to think that the state shouldn't be expected to pay out for more than 2 kids per family on benefits?

[rockermom]

I don't know if anyone agrees with me but, do any of you believe that the state shouldn't be expected to pay money to any more than the 1st 2 children if a couple on long-term benefits decide to have 3+ children. Am I also right in thinking that kids are a responsibility rather than a right.

Obviously there are exceptions like families with 2+ kids where the parent(s) have been in F/T work and been made redundant, and, families whose parent(s) have had an accident and are disabled etc.

Do you think it's a fair question

ffs.

THE BENEFITS SYSTEM IS THERE TO ENSURE CHILDREN ARE FED AND CLOTHED.

you only recieve about 40 pound for your first child. hardly enough to buy a plasma tv!!!!!!!!!!

just makes me so mad when i see threads like this.rockermom lets hope you never need the help of the state!! but from your op im guessing your too good enough for this!

i spent a year on benefits with 3 dcs and it was hard. i had to budget to afford decent food for them and other essentials. life was not a walk in the park and i couldnt afford a second hand old style tv let alone a plasma!!

people who can afford these big plasmas are those often commiting benefit fraud or false claiming disability benefit. so its hardly fair to blame the benefit for children is it????

YABU. DH is losing his job next week. We will be on benefits. Maybe for quite some time as there are no jobs in our area. How long would it have to be to be classed as 'long term' in your world?

If I was pregnant would I have to abort? I already have my quota of two children.

Stupid OP. What do you want the government to do, leave children to starve?

They are deliberately pursuing economic policies that their own economic forecasts say will lead to unemployment climbing. Many people will lose their jobs and be unable to work. Should their children starve? (Btw, those policies may be defensible depending on your point of view - but it is undeniable that they will cause unemployment to rise.)

If people on benefits have plasma screens, it is none of your business. But use your imagination FGS, maybe they bought it BEFORE they became unemployed? Maybe a relative bought it? Maybe they are getting into debt with one of the doorstep loan sharks that preys on the poor? Maybe it's from a catalogue and they will be paying £3.99 a week for the next decade, far more than it would cost if they had the money to go into a shop?

I really do think people who can't put themselves in someone else's shoes are thick, tbh. Probably comes of not reading enough as a child. (I'm serious about that, if you read stories at a tender age you develop your imagination and are able to imagine another life than your own.)

To be fair, I think what the OP is actually saying is

"Am I being unreasonable to think that people who are on long term income support and then make a conscious decision to have another child despite clearly not being able to support it, are irresponsible" rather than "If you get made redundant and have to sign on then you should abort your unborn child and sell those you do have into slavery"

I would say YANBU but there is no humane solution so it's just one of those threads that ends in everyone spewing out their personal circumstances and getting irate about it.

Rockermom, reading your opiginal post and thinking that it means what BaggedandTagged has said above, YANBU.

Maybe Johnathan Swift had the right idea in 17-something. He pointed out that a healthy 1 year old child was "?a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome Food, whether Stewed, Roasted, Baked or Boyled? Or words to that effect.

If it's all about the cost of multiple kids, what about those wealthy families who have large families through choice and then allow the NHS to pick up the tab for all their maternity expenses?
If we are talking about rationing resources then I think it is unreasonable to expect the state to pay for the well-off couple who think four or five children is an OK choice in an already overcrowded world. You want them, you pay.
So why stop at rationing benefits? Why not make two free babies the limit?

YABU as it is the kids who would be punished. Also the parents will be screwed when the kids leave, and they loose their child related benefits, and left on their rubbish pensions? Not to mention that many people look down their nose on them, that can't be a nice feeling.

Actually Edam, resorting to name-calling isn't a sign of being very bright either.

Oh christ not this again

So you'd be happy to see malnourished, unshod children whose basic needs cannot be met because we have pulled the plug on their entitlement to subsistence level support?

You're either an idiot or an arsehole. take your pick.

YABU
i have three children with disabilities and i had husband until he died = more benefits.

Yabu...and ignorant, sorry.

where did edam name call??

stupid op= stupid opening post??

YABU - a policy like that would only harm children.

Benefits are a safety net for people who fall on hard times. They are abused of course, but I would rather put up with a few scroungers than have starving children on the streets.

OP is Opening Post....she was making a comment about your post, not name calling....sheesh, at least read your resOnses....you did post this in AIBU right? So come on, be prapared for people to not agree!

Which benefits are you specifically referring to?

Child benefit, which 98% of parents claim?

Or should the 3rd and subsequent children not be taken into account for housing benefit? (Which is claimed to various degrees by people on low incomes as well as the unemployed)

Do you feel the same about child tax credits, wihch might be claimed by the same low-income earners as claim some housing benefit?

Agree with BaggedandTagged, YANBU

I doubt that the OP is suggesting that people on benefits should not be able to have more than 2 children, or that they should abort any further pregnancies, etc. People responding to the OP like that are being a bit over-dramatic or sensationalising.

It is also a bit daft to say that children don't cost much. If that was the case, why were people so worked up about the possible loss of child benefit or Frank Field's proposal that it stop at 13? I read nothing on MN but a list of how expensive teenagers are when that was bandied about. So it's daft to claim that additional children are not more expensive.

I think (hope) that s/he is making a (valid, up to a point) observation that benefits are - to a certain degree - elastic, namely, your income is adjusted by the state to better fit your circumstances (whether this happens satisfactorily in practice is another matter).

On the other hand, it is a well observed fact (lots of MNers complain about it) that those earning money do not have "elastic" incomes (although CTC has recently transformed this for those on or below a certain income), so if they do have more children, they do not get any more money for those additional children; therefore, you frequently see people - even on reasonable salaries - saying they cannot afford more children.

Therefore, it is unsurprising that people imagine that those on benefits are "luckier" as their incomes grow with each child.

Structurally, it is true that this is a kind of "inequality" (that is, if you are in a certain frame of mind, you might feel that, as someone who earns a living, it is not fair that some people see their incomes increase with more children, while yours remains the same).

Now, this is obviously to ignore the fact that - for the overwhelming majority of claimants - life on benefits is very hard, and having children does not make it easier.

But, what this argument misses is the fact that - OBVIOUSLY - the state does not believe that the money it gives to benefit claimants is enough for people to live on if they have children/a family; so when they have a child, it hands out a little more, then another and a little more, and so on. It is a way of adjusting the barely-able-to-afford-to-live line. So for that reason, OP, YABU.

I agree with baggedandtagged as well, if that is what you really meant OP.

I don't believe that there can be sanctions such as these as children would live in more poverty stricken situations than they do in the UK already.

I think it is great that the benefits system exists in this country for poeple in times of need to help cope with the unexpected twists and turns that life throws at us, such as unemployment, death and marriage break ups. I have no problem at all with contributing to people in those circumstances and am lucky that at the moment I don't need to draw from that social fund, but who knows? One day I may have to.

What I do object to is fit and healthy people seeing living on benefits as an "option" and continung to produce children while obviously having no intention of looking for work.. That pisses me off a lot and I think that the government do need to clamp down on this somehow.

Whether its PC to say or not - we have all seen people (they often seem to pop up on these "real life" documentaries ) at school etc who just continue to have kid after kid after kid whilst living on benefits, whether its lack of ambition, lack of any idea as to what else to do with their life or it is a means to more benefits who knows but the sad thing is is they then continue the cycle for their kids because its the kids who suffer - as the poeple I am talking about are not the "mother earth" types and often speak to their kids like they don't like them very much

Plan to have as many kids as you can afford to have.

Lots of people will be long term unemployed through no fault of their own. In this eco climate there are simply not enough jobs for all the people who need them. If people have been made unemployed because the govt has ballsed up and then squandered all the money on the -wankers- bankers, should this same govt also then tell these people that they can't make their own choices wrt size of family? Are poor people not to be allowed any choices because they've had the bloody cheek to be poor?

Slightly off topic, but I do think more effort should be made to track down parents who are working but not financially supporting their DCs. I don't see that as the tax payers responsibility

Message withdrawn

"if a couple on long-term benefits decide to have 3+ children" from what I can see this does not apply to your mother dilemma

I TOTALLY agree. If you already have more than two children and you circumstances change beyond your control (ie divorce, death, unemplyment) then fair enough.

But couples who are on long term benefits shouldn't have their benefits increased if they choose to have more than two children.

I have two children and would love to have three or four. But we simply cannot afford it.

I said the OP was thick, meaning the post and its content. But OK, I see it could have been misinterpreted.

I do think people who are unable to think about things from anyone else's point of view are a bit dim though. Or possibly just not trying. How hard is it to understand that other people are in different circumstances and live different lives with different pressures and different choices? Or that someone's circumstances might have changed?