Worthy: Attend PT conferences or face jail

**Crumbled_pavement** · October-20-10, 04:17 PM

Originally Posted by guito13

Aye that is a good start.

How about stoping the incentives to have children?

My belief is that a person should be restricted from having kids when on government aid. If they do, there should be no increase in aid. If they can't take care of the kids satisfactorily then the kids should be removed from the home and placed in foster care. There are many other things that need to be done that would dramatically reduce the amount of unfit parents. The problem is, no politician has the political will to implement any of these things.

**jbd441** · October-20-10, 04:34 PM

Originally Posted by Crumbled_pavement

My belief is that a person should be restricted from having kids when on government aid. If they do, there should be no increase in aid. If they can't take care of the kids satisfactorily then the kids should be removed from the home and placed in foster care. There are many other things that need to be done that would dramatically reduce the amount of unfit parents. The problem is, no politician has the political will to implement any of these things.

How can you restrict women from having kids when on government aid? This is just a crazy an idea as jailing parents who don't attend PT conferences. You can't punish the parents if it means the kids will go without. Also there aren't enough foster homes to put these kids in. Either way the taxpayers pay for people who have kids to collect welfare.

**Crumbled_pavement** · October-20-10, 04:45 PM

Originally Posted by jbd441

How can you restrict women from having kids when on government aid? This is just a crazy an idea as jailing parents who don't attend PT conferences. You can't punish the parents if it means the kids will go without. Also there aren't enough foster homes to put these kids in. Either way the taxpayers pay for people who have kids to collect welfare.

In the short term, you're absolutely right. However, in the long term you send a message that we will not reward people to be baby makers. You can make any restriction you want on someone that is on YOUR dime. The thing is, I'm not talking about prosecuting anyone with a crime or jailing them. I'm talking about a simple restriction that states if you have kids on government aid you will get no increase in aid.

Why should we keep paying people to have kids they can't take care of? If we never take a stand then this type of thing will go on forever. I'd rather pay more tax money to prevent problems then to pay more down the line to deal with the after affects. The saying, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, comes to mind.

P.S.: Whatever method you want to employ to reduce the population increase amongst those that can't take care of their children is worth talking about. That is the root cause of the problem that Worthy is trying to address. Problem is, far too many young single women are having children in Detroit and that is the cause of the poor parenting. Simply giving them more money to have more kids or putting them in jail because they didn't show up at PT is not going to address the root problem. People need to get themselves together first then have children. However you want to address that problem is debatable, but that is the issue!

**jbd441** · October-20-10, 04:57 PM

I agree 100% CP. I knew a woman who slept with several different men to have a child as her unemployment ran out. She chose multiple partners so the father wouldn't be identified as she had no intention of collecting child support. Any discussion about restricting child birth among mothers on assistance is always condemned for hurting the child's welfare. So the cycle continues.

**Crumbled_pavement** · October-20-10, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by jbd441

I agree 100% CP. I knew a woman who slept with several different men to have a child as her unemployment ran out. She chose multiple partners so the father wouldn't be identified as she had no intention of collecting child support. Any discussion about restricting child birth among mothers on assistance is always condemned for hurting the child's welfare. So the cycle continues.

I'm not against going after fathers as well. Currently though, we do go after fathers pretty aggressively for child support. I don't think there's a magic bullet to solve this problem either.

We must get the population increase amongst people who can't take care of their children down because in the end it is all of us who pay the cost. Whether it's the high school drop out rate, the crime rate/criminal justice system, government aid, or lost productivity that leads decreased tax revenues. What suggestions do you have other than people magically waking up one day planning on pulling themselves up by the bootstraps?

**guito13** · October-21-10, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by Crumbled_pavement

I'm not against going after fathers as well. Currently though, we do go after fathers pretty aggressively for child support. I don't think there's a magic bullet to solve this problem either.

To start the courts could have a law that custody should be JOINT LEGAL & PHYSICAL except in situations where one parent has proven that he/she is unable to care for the child properly. Also, the incentives in the current laws should be modified so that the state/agencies actually profit from maximizing support orders. Usually the father is the one who makes more money so he is the one who is "punished" by having very little time with his child[[ren) and is forced to pay a support amount that does not allow him to maintain a decent household for the child[[ren).

Buy American · October-21-10, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by guito13

To start the courts could have a law that custody should be JOINT LEGAL & PHYSICAL except in situations where one parent has proven that he/she is unable to care for the child properly. Also, the incentives in the current laws should be modified so that the state/agencies actually profit from maximizing support orders. Usually the father is the one who makes more money so he is the one who is "punished" by having very little time with his child[[ren) and is forced to pay a support amount that does not allow him to maintain a decent household for the child[[ren).

I would say that the majority of the men in Detroit who are unmarried fathers have no knowledge of how many children they have and with how many women they have them with. Some women have kids just to get on the welfare rolls and don't care about the actual child...the child is just a ticket to receive more benefits from the government. Being on welfare is perpetuated from generation to generation. It's hopeless and unfortunately, the children will never be as loved as they should be, they will never be properly educated, they will fall through all the cracks in Detroit that are getting wider and wider.

**DetroitPlanner** · October-20-10, 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by jbd441

How can you restrict women from having kids when on government aid? This is just a crazy an idea as jailing parents who don't attend PT conferences. You can't punish the parents if it means the kids will go without. Also there aren't enough foster homes to put these kids in. Either way the taxpayers pay for people who have kids to collect welfare.

Not its not she should stop having kids that she cannot afford! Think of it this way, I want a Cadillac but I am not going to go on welfare so I can get one. Nonsensicle arugment. No one is forcing her to make babies.