I was watching Dexter and he walked into an empty house and it was filled with a single mother with two kids living there illegally. This happens way to much in real life. That begs the question, why don't the potential mother and father or future single mother plan ahead for these consequences? Not the kids, but living homeless and attempting to raise them?

Just bothers me to hell that people to not think or deal with the consequences before their actions. Who really suffers? The single mother and the kids.

I haven't seen the episode in question, so I can't comment on it.

But I would be willing to bet that a lot of people *did* plan ahead (having an emergency fund, for instance), but maybe something devestating happened. Maybe they had an emergency fund to cover 6-9 months of income, but were unemployed for close to a year. If a member of that family has a devestating medical illness (ever have a baby in NICU, even just for a few days? Ever see the kind of bills that come with treating cancer?), those bills could wipe out a family's funds.

I'm sure there are folks who don't plan ahead, and when any kind of emergency strikes, it's a tragedy. But there are probably many more people who *did* plan ahead, but their plans still weren't sufficent for the emergency. Maybe it's the people I know, but I can't think of any parent who would take a flippant approach to raising their kids and think "Oh, well. Guess we'll be homeless if tragedy strikes! LOLZ!"

We can preach endlessly about the importance of having an emergency fund, and that's great. However, there are situations where even having six, nine, or 12 months' income isn't enough.

Also, most people are incredibly stupid.

So, my desired reply has a lot of ranting about how you might want to educate yourself before simply saying "just don't end up like that!" The factors that go into a woman being a single mother are many and varied. But I don't have time for that, so I'm just going to go with *headdesk.*

Watch a movie call "Hidden in America" (1996) starring Beau Bridges...It's very humbling.

I try not to get too worked up about fictional people on TV shows.

People are design to populate but the sad thing is we don't have the ability to discipline our-self by failure in the Garden of Eden.

I wasn't referring to the "fictional" character...it's the meaning behind the story that is humbling. Have a little compassion

jlg, i think dtr was referring to the OP about the show Dexter, not your movie.

People idealize having children. They think it will make their marriage stronger. They pump them out faster then their incomes can provide for them. Mostly, people are stupid, and selfish. This is the short answer.

Some of these folks blindly believe in what a certain religion teaches them about the "evils" of birth control, yet that same religion can't reconcile those rules to their own book (bible). Lemmings abound. People allow others to do their thinking for them. They don't check what they've been told. They say "we are traditional".

If they only knew, that their God would NOT approve...

Lemmings abound!

Too often 50 something people are struggling, having to live with the consequences of a stupid 20 something year old...

Amen brother.

Yup! And remember, their religion is based on an accidental child born as a result of the lack of planning and likely infidelity. I mean, either Joseph was pretty gullible or they made up that story to cover up their accident! Once you start believing that then believing that god will always provide, any stupid behavior becomes easy and a good excuse for lack of accountability.

The homeless are largely comprised of the uneducated and the mentally ill.

I think the mentally ill should be treated. But I tend to think the uneducated got there because of their own por decisions. We have a fantastic community college system in this country that is thriving in this economy. There is plenty of money available for anyone who wants to turn their life around and get educated now. I have a hard time having much sympathy for those that are too lazy to do something about their situation.

That said, my wife and I give an awful lot of money every year to a charity that supports homeless teens so that they can finish high school and go to college. Some of the situations these kids have come out of are disgusting - drug abusing parents, abuse, all sorts of crap. Why anyone would put their kids through that and then say they love them is beyond my comprehension.

The birth rate, including unwanted births, can be traced to the level of education of women in various countries and does not correlate well with religion.

Mexico, a fairly catholic country where, presumably, birth control is restricted, has a high birth rate and large family size. Education for women is also relatively restricted. (Not as bad as, say, Afghanistan, but below what is typical in oher industrialized countries).

Italy, an even more catholic country, has one of the highest rates of women Phds in the world and generally equal opportunities for men and women (better than the US). Their birth rate is quite low and their rate of unwanted pregnancies, which is extremely difficult to measure, is seemingly much lower than ours.

Birth rate is an extremely important factor in economics and in ecology. In a country like India where the economy is growing rapily the people can still be getting poorer is teh birth rate is high, which it is. Global warming and polution in general is caused by people. More people means more damage. If you think your Hummer is bad, it is 100 time less bad than the cooking fires and poor sanitation of poor areas.

If you really want to make the world a better place, education women and providing birth control are the best things you can do. Unfortunately some people think both of those things are against god's plan.

Homework,

On the homeless, remember that a good proportion are also military veterans.

Also, more people does not necessarily equate to more damage to the environment. There are other factors.