Now that sounds more sensible, and I agree completely that ultimately you can only help someone who wants to be helped.

Your earlier comments were showing that you don't understand the poverty problem at all and you don't know how to motivate people at all. The problem is not that poor people are constantly choosing to be poor, or making no choice and allowing themselves to fall into poverty, but that they are raised in poverty. Being raised poor means all sorts of things: you are taught poor values by your parents, you likely get a terrible education, you likely only have access to be friends with fellow poor people, you probably eat poorly, and worst of all your poor parents and poor friends have reinforced your entire life that these poor decisions you're making are actually good decisions.

You will never accomplish anything (or sound smart or practical at all) by slapping individuals in the face and telling them to make better decisions. They're told that these good decisions us well off people make, by their friends and by the vast majority of us well-offers, are actually making us terribly unhappy people (and in a lot of cases they're not wrong). The only way real change can happen is by addressing the cultural cycle of poverty, and by supporting, positively teaching, and motivating these people to make better decisions.

> Don't let your babies die, but really try not to have them if you can't afford them.

This is outrageous. Parenthood is one of the most (if not THE most) meaningful parts of being human. Financial issues should NOT take this away from anyone.

I don't think it's outrageous at all. I agree with you that > Parenthood is one of the most (if not THE most) meaningful parts of being human

But we cannot ignore the fact that raising a child is extremely expensive, and children raised in poverty often have very negative outcomes. He's not saying poor people aren't allowed to have children, he's saying it's a good idea to try not to, because of the likely poor outcome of a child born in poverty.

Poor outcomes such as the child being unable to graduate from high school, or go to college. Repeating the cycle by having a baby in high school, dropping out and probably to raise a high school dropout as well. No one is saying this is always what happens, or that poor people aren't allowed to have children. We're just saying it is not a good idea to have a child unless you're financially stable enough to raise a child with a better outcome. There are obviously plenty of exceptions to the idea that a child born in poverty will have a bad outcome, but the majority outcome is negative (in terms of economic achievement, social mobility, etc).