[ca-bigsister]

I am not conservative - in fact I am very liberal.

However, I did not have children when I was married because I did not think my husband and I could afford them the way I thought they should be raised. I used birth control. We were both college graduates, by the way.

I now foster a teen whose mom is a drug addict, grandmother is a crack prostitute, father is in prison for attempted murder against his OWN FATHER, and that's what's up. I do it because I want to make a difference in the world.

However, I do not think it's the government's job to PAY FOR MY KIDS. If you can't afford kids, use birth control or don't have sex. I am a public school teacher for an inner city school and so many of my parents can't properly parent because they have to work two jobs. But they have four and five kids. Excuse me, but birth control is free in this country at several clinics. At my high school, a student can get free birth control. They can't monitor homework, help out at school, or watch their kids. Well, then stop having kids.

I know there are cases of rape, etc where the mother didn't have a choice but I am so tired of us saying the government has to pay for our kids. No, as the parents, we need to pay for our own kids.

And as for discrimination against sex workers and those in the adult entertainment business - excuse me, but that is not a proper job for a parent. If there's some way you can do the job without a kid knowing, OK, but coming home with an STD or exposing yourself to AIDS everyday is not the way to have a kid.

I don't think this is the proper forum for these issues, because we are foster parents but I'm so tired of teens not doing homework because parents can't monitor them, or kids joining gangs because their parents aren't home, or girls having babies because they can't see themselves in college. I see this every hour of every work day and I do my best to inspire my students to stay in school, go to college, wait to have sex, or at least use protection, get post-secondary training. Sometimes it works, but it's an uphill battle.