Well, when I call someone a...
We're done, I promise. :P
NOOOOOOOOOO! I had a good one too! Very witty. Included wombats.
Life does force us to do things sometimes. But often we just think we're forced to do something such as never starting a sentence with a conjunction, that's a rule I can do without.
Life (probably) didn't force you to have a baby, but ok, you have one. Life may now be forcing you to take care of that baby, but the baby does NOT require a huge house, or 3 ton SUV, brand-new Levi jeans with Nike shoes (and whatever brand shirt is required...Gap? Old Navy? I'm not up on the trends).
Maybe you're in a rural area and really want/need to be near family. Ok, so to get a decent job and move up you might "need" a car. Life still isn't forcing you to buy the aforementioned SUV, especially not a brand new one for 0 down and $570/mo for 72 months. Borrow a car for a bit? Work your way up to a $3k sem-reliable car? Save those car non-payments and pay $15k in cash for something really really nice? Not that you need something that fancy, but still...that $15k car was someone's $40k+ car not that long ago. You can have "nice" things without paying out the nose for it.
You might need to help family, but you can decide what kind of help and to what degree. You can choose to flaunt all the money you (don't?) have, now you'll be expected to be generous with your funds (then again, if people know you're up to your eyeballs in debt, they might not get upset when you can't spot them a $20...especially if YOU'RE constantly hitting them up for money).
Case in point, I'm planning on helping a family member save some money on their monthly expenses. One of my ideas is to have this person save an equivalent amount in a savings account until there's enough to fund actual emergencies. Then they can blow the money saved (not what's in the emergency fund) on frivolous stuff. Much preferred to me just handing out cash, or taking the time to save them money but still have to worry about how they'll fund inevitable emergencies.