[PuffinBlue]

She doesn’t have a car or license. So living in the countryside in the UK is a non-starter. When you’re living life on hard mode already due to poverty and the pernicious destruction of control over your own time that that causes, trying to exist without personal transport and a child is impossible.

I know. I’ve experienced it first hand (as the kid).

To your point about deliberate choice: What I do recognise from the article, and it was clear before she mentioned it, were the signs and symptoms or untreated trauma and ADHD. The deleterious effect of those conditions on decision making often seem to us observers as ‘deliberate choices’. This can be very frustrating for those of us who would and do make different choices in similar situations.