I was watching an interview with comedian/commentator Adam Corrolla yesterday. He was defending his views, views which some call conservative but what he merely saw as common sense. Part of his take on things is the idea that people who can’t afford to have kids shouldn’t have kids. Seems reasonable enough, I thought. But it sort of feels like something is missing. To simply tell young, poor kids to not have kids until they can afford them seems like a doomed effort.

So why is this? We all understand that teens and young adult just make bad choices. Neuroscience can even offer a reason why, noting that the frontal cortex of the brain—reportedly key to foresight and planning—is not fully developed until one is in their mid twenties.

But we don’t really need science to tell us that young people make stupid choices. This is because we’ve all been young people and made stupid choices. Following this tangent got me thinking about my teens and twenties and musing, “What the fuck was I thinking?” Not in a chastening sort of way but more that of mild bemusement.

I look back at the period after I graduated from high school and think, “What was my plan?” I realize I was both naive and also unaware of the real possibilities of life. Part of my plan was to start a band and become a rock star, a rather pie in the sky pursuit (though I know people who accomplished this.) On the flip side, I think I thought it unlikely, even if I went to college, that I could do something like become a lawyer or scientist. Nowadays I feel such vocations could be well within reach if I felt like committing to them, which I don’t.

As it was, I ended up working at a car wash for eight years before stumbling into a career in web development.

I feel around in my memories for some tidbit of information that could possibility serve as a guide to getting young people to value their future correctly. I don’t really find anything other than a sense of understanding how some kid raised poor with little sense of hope could turn to creating a family (or at least having lots of sex) as a source of pleasure.

But we all end up paying for that.