People sometimes call my life easier because I don’t have kids or the challenges in time, money, and other resources that come from having them. They say, “Josh, you don’t know what it’s like as a single mom raising three kids on three jobs.”

If someone can’t afford a house but buys one beyond their budget, we say they chose wrong and might help them fix the choice. If they can’t afford a car and buy a Ferrari, same thing.

If they can’t afford a child, what do we say if they have kids anyway? I’m not questioning their right to. They have that right. I don’t know the answer. I’m not suggesting one. I’m curious what people feel. It seems that questioning other people’s parenting choices sounds gets interpreted as interfering or malevolent, in the realm of eugenics, but what do people think about an adult who can’t afford to raise a child choosing to become a parent?

Our world has plenty of ways to avoid pregnancy. If you can’t afford to raise the kid, what does society say? You should anyway?

I don’t hear people limiting them or saying they shouldn’t, despite suggesting not buying other things they can’t afford making sense. I don’t have a kid. I seem to pay taxes that support a lot of services for kids. All the signs I know say the Earth is overpopulated.

When I’ve worked in offices, people with kids got to leave early, take days off, and so on with their kids. People without kids, like me, didn’t get extra time off.

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