Sister-in-law tells expecting 23-year-old single mother of 3 that she's selfish for having another baby: 'She has a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and an 8-month-old; the older two are from a deadbeat.'

As far as I can tell, this is the trajectory her sister-in-law's life is taking. If you have one baby when you're a little too young to support it yourself, you can say that was a mistake and learn from it. A lot of people have kids when they aren't financially stable, but having kids kicks them into gear, and they figure it out! It's so common for mothers to have one kid when they're in their late teens or early 20s, and not have more until they're in their 30s, because they actually feel stable and responsible enough to support them at that point in their lives. Maybe the father of their oldest was bad news, and they wanted to wait until they were 100% certain that their husband was not a deadbeat before having a second or third kid.

But if this 23-year-old sister-in-law has had four kids she can't support in under five years, then I don't think there's anything anyone can say that will make her stop. Clearly, living in poverty is not enough of an incentive for her to get a job. She's going to keep having kids with men who aren't responsible enough to be fathers, and she's going to keep relying on her parents and the government to finance her family. Even if her sister-in-law did everything in her power to take care of her kids during every spare second she had, that may not be enough. This situation is so sad, and the kids don't deserve it.