Am I in the wrong ?
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This letter doesn’t seem real. If it is, depressing glimpse into how the cycle of poverty/abuse/ignorance is created and perpetuated.
My (limited) privilege makes me want to scream at the LW stop making stupid, harmful choicesthat negatively impact other people. It is possible to break the cycle, even if it’s just to create a nominally better life for the next generation. The poor kids…
Can I remind everyone that the LW was also a “poor kid” when she began having children? Why does the few years that turned her into a young adult change her culpability? She’s still a child in many ways. Shes only 21. She’s already doing better. She’s secured housing, has a job and has left her abusive ex boyfriend.
Maybe the anger that makes you feel inclined to scream at her could be better used to donate to or volunteer at a PP or other service serving underprivileged youth.
I don’t think people should have just typed “get sterilized”. Even if you think it’s a fake, it isn’t useful and the moderator asked you to quit. The same goes for the Cheezus comment.
I think the letter writer framed her question in terms of moral culpability. When anyone has a baby there is responsibility created with that child. I agree the terms and requirements of parenthood are vague and numerous for everyone. Those with the privilege are continually creating and reinventing ideas surrounding health and opportunity. A lot of us like to draw lines in the sand around what ought to be considered “sufficient”, even though life has thrived in so many harder circumstances.
I do think at 21 the letter writer is more culpable than she would have been at sixteen. I think at sixteen she had the same responsibility to care for her child. I think by a fourth pregnancy, she is more culpable than she was for having unprotected sex and another unplanned pregnancy. There are numerous mitigating factors in her own experience, ability, and lack of privilege which could affect the “line in the sand” but I do think after having three children, break-ups, and being in the position of being solely responsible for herself in the last few years she has a greater moral bearing for continuing to bring children into chaotic circumstances.
I’m in no position to judge her as I’ve gotten a lot of help and support and I’m in no position to relate to her choices nor fully appreciate the impact of the abuse she survived. But she did come to Dear Wendy and solicited opinions.
Yes, letter writer you will be more “culpable” for any abuse or neglect your children suffer as a result of not having a safe shelter. The blame doesn’t matter but the consequences do because they are currently in the making. At twenty-one you are not the most vulnerable player in this story. It is no longer your parent’s job to raise you, even if don’t have everything you need. It isn’t your fault you have dysfunctional expectations and lack of stability. But you are young and you don’t have to stay this way. You can make choices to move towards a happy, healthy life. You can learn how to take care of yourself and live one day at a time. You don’t have to find love from abusers. You can learn to take care of yourself and your own needs. The way things started for you doesn’t have to define where you end up or how high you go. It isn’t about money, it’s about self-respect and care.
https://wikidiff.com/culpable/responsible
While I agree that there has been a lot of overly intemperate language in this thread, it exists to a lesser extent in a lot of threads, without a lot (any?) discussion of rudeness or intemperance. The difference seems to be a sense that infinite latitude and understanding need to be extended to those who lack privilege. This can become a bit of a cancer in society. There are a lot of studies in education that poor kids do poorly in school, partly because it is assumed natural that their background will cause them to perform poorly. Still, there is what is called ‘the tyranny of low expectations’. Students of all backgrounds, who were identified to the teacher at the start of the year as having low IQ or performing poorly in prior years, even when they had high IQ and had performed well in the past, underperformed that school year and vice versa. If you expect less of a student, you get less from that student. I think there also is the danger in excusing any and all bad behavior by a person of troubled background, you are going to get bad behavior from that person and continue problems to the next generation.
People can live up to reasonable expectations and live down to negative expectations. If we expect crap, we will get more and more crap.
We need to help troubled people (and untroubled people living in troubled environments), but we have to do so from a framework of reasonable expectations that they do what is needed to improve themselves and their position. Low expectations can destroy a person.
We shouldn’t be rude to or shout at a LW such as this, but the undercurrent in so many posts attacking other posters as being privileged and unfairly addressing a non-privileged person are also wrong. Although most of us got to start our lives under far better circumstances than this woman, that is a different thing than privilege. We all know about those privileged folks in society, for whom all the rules are bent. They are either celebrities or the wealthy or those holding high political office. Many of those actually do come from what is described here as underprivileged backgrounds, such as those top athletes who colleges and even local police and prosecutors shield from rape charges. One legal and college disciplinary system for them another for your child, even if your child is an upper-middle-class white boy/girl. A lot of politicians from very humble backgrounds have gotten away with a hell of a lot. That is privilege.
Well, let’s all look out for that stuff.
Again, there was a deleted comment in this thread that took me aback with how aggressive it was, and maybe I need to get more woke to what’s going on in other threads.
Sorry Ron, busy at work today and only skimmed.
But NO, I’m not saying infinite temperance and latitude need to be extended, for goodness sake. I’m saying do not shout at people to get sterilized or get an abortion or do anything to their body. I don’t know how much plainer to say it.
My gut reactions to this letter are still that it’s fake and if not immediate permanent bc should be the priority. I am still surprised that this is the post that has brought out the rallying cry that this forum needs to be more compassionate. I find this to be letter to be a repugnant example of child abuse. One kid as a teen in an abusive, unstable environment? That’s awful, poor mom, poor kid. Two kids in this boat? Ehhh, that’s not good. Three? Good lord. Four?! Come on. I don’t care how disadvantaged you are; by your fourth kid you know how babies are made. At that point it is straight negligence and child abuse to keep condemning children to that life and I no longer care in any way about the person doing it.
*this letter to be. Ugh I can’t type.
I meant, why are the people saying “her poor kids,” also raining down harsh condemnation, insults and blame on this girl? Why does the difference of a year or two take her from victim to culpable perpetrator?
At 21, she is now legally an adult (although still can’t rent a car!) but why is a young person a victim only up until age 18? If you have empathy for her kids in this situation, why not have empathy for her?
She should have known better, right? But how? With what tools? Even birth control and condoms aren’t always as accessible as you might think. And there are many communities that teach abstinence only. Which we all know doesn’t work, and here we are.
I have no reason at this point to think it’s fake. Remember I can see diagnostics you guys can’t.
Like Neo at the end of The Matrix
Kate, I think this letter is fake. The LW got hired as a stripper right after the birth of her third child? She was stripping while she was pregnant with her forth? Even at the dive places I do not think this would happen. Where you earn most of your money stripping is in cash. The max you can get back for child tax credit is $1,000 per child so the numbers here just do not add up. The strip joint isn’t going to be paying her a great hourly wage so the withholding is just not making math sense either. I’ve know a lot of poor people and they do not act like this. And the ones with the first baby know how to work the system. Fake letter. Oh, and the answer to the fake letter, oh keep the money.
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