I was not a teen mom, but my daughter was born just ten days after my 22nd birthday. It was hard enough, and I didn’t finish college. As much as I struggled I can not imagine how much more difficult it is to do what I did as a teenager.

Thank-you for writing it, Lauren, and thank you, Jill for promoting it.

Cara, FWIW, I think you are right about your opinion covering a large chunk of people. So much so that I think some people who need that assistance as young parents are embarrassed and ashamed to try to get it. I cried through many a meeting w/ so many people who were supposed to help me (and so many of them contribute to that feeling of shame) until one woman told me that I had in fact earned it by working when I was younger, and that everyone deserved help when they needed it.

I dont see why people on the right cant see it as a net-plus

My personal theory isn’t particularly forgiving, but it really is what I believe. The right is not looking for a net good. The people pulling the strings benefit from inequality and don’t give a shit about the morals behind it. The people voting for them are caught up in the mentality of who “deserves” what. I remember reading in Killing the Black Body about a study which I found astonishing but also just reconfirming of inklings I already had, that showed many people who would benefit from increased social benefits were willing to go without them if they felt it would prevent people who don’t “deserve” those benefits from also receiving them.

I’ve recognized it in my own father from an early age. He’s a white dude who grew up fairly poor. And he joined the Navy, used that to get himself a degree, worked hard, etc. and is now very successful — “pulled himself up by his bootstraps.” What he is utterly incapable of understanding is how even growing up poor he had privileges that many other socioeconomic groups do not, thanks to his race, gender, sexuality, etc. — and that even among white guys, it’s not particularly common to jump classes. Oh, and that he actually did use a form of government assistance (what I see to be an incredibly shitty form, but government assistance all the same). He says — he actually has said this to me — that he did it, so everyone else should be able to and so he doesn’t believe they deserve his tax dollars because they’re just not working hard enough and therefore don’t deserve it. It’s a sentiment I’ve heard repeated a lot . . . though more often than not, it’s from people who started out middle class anyway.

But eh, that all from my soapbox tonight. In any case, while I don’t think that it explains the views/actions of everyone who votes conservatively, I do think my theory fits a pretty damn big chunk of them.