Responsibility? I am not your baby daddy

I have a message for all these single-baby mamas who have left the cost of raising their child or children to the taxpayer: I am not your baby daddy and I am sick of working to take care of your responsibility.

I know that has eyes bulging but somebody has got to say it. And I can’t be the only one that is tired of this lack of financial responsibility and accountability by some of these parents and the plight of these children they’re having.

It’s one of those things nobody is talking about in this politically correct society and it just seems to be getting worse.

I have never seen so many children being abused, living in misery or so many irresponsible parents. Some of these men are just out here fathering children with different women without a thought of who is going to take care of them while they themselves are still living at home with mommy. It is beyond me why these parents are so willing to drag their children through hell, rather than just wait a few years until they themselves stabilize so they can offer their children some kind of head start in life.

Instead, their children start life as case numbers on paper and seeing providers — not mommy and daddy — as the people they need to go to in order to eat and survive. Shelters are bursting at the seams, nonprofits are struggling with demand, and the state Department of Children and Families is overwhelmed with children who are starving, abused and neglected.

Children are going to school hungry and don’t have enough to eat on weekends. Nonprofits and social service programs are juggling funding like a hot potato to keep up with the demand.

Every coat giveaway, every toy giveaway, every backpack giveaway is descended on like a jailbreak.

Everybody is screaming for more services, more funding, more this, more that, but we don’t need more services and we certainly don’t need more funding; what we need is more personal accountability and responsibility. This isn’t a column knocking single-motherhood because we all know that many of these fathers have been put on man-apause as polite society decides whether they want them in jail or on the clock.

But this is a column about personal accountability and responsibility and this assembly line of willingness to disregard it because of the safety net provided by society, which has turned into a nonstop ATM of benefits.

Mistakes happen, but these children coming into the world today are not mistakes. Some of these women have two, three and four children by two, three or four different men and not one of them is financially supporting their child or children.

But nobody is talking about that.

My coworkers jokingly refer to me as cold-hearted and lacking empathy when I go on these rants but I see nothing coldhearted in demanding that people take care of their own.

Bad things happen, people lose jobs, circumstances change and life gets in the way. We’ve all been there and as a society, we have a responsibility to lift our fellow man back up.

But that has nothing to do with people refusing to rein themselves in and helping taxpayers help them when they’re down and out and already in crisis. And that’s not happening. We have entire families — mother, father and children — living in shelters for months because the father can’t find work, the mother takes care of the kids and they’re waiting for spot in public housing to open up and other services to kick in — but guess what? There’s a new baby on the way, the proud parents announce, beaming like they just discovered what was behind door No. 3.

I fail to see a reason to beam. All I see is more babies, more money, more services, more this, more that.

Connecticut is poised to spend $3.7 billion on welfare in 2017. That’s a lot of money for Connecticut taxpayers whose wallets are already being vacuumed out.

It’s like society has become everybody’s mommy and daddy and we have to accept and bear the burden of our children’s mistakes. And even as we do, we have to bear their wrath.

I started thinking about writing this column last year when I got mad after I finished editing a story about a young mother who was dissatisfied with the services she was receiving at a local shelter.

The woman complained about the rules, the slow pace of getting financial assistance and the lack of amenities and just appeared to be ungrateful for the food, shelter and assistance she and her children were getting.

As usual, the father — or fathers — was nowhere around. And the children suffer.

But this is what it has come to; men and women irresponsibly having babies and then demanding society carry their weight.

And that is the problem — at least for me.

I am not your baby daddy — and I repeat, I am sick of carrying your responsibility. Where are your men?