[wood_spirit]

People made the decision to have each child at least 9 months before the child was born. And in the subsequent years and 9 months anything could have happened, eg illness or losing a job. So even careful planners might be unlucky enough to need food banks?

[meheleventyone]

Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well.

This is also all on the back of people complaining about declining birth rates!

[bossyTeacher]

> Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well.

This sounds like a reason not to have them though. It's like saying the probability of X is high if I do Y. I do not want X to happen, but I will still do X even if I have no obligation to do so. Your decision might make sense to you but the way your comment reads it doesn't sound like a logical argument supporting your decision

[meheleventyone]

It’s hardly illogical to not know what might happen in the future and my family is fine despite any setbacks!

In some senses having children at all isn’t that logical and is a choice lots of people aren’t making more often hence declining birth rates and worry over the impact of that in a global economy requiring growth.

[mindslight]

Not to mention that children are their own people that we hope will grow up into being fully functioning adults. Mitigating their suffering due to their parents' failings is a worthy goal. There is a lot of suffering we just have to agree to disagree about (eg many religions), but lack of food is basically an unequivocal [0] evil. And are our western societies not wealthy enough to provide basic sustenance to everyone ?

[0] being HN I know I'm running the risk of having have some contrarian edgelord arguing about parents' rights to innovate with calorie restriction and whatnot.

[mytailorisrich]

This can of course happen but it is obviously disingenuous to imply that this is what usually happens in response to my comment.

[Loughla]

I don't think that's what they're implying. They're simply saying that careful planning isn't necessarily always what's needed.

Consider carefully your sentences before making deep moral judgements about people and situations you might not be familiar with. That, I think, was their implied point.

[solumunus]

I think the point is that you can’t easily isolate these issues. Are you suggesting that someone should wade through the cases and determine who should get benefits for every child, or are you saying that you find the collateral damage to the “truly deserving” worth it?