Should Poor Couples Have Kids?

Crowd-sourcing donations on the internet has helped low-income families buy a wide range of essential items: clothing, computers, even cars. And now babies.

Meet Emily and Joey Turner, a young couple from Houston, who have decided to adopt a baby from Ethiopia. They've chosen an adoption firm, signed miles of paperwork, and passed their in-person interviews. There's just one hitch — they can't afford the hefty adoption fees, which will range from $25,784 to $35,834.

To overcome this Texas-sized problem, Emily's launched a blog, "The Turner Story: An Adoption Tale," to share progress on the adoption front and raise some cash through mini-fundraisers (one of which, I'll admit, is pretty cute: filling baby bottles with change and donating them to the Turners' adoption fund). Meanwhile, Emily's friend, Kate Shellnutt, has asked the community on Bundle.com, a personal finance site, for tips on raising more money for the Turners' baby.

In my somewhat dumbfounded mind, however, all this begs an essential question: should a couple choose to adopt — or, for that matter, give birth to — a child without being able to pay for it?

Sure, the Turners could become fabulously wealthy in the future (just as wealthy parents could later lose it all), but it's obvious that for now they are heavily dependent on their fundraising efforts, as evidenced by a blog post that Emily wrote last December: " ... we have the $3,000 but that is going to wipe our adoption fund clean! So when the next fee is due we will have none, and things are on a time schedule and if not met we will have to start the process over ... no fun!"

I'm sure that starting the adoption process over would be quite the drag. But you know what else is "no fun?" Not having enough money to buy your kid diapers. Or child care. Or vaccinations. Raising a kid without a safety net is certainly no fun, especially when your car breaks down and you suddenly need to find an extra $800. Then there's the social stigma attached to being poor and having more children, something made clear by the inevitable victim-blaming every time we write about a struggling mother.

My point is this: if the Turners have to rely on friends, family and the occasional stranger to pay their adoption fees, it's unlikely they'll be able to comfortably afford all the post-adoption costs, which, according to this "Cost of Raising a Child" calculator from BabyCenter, could amount to well over $250,000 by the time the baby turns 18. On the bright side, Emily and Joey obviously have built a strong support system of loved ones, many of whom would surely chip in a few extra bucks to get Baby Turner through tough financial times. But many low-income families aren't so lucky.

What do you think? Should people have kids even when they're broke?

Photo credit: handmaidenbymaria