Quote: (01-24-2018 02:45 PM)Northern Wastes Wrote:
Thank you to everyone who responded, lot's of good points and opinions to think on. I do appreciate it.
I talked to him briefly today and he told me he thinks he is going to go through with it. He is still waiting on more details but apparently he won't be able to take her in for a year from now, and she will be taken care of by the state until that point. That's a year for him to prepare for this new life.
I haven't been able to sit down with him in person yet and try to talk this through as rationally possible. He is his own man and ultimately will make his own decision but for both his and the child’s sake I am taking this incredibly seriously.
As my friend I have no problem trying to help him raise a child, but odds are in a year I won’t be here to help. A few other of our friends could assist but my question is to what extent? We are all still incredibly young and my friends don’t know shit about taking care of a child. Also not to sound cold but it shouldn’t have to be our responsibility to take care of the kid, ultimately it has to fall on him.
The only thing I can think of is watching her while he is at work assuming we have that day off, and supporting him morally.
As far as his personality I think in the last year he has been able to confront a lot of his personal demons and he has managed to control himself. That being said I have no idea if he could maintain this around a small person. I think he could, and I would like to hope that this experience would bring the best person out of him and it very well could, but like a few of you said being able to keep you cool when dealing with a small child is crucial.
If this is the path he is choosing to take I plan on sitting him down and trying to figure it all out. In a year he could potentially pull it off from a financial standpoint.
I looked into it and there are a few places that do infant daycare that could possible take care of her while he works all day, no word on the cost of that yet.
Regardless of what happens he should definitely be apart of the child's life as much as possible.
I will update as the situation develops.
If this is really what he wants to do, you can help first and foremost by doing as much research as possible about free services for single parents with young children. The line , "the state will give him some money" is only the start. There are tons of charities and services out there which will offer all sorts of freebies for low income people in this position exactly.
There's Wic which is perfect for him in his position:
http://www.acphd.org/wic.aspx
He should also be eligible for food stamps.
Heck, there are a ton of services out there which will help him. The problem that I believe the poor really have is simply finding these services. You have to have some income and intelligence to be able to search the internet and apply (which is partially why I think the poor don't utilize these services).
Search and get him as much stuff as possible, just because he's a single father doesn't mean that he can't utilize the same services that women do.