And The Poor Get Children

And the Poor Get Children

By: Lee Rainwater

This text heavily discusses different factors that contribute to couples having children. They include married couples decision making ability when faced with hardships in terms of monetary comfort. Rainwater also brings up the fact that sexual intercourse is pleasurable to the point where some couples simply do not consider the consequences of sex. As for the poor family, which the title indicates, their family planning methods are a lot harder according to Rainwater. In chapter 4 Rainwater brings up many questions and guidelines that many poor couples and single women have to answer to before having children.

The most common and clear-cut rationale for limiting the number of children one has is financial. (Pg. 45) This rationale is heavily emphasized on the bare necessities of life, which is simply feeding the mouths of one's children. There is also a heavy concern on being able to provide a substantial quality level of living for their family. This is a concern in which the parents wish to provide a better lifestyle for their children than they had themselves growing up. Rainwater notes that because of many people flocking to big cities to live, rather than living on the farmlands, makes for problems in family planning. "I think planning a family is the only thing in the cities at the present time. Large families used to grow up on the farms and did alright as they had plenty of food. Here a man has to struggle to feed anything of a family." (Pg. 45) This is a quote from one man that has moved from a Kentucky farm to the large city of Cincinnati looking for a better opportunity for his family. On the other hand a woman feels that it is not one's location as opposed to family income that determines how many children one can have. "We can't feed what we got now. I think it's how much money you got that decides you on how many kids you should have."

The text seems to hint at the subconscious effort of parents to constantly improve and improve on what their childhood was. If a person grew up with a hard background and had to watch their parents struggle to make ends meet, they want to bear children and have a comfortable life for their kids. Without realizing that just by having children alone will put them in the same spot that their parents where in just one generation before. By not having the means necessary to feed their children it will be almost impossible to provide them with a comfortable life.

Rainwater talks about another one of his works entitled "Workingman's Wife", where the woman feels that her status includes more than merely financial gain. This other work also believes that a factor that contributes to women having children is the idea that a girl is so eager to break away from being a daughter that they are anxious to become mothers and wives. Rainwater refers to the working class as being un-fit to support too many children and suggests that many working class wives are insecure about their husband's ties to them. So by having sexual intercourse the wife feels that she is "Holding one's man." Furthermore he goes on to say that housewives are the main function of middle class women. Being a housewife brings on many motherly functions which allows the man of the house to come home and concentrate on masculine duties. What also comes along with being a housewife is a certain degree of boredom when the husband is away from the home. To compensate for this boredom a large portion of women tend to have children so they are occupied by something while at the house.

The last important topic that Rainwater touches on in his text is the idea of acceptance and rejection of both the man and the woman of a relationship. To the group, being the man and woman together in a relationship, achieving sexual gratification together seems a source of real pride and satisfaction and the couple uses the sexual experience to highlight their relationship. By basing one's marriage on lovemaking, it becomes inevitable that children will be the product of their sexual prowess. Rainwater makes it clear in his text that just because a couple is in a state of wedlock that they feel it is not only unnecessary but also unrealistic to use any methods of contraception. Men are the larger percentage that refuse using birth control, even though it would decrease the chances of pregnancy and in turn allow the couple to live more comfortably.

The question here is, why do the poor continue to have children? To answer this we must address how poor is poor. Having $20,000 a year for a family of three might be easier than a family of five trying to survive on $30,000 a year. I believe that a family or a woman, for that matter, should not have more children than they can support. The trouble with having kids without being able to adequately supporting them does not hit until way after the toddler ages. When a child begins to grow up their needs change and become dependent

on money. As children keep growing they need new clothing, they need new school supplies each year, they need equipment if they try to play a sport. All these things add up and become a tremendous burden on parents

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