How do we know the extra welfare payments for multiple children will be spent on the children .

[hattie43]

A genuine question really . I don’t begrudge the children and I’ll save my irk for the parents but how do we know the extra money will be used to support the children in the right way giving them a better start and turning them into these honerable citizens. It worries me that the kids with feckless parents are going to be given much more money but the parents spend it on themselves not the kids . Just because these parents have more money doesn’t mean they’ll use it responsibly or change the attitudes they may pass down .

There are a lot that are way off social services level of interest but still dysfunctional and don’t prioritise their kids.

The other thing that gets me every time -

We have fresh as well as frozen at our food bank, and people can choose. We also have a chef cooking hot meals from the surplus veg we receive.

You know what? Poor people do want fruit, and veg, and sometimes random exotic ingredients, just like the rest of us. But the narrative is somehow that because what most food banks have is baked beans, tinned ravioli and custard, that's what people want. It's awful!

Yesterday our chef made falafels served with two salads - it all went. I think maybe two of 75 clients said no.

The only thing that doesn't always go is posh bread - because it's hard to chew, and some clients have bad teeth.

The food bank i volunteered for was just doing it best for the people that used it. There were no facilities to store fresh or even frozen items.

Many who used it were families who only had a kettle and a microwave for cooking. A lot of them were in awful temporary accommodation that you would be loathe to house a dog in.

They did cook fresh meals at the church attached to it (the church let them run the food bank of the hall and gave them room to stock food), but it was limited on donations and it was mainly for street homeless.

You don’t know, and that’s just life. There will be crappy parents and there will be good parents and there will be parents in the middle.
What you can guarantee is that a child whose parents are struggling for money will have an exponentially more shit life than a child whose parents are not struggling. At my boys school there are children who have never left the city for a holiday In fact, some of them have never even been to the city centre. They have only ever travelled to the out of town shopping centre. There are children whose families don’t have cookers that work. There are children living in a hotel room with no cooking facilities at all. They are not even allowed a kettle.

On the other hand, I know some parents whose children are in private schools. Those children are as neglected as the children in the state school. Girls are body shamed and humiliated by their mothers. Boys are starved of attention and set Expectations wildly beyond their capabilities and then punished for not achieving them. Children are ignored and left in the care of others so the parents can live their best lives with the money they earn.

Whether or not children live in poverty should never be a decision based on the morality of their parents, nor should it be A virtue signalling exercise on the part of the giver.

Wow there is a lot of anti-poor people sentiment on this thread!
Everyone knows an example of a troubled family - the kind described in this thread where parents are not getting their kids to school on time etc. For this situation there is social services and the various other state interventions - including out-of-home childcare and so on.

But most people with a low income do not behave like this. They want their kids to go to school and get on in life and they make sacrifices (like parents skipping meals). This much bigger group can easily look after cash-based assistance benefits like extra child benefit well, and to the benefit of the whole family. Might be food and clothing, might be bedding, might even be an Ipad or tablet so child can do school homework. There are lots of studies on how families spend cash assistance and most spend it well. BTW the key is probably to give it to the female parent who may on average spend it better in the interests of the kids (but I would need to check the evidence of this).
On the point about people needing to take responsibility of the amount of children they have. You only need to read MN on any day of the week to triangulate this against real life. You meet a person, have 2 or 3 kids which you think you can afford - and then your partner turns out to be not the person you thought ... and suddenly you are a single parent and the other partner is not paying child support. If you are a single parent lawyer or management consultant, its hard. If you are a single parent supermarket worker it could be catastrophic.
I agree with the PPs who say that state provision like breakfast clubs and free lunches can make a difference, but I think households also need some cash income which they can juggle according to need.
On the PP spending about the same amount on WLI as she gets in child benefit. Sorry to be such a pedant but the 2 child benefit cap doesn't relate to that, it essentially relates to the amount of universal credit a family can receive.
But the bigger point is that if a parent is obese/overweight and needs to lose weight, they can't yet get this on the NHS in most cases as the criteria is so strict. So personally I would see the WLI as a potential benefit to the family of having a healthier parent. This is a complicated argument in some ways but I just want to put it out there on the thread,

What was the point of selling them on? Was it to buy drugs?

Artificially restricting benefits is only going to make things worse though.

Yes money alone won't fix all of the problems for all of the families. Many need far more complex help and support, that's a big long term project.

However it is relatively straightforward to ensure that larger families are provided for proportionately to the number of people. That will make a difference to those families who do put their children first.

We must remember that this impacts working low income families, not just those who are long term out of work.

I worked in citizens advice & I can assure you that families on benefits will not spend the money on their children directly, it will go into the overall household money & if having more children = more money, then we will see more children from families on benefits. The mentality of the majority of people on benefits is how can I structure legally or illegally to get more benefits from the government, the focus is money in NOT money out.

Rich people neglect their kids too.

Totally agree with this which is why extra money should be given to communities / schools etc where it can make a genuine difference .

That’s not how benefits work though is it? You don’t know how any of it is being spent.

The tories introduced UC which is a universal income model, giving claimants responsibility for their own finances. It’s been this way for many years, and even prior to that when ie HB was paid direct you still couldn’t control 100% of benefit spend

would you even want to? Who wants to live in a country with control over citizens to this level ie government cheese?!

This sounds very much like a 'how do I know my CM won't be spent doing your hair, nails and lashes' question. ☹️.

Are more adults likely to neglect their children's welfare than not?

This. I’m not sure more money is necessarily the answer. I’m sure there are lots of families that would absolutely spend it wisely though.

Bloody hell 😕

What a god awful comment. Dysgenia is a much contested and highly discriminatory ideology built on the backs of Galton and the eugenics programmes. Eugenics - selecting those characteristics deemed favourable. Dysgenics where it’s believed that those with “undesirable” traits reproduce more than those with desirable traits.

What and who do you believe to be “undesirable” in society?

There are lots of people who think that benefits should be paid in a series of vouchers. So that the recipients of that have no control over how it’s spent. It would have to be spent on certain food items.

I was part of a think tank, about 8 years ago now, doing research for something I was writing. I was astounded at the arrogance of it.

We don't but we do know that most parents want the best for their children.

I think lots of people have always thought this. But it’s very old fashioned and patriarchal, and not used successfully anywhere else

I suggest looking into the history of eugenics

You're literally clueless!

I thought the winter fuel allowance was for Moët

Exactly. One of my children married three years ago. In their 30’s, both degree educated and both working. Rent on a two bed in their area in the south east is £1800 a month. Utilities another £600, travel at £20 a day. Try saving a £50k deposit with those outgoings, and they wouldn’t want to have children unless they have secure housing and are not renting. So many of their generation are not having kids because they simply cannot afford to. A £2k mortgage and another £2k childcare bill is not sustainable. It’s a demographic time bomb that all political parties are ignoring.

My parents spent theirs going to Malta every winter

Agree - it seems we are back there.

But why should we just 'give' the parents more money - surely we should be concentrating on helping them get jobs, and making them better off working than living off benefits