why do poors typically have a lot of kids?

[WalterMitty]

i understand many poors are not educated.  however, you dont need a lot of smarts to realize that kids are a big boulder on the road that leads out of poverty.

so why do poors keep cranking out the kids?

[Frodo]

Lack of access to contraception.  Also, restrictions to access to abortion services tend to fall on the low-income the hardest. 

[WalterMitty]

Lack of access to contraception.  Also, restrictions to access to abortion services tend to fall on the low-income the hardest. 

no there isnt lack of access to contraception these day.

and most poors seem to want to have a lot of kids.

[Lief 🗽]

Because having a child is a temporary respite of happiness and hope in a life devoid of meaning and potential.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://shriverreport.org/what-about-the-fathers-kathryn-edin/

[Frodo]

Lack of access to contraception.  Also, restrictions to access to abortion services tend to fall on the low-income the hardest. 

no there isnt lack of access to contraception these day.

Read this.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why do you care?

[Kushahontas]

......

[All Along The Watchtower]

Because having a child is a temporary respite of happiness and hope in a life devoid of meaning and potential.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://shriverreport.org/what-about-the-fathers-kathryn-edin/

Good points. Plus, I suspect there's often a strong religious component to it, besides the aforementioned obstacles like lack of education or access to contraceptive services/abortion providers, etc.

[DemPGH]

FWIW, there's, I think, still a large correlation to lack of education as well (or so I learned long ago!). I'm willing to bet that education and affluence affect one's notion of self and family. More highly educated people and probably more affluent people will reproduce less because they value themselves and their own lives over reproducing because they understand what reproduction entails. Reproducing is an impulse of the R-complex, I think, or the "Reptilian Brain," wherein 'protect the clan, reproduce, and follow the leader' are all impulses. More affluent and more educated people probably exercise the neocortex more, and that part of the brain is not concerned with making children.

Now, of course affluent, educated people have children - they choose to. With poor, uneducated people, I think they're fulfilling a social obligation and an impulse very generally. 

[angus]

i understand many poors are not educated.  however, you dont need a lot of smarts to realize that kids are a big boulder on the road that leads out of poverty.

so why do poors keep cranking out the kids?

value system.  

If you were raised to be the high priest of the temple, then you work on being the best high priest of the temple you can be.  If you were raised on being the court mathematician, then you work on being the best court mathematician there ever was.  If you are poor, then the chances that your immediate family talked about the foreign policy objectives you should pursue when you become a member of the United States senate are pretty slim.  (There are some statistics involved, but I won't bore you with all that.)  If you are poor, you probably aren't told that you have to be a general or you have to be a king.  To use Maslow's language, you don't have all that baggage of self actualization burdening you.  You get to be just a mammal.  You get to concentrate on fuçking and eating, which is what life forms do well instinctively, without any consultation.  As a result, you either sire lots of offspring (if you're a male), or you you pump out lots of babies (if you're a female.)  

This ain't complicated, walter.  You do what you do best, or what you are raised to do.  If you're poor, the chances are that what you do best has not been the main focus of your nurturing, because your nurturers are too busy putting food on the table to concentrate on what you do best.  In the end, you revert to the natural state.  There are, of course, exceptions that prove the rule.  Every once in a while a Louis Armstrong comes along.  He was poor but has no legitimate offspring.  Somehow, in the brothels in which he was raised, he was lucky enough to get some nurturing to do best what he really does best, to the benefit of all mankind.  The general case is, however, that those who are not led fall back on just being human, and humans, like all animals, just instinctively want to copulate and to eat.  This, of course, leads to population increase.

[⛄]

Is that really off-topic? In my opinion this belongs to Political Geography & Demographics.

[Peeperkorn]

Lack of televisions.

[muon2]

Is that really off-topic? In my opinion this belongs to Political Geography & Demographics.

It's really about sociology rather than geography or demographics.

[memphis]

With an exception for religious outliers like Orthodox Jews and the Amish, families larger than two or three kids are not common in the United States among any social or economic group. Even the once notoriously fertile Catholics have seen the benefits of reducing family size.  If the premise of this thread refers to the whole world, Sub-Saharan Africa, is very much the answer to the question, but I presume that was not your intent, and you are thus asking for an explanation for a situation that no longer exists. Birth rates were still very high in Latin America, South Asia, and the Middle East 30 years ago, but those days are over.
Where poors in America stand out in the childbearing practices is that they have their children much younger than their Middle class and Richer counterparts, who are now often waiting until their 30s to reproduce. Poors are also much less likely to be married when they have children. Even so, the teenage pregnancy rate in the US is much, much lower than when I was a teen.
As to why poors bother with children at all, rather than focusing their attentions wholeheartedly on chasing the Great White Whale of economic mobility, I suggest that you ask the man in the mirror why he has done exactly thus.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

It's condescending questions like these that makes people think of Massachusetts liberals as elitist.

Maybe they just like children. Poor people are thinking feeling creatures as well.

[⛄]

It's really about sociology rather than geography or demographics.

So, it should belong to Political debate?

[Dr. Cynic]

Any of you guys ever been poor?

Not much else to do other than screwing around because it's a very cheap form of entertainment.

Or, you know, they wanted to have kids. There's always that possibility...

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's condescending questions like these that makes people think of Massachusetts liberals as elitist.

Walter is not a liberal.

[Indy Texas]

I'm not aware of them having significantly more kids than anyone else, though perhaps they tend to have them earlier in life.

Why is Walter Mitty a right-wing Democrat who asks foolish questions based on his vague perceptions of how the world is rather than on actual evidence?

[WalterMitty]

I'm not aware of them having significantly more kids than anyone else, though perhaps they tend to have them earlier in life.

Why is Walter Mitty a right-wing Democrat who asks foolish questions based on his vague perceptions of how the world is rather than on actual evidence?

that is signature worthy.

but are you really claiming that poors dont have more children than their societal betters?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Just wondering, but why do you call poor people "poors"? Surely you realise how crass and dehumanising that sounds?

[MasterJedi]

Just wondering, but why do you call poor people "poors"? Surely you realise how crass and dehumanising that sounds?

The answer is "all hail the grand human trash opebo!"

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

societal betters

I'll hope and pray you're being facetious.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Just wondering, but why do you call poor people "poors"? Surely you realise how crass and dehumanising that sounds?

https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Opebo_speak

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

societal betters

I'll hope and pray you're being facetious.

I doubt it.  walter has said many times he's one of the poors.