I only mean that parents should only legally be allowed to have children if they're demonstrably able to support them financially; if not then as you suggest they can attain the right through programs like WIC and public schools. No one would be UNABLE to have children, it just wouldn't be legal until they are READY for children.
I still absolutely loathe the idea and I would fight it every possible way.
How would them being able to have them but it being illegal even work?
Plus, I'm one of the ones whom your criteria would probably deem illegal to have kids.
My wife and I were 18 and unmarried when we had our first child, my wife got fired from her job when they found out she was pregnant, and called they called it a redundancy else to avoid getting sued for unfair dismissal. We live in an area with high unemployment, high (hard) drug rates, and a gun problem. Hell, my next-door-neighbour is a drug dealer, and the ones before him were part of an organised crime family. My area is so rough I could get a gun for about $120 and have it in my hands in about an hour. That's just the tip of the iceberg in things I normally keep private.
Doctors attempted pressure to get us to get rid of the child---from telling us we shouldn't have children, to outright lies by claiming our first born had a hole in her heart, Down's Syndrome (which would come complete with severe mental retardation), and only one tube for breathing and feeding. It was one hundred percent absolutely certain, they assured us. We should have an abortion.
The claims didn't add up (different claims from different people). We didn't have an abortion.
She's three years old now. No tube problems, no Down's syndrome, no retardation, no hole in her heart. Absolutely fine except for some hearing loss, but that comes from me and isn't holding her back, she's one of the smartest in the school. She can speak English, some Welsh (despite us not living in Wales) and quite a bit of Sign Language.
By your idea, my daughter would probably not be legal. This idea of yours infuriates me and makes my blood boil.
We need licenses to operate machinery to drive from one end of a street to the other because it's potentially harmful to bystanders yet we don't need a license to have absolute control over the wellbeing of another sentient being? That's absolutely crazy to me.
Parenting is not something you can pick up from a book or can really learn from theory, and it's absolutely crazy to think it's something that's easy. Parenting is difficult and it involves learning from one's mistakes.
I was originally paranoid I was going to be a terrible father who would raise them badly, but I'm a damn good dad who should be proud of my two children--people tell me, not vice-versa.
I've met some right idiots who're childcare theory savvy. They may know how to raise a kid because of what they've learnt through a book, but they've been bloody awful parents. Including one who said she thought spanking is child abuse but had no qualms about "trousers down in corner time"--anywhere she went, and another who was concerned about her child getting obese, so would give her child under half a baby tin of spaghetti (205g a tin) each meal time.
These are two of the extreme examples, and I did the right thing and reported them to the child protection services. Both of these children in question now live with their fathers who raise them well. I report neglect.
Keep the state out of whether or not people can have kids.
