I don’t get it

Let me preface this with the following statement: I don’t mean to offend anybody. If you are offended, I apologize in advance, but my feelings are my feelings.

I do not, for the life of me, understand why people have kids when they can’t afford to take care of themselves. I just don’t get it.

I know that my family is in a bind financially right now, and it is of our own doing because we are spendaholics and we can’t seem to govern ourselves. I know this. However, we do both work, full time (for the most part – John’s hours have been short lately due to it being the “off ” season). We are working very hard to pay off the massive, crushing amount of debt that we have accumulated and doing whatever we can and have to in order to make ends meet. Right now, it just means giving up little things that we were used to. Our entire tax return is going towards credit card debt. My entire bonus? Yep. The money we got back from the county? Uh huh. Every spare penny we get goes straight towards debt. It is my mission this year to pay off ALL of our credit cards before 2012. I would love to stay home, but I can’t, and I fully understand this with every fiber of my being.

Several things have happened over the past several days that have set me off. First off, my unemployed sister is going to school. Good for her, right? Well, she’s also getting unemployment, and bragging that between her 401(k) that she withdrew, her unemployment, and her overage check from school, she’s got $9000 in her savings account. She said, “I could always try to find a part time job, but if I can get paid $200 a week to do nothing, why would I?” This follows previous statements she’s made about it not being fair that single moms don’t get more help to go back to school. What. The. Hello. She says it’s too hard to go back to school and work, especially as a single mom, that it’s too expensive and there is no help available to her, as if she’s entitled to a handout because she foolishly got pregnant from a one night stand. We had an argument a few months ago because she was complaining about how HARD it was and I said, “Yeah, well I can’t because I have to work and pay a mortgage, so I really don’t feel sorry for you.” She went off on a self pity kick because everybody resents her for living with our mom. Anyway, a different time for that story.

This morning, there were some women on my facebook talking about how hard off they are financially. One of them has been hard off financially since I met her on a moms message board when she was pregnant with her second child, but that didn’t stop her from getting pregnant with her third. Today, several of her utilities were shut off. Somebody said they were right there with her because they knew their rent check was going to bounce. I know that people are falling on hard times because of the economy, but this woman has made a conscious decision to not work and to stay at home and homeschool unschool her children. My children mean the world to me, and I would love to be in change of their education, but not at the expense of a roof over their heads. I guess it will teach them a real world experience when they get kicked out of their home, but that’s not really the type of lesson I want to teach my children.

I just don’t understand the mentality of those that think that their actions don’t impact other people. The whole thing just makes me angry.

And one of these days, I will be debt free, and a stay at home mom to my 30 year old children. 🙂

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