People who are likely to gamble it all away don't have anything, and aren't given anything. They already gambled it away.

The thing about gambling is that it's against the house. The house will always win, because that's the way the game is designed. So, given enough pulls, you will have 90 cents on the dollar... then 81 cents of that 90 cents... and so on. It ends with 0 cents of 1 cent. You end with nothing when you gamble.

Yes, I think the old father-in-law kicking butt would shape things up - but there's no father-in-law, because nobody has a father anymore.

The point is that the Stock market is a gamble. You risk big returns against it all. You can take that same money, put it into federally backed CDs at 5%, and make a little money. Or you can risk it for bigger returns.

If you decide to risk it, do we - the taxpayers - owe you your money back because of a bad risk?

"If you decide to risk it, do we - the taxpayers - owe you your money back because of a bad risk?"

No.

Good grief. I need a break from this place before I really start hurting some feelings.

First of all, I know where you stand and you won't hurt my feelings. I'm not that tender and I don't totally disagree with you.

Good grief, john, how much did the fertility treatments which caused her to HAVE triplets cost? Who paid for that? The two of you, I'd hope.

It was about $12,000 per try. The first was financed in majority by friends and family. The president of the company I work for wrote me a personal check for 5 g's. The rest of them were covered by health insurance. And as long as finance is involved, I carried over $1000 a month in health insurance premiums for over a year. When we walked out of the hospital my bill was paid. When Chloe had to be life flighted back home, we left the hospital yet again without a dime of debt.

I didn't anticipate some of these expenses. Our formula is twice as expensive as what you normally see on the shelf at your local grocer. We don't qualify financially for WIC. Our babies qualified because of their birth weight. If they didn't qualify, understand that they wouldn’t go without. I would do the same thing I already do to make ends meet in this single income family. I get out and hustle. I give up the rest I do get to pay for the majority of the other things we need.

It's selfish, that's what it is. The two of you moved heaven and earth to bear children you knew you'd need financial assistance raising. But hey, the programs are there, why the hell not, right?

It is selfish. Do I feel I have earned it? Yes. I have done many selfless things in my life. I have paid for these very services for 18 years and somebody is going to take advantage of them. Why not me?

If these sorts of programs didn't exist, john, maybe the two of you would have sacrificed your personal desire to have blood-related children and chosen to foster or adopt instead, regardless of wait times. In fact, there are all sorts of less-than-perfect children awaiting adoption even as I write this.But no, they had to be YOUR kids and HER kids... so great expense was incurred to make that happen and insure their survival. Yet you see no hypocrisy in asking the public to regularly provide something as basic as FORMULA?

We did foster. ( I know it was just my BIL's kids) They were blood-related and at the drop of a hat I could have had those children permanently removed from the parents care and taken custody of them. After the many stunts their parents pulled it would have been easy. But, (the big but) I am selfish. In the time I had them I wanted them to feel like we were family but there was always this disconnect. They were never my children and they never acted like it no matter how much better at being a parent to them I was than their actual parents.

I see the hypocrisy in this situation. When we tried the last time, we were as aggressive in our fertility treatments as we could be. It was our last try. Adoption was next. Fostering children isn’t as pretty as it sounds though. A good friend of mine adopted his foster daughter that he started fostering almost from birth at three years old. His marriage was almost destroyed by the stress of going back and forth to court every time they gave this mom another try. After all of it, the mom gave up. Now they have a daughter and marriage counseling.

I really had no intention of bringing a whole bunch of personal stuff into this but I feel like it’s important to note that not everyone who uses these services is some sort of dead beat. The majority may be but there are those of use who want something more out of life and there is no reason I wouldn’t avail myself to services I already pay for if I qualify.

I have a question for John. Would you have done it if you knew NO government assistance would have been forthcoming?

I knew I didn't qualify for anything. It was only after that we were directed to these services.

Night school, one class or two classes at a time, hire a babysitter/nanny or watch them yourself, just john. I bet you could get away with $500 a month on babysitter fees, given 3 kids at $5 per hour each, eight hours of school a week.

I have tried that option. Unfortunately, the one thing that having kids has proved to me is that people (even when you pay them) are completely unreliable. I would gladly watch the children in the evenings if earning a degree at night were possible here. We have a major public university here whose evening offerings don't extend much beyond leisure learning.

I have learned that not only are other people unrealiable, but that I am not reliable either. Oops!

Heh, JJ I wish I could trade my education in for the time with my children that I missed.

Perhaps she could go back to school after the babies are out of the house, or at least in school? That's only a few years away.

I know it has to be hella stressful to be at home with 3 infants all day/night, but gosh I think she will regret the time away if she goes to school now.

"Heh, JJ I wish I could trade my education in for the time with my children that I missed."

That's all I ever think about everytime I hear about a woman who went back to work and put her kids in daycare... can it really be worth it to make that trade?

My kids are currently 8 and 4. My wife wants to go to college to become a daycare worker. Her job pays little and she wants to do more. She simply has to complete a certain amount of hours to graduate. It's about 6 months. I can take care of the kids at night. The problem is in our current situation we can not get the money needed for her to take these classes and so there goes the idea out the window. It's ironic considering the amount of money is not that great, it's just over $300, but as I said, in our current situation we just can't afford it. I'm not sure about aid from the school or Gov't, I have to ask her about that but we have pretty bad credit and she already owes from a previous school load. She has a Medical Assistant degree she got in 1998 when my oldest was born. But because she gave birth just after she finished, she could not participate in the job placement the school did and therefor never got experience and try as she might could never get a job as a Medical Assistant after she was ready to start working a few months later. Still to this date no one has given her a chance due to lack of experience.

Lack of experience is killer, yuck.

So she wants to become a director of a daycare? Or just a daycare worker? Around here, daycare worker is unskilled labor. Don't need any degree. To teach kindergarden you need a degree, and to be the director you need a degree, but just to work there, you didn't need anything. My wife was a daycare worker for a while, no degree, and by the end she was the back-up director, but they didn't pay her for that because she didn't have a degree and the owner was a low-life scumsucker. Cared more about going to Italy twice a year than providing decent playground equipment.

Wouldn't you?

Well over here in West Palm Beach FL you need to at least take the 60 hour course in order to work as a daycare person. They also do Pre-k in the daycares here. That's what my mother-in-law did and makes pretty decent money too.

No she only wants to work there not direct it. In order to open your own daycare here in WPB you need an Associates degree (or a Masters, not sure which one) of any kind.

I can barely handle my 2 kids, imagine a whole building fll of them who you can't even punish in your own way.