoid being in those situations (or found a way out), but not everyone has those opportunities.
I'm all for everyone doing whatever they can to get out, but it's not always as black and white as you make it out to be.
