Your comparison is interesting, and brings up what I said in my last response about not being able to forsee the consequences of actions. Bad choice: dropping out of school. Better choice: Finding a teacher or counselor to help her with her reading problem. Bad choice: having two babies - use birth control or get an abortion, or give the kiddo up for adoption. It's a terrible choice to have a child when you are in those straits. Those are two big crossroads where she could have made better choices for herself and not ended up with two kids in a minimum wage paying job and not being able to take care of herself or them.

You know, I don't have all the answers to poverty. Who does? It is an incredibly complex and multilayered problem. I agree that government assistance should be available, on a short term basis, to help people get going. But I also feel that people need to take responsibility for themselves and the choices they make in life.