To think if most people waited until they were earning enough to not be entitled for any government benefits before they had children there'd be hardly any kids in the UK?

[LaWeaselMys]

MIL had an argument with DP last night as she does not want us to have any more children until we are not eligible for any government help and are 'paying for them ourselves' To not AIBU by stealth - After a choppy period we are earning and from next tax year will be entitled to very little bar CB and a small amount of TC.

Tax credits is a bit more complicated to work out, but to not be eligible for Child Benefit you (or your partner if there's two of you) would need to be earning more than £44k pa. That's twice the national average wage!

AIBU to think that by the time most women and/or their partner earn more than 44k - if it ever happens, they would be infertile?

Child benefit used to be(until this govt) a universal benefit and not linked to salary, so unless your DP was born before 1946 your MIL will undoubtably have recieved it and is therefore being a bit hypocritical.

ooh many x posts

'Riven, do you think one of the differences is what people think they "need"? When we were first married, we had enough to pay our bills and claimed no benefits, but we ran one old car, had no TV or proper cooker for the first year and no holiday or social life for several years. It seems to me that if many people who say they cant afford a family were prepared to live like that, then they could afford one.'

Oh, here we go again!

It's because people want too much and expect too much and blow money on frivolities!

Of course.

If only everyone lived in a shed and survived on air and sunlight they'd be able to afford it.

Maybe those people don't really want to have kids, create, and want to get your smug self off their back so they just tell you they can't afford it.

create - we have lived on a low income (but not as I say much in the way of 'benefits' since we had DD) we didn't have a car for most of it, we don't go on holiday, for a long time we had very little furniture.

DD was unexpected, and I would not have chosen that that was how we started our family, however I would be okay having another DC now when we can afford one car and a properly furnished house - still no holidays! But that is a perfectly good lifestyle to me, and as time goes on maybe we'll earn more and there will be holidays too. We will get £17 a week TC - now, I'm not going to say no to that, it's useful money, but it is hardly the government paying the child is it!

I am also going to remember that little (but extremely handy) fact about CB for future arguments reference. Should 'this is none of your business' not cover it!

I don't get all those Nazis who want to dictate who has children and who doesn't. They must be very unhappy and bitter.

Oh and if you do that (make money and buy house first) then when you are pregnant at 40 some people will say 'hmm is this fair for the baby? You will be 45 when the child goes to school, you will be 58 when he/she goes to university, you will be...'

Trust me, i 've done it this way and i've heard all this.

Don't worry, do what you think is the best in your situation.

expat - that was my point really! If you want to afford it you can. If you're not really that bothered then it's an excuse, should you feel you need it.

I can absoulteky guarantee you that I have never in my life started a conversation about whether I, or anyone else, can afford anything. I might respond if asked an opinion, but basically think that financial circumstances are no-one else's business, unless someone has demonstrated a desire to talk about them, which I belive is what happened here.

sorry dont normally comment but loved the
"sexual and reproductive" comment

could imagine my mils face if i said that haha

hope you get it sorted

junkcollector: not necessarily. My parents never claimed family allowance because they didn't need it and thought it would be better going to be people who did need it - back into the pot so to speak. We have taken the same decision with child benefit, although we would not be eligible for it from 2013 in any case.

The idea that people should be well off before having kids is essentially fascist imo.

I'm 26 and my husband is 27. We waited until we had both finished uni and got jobs (his paying around three times my salary, so I personally am skint but we have a good joint income), bought a house and were married before TTC. We had a small wedding that we could afford to fund ourselves and chose to live in a flat with low CT in an area that certainly wouldn't be our first choice in order to afford to do this, while still putting away a little (in my case £20 a month) for a few years to give a small lump sum to spend on baby things like pram and cot. Our son is due in May and we wont be eligable for anything, including CB, because of hubby's income, despite me earning very little even for full time work. My husband lived apart from me down in London (I'm in Scotland) for over a year in order to move quicker up the ladder and get a better job, so we have had to make sacrifices to achieve the steady financial footing we are now on. I would have loved to have a family younger and probably could have afforded it a few years ago with TC etc but we chose to wait until we were able to 'pay for them ourselves'. YABU to think that it is not possible - we've managed to do just that.

I don't see anything wrong with claiming CB or TC. These things, I believe, are to offset the high tax we pay in this country. But I don't like the idea that people choose to have two or three more children while living on jobseekers - with rent and CT paid, heating allowance, free school meals, free milk, etc - knowing they will not even be looking for work. And I don't like that the system allows this, although I have no solution as it's the kids who would suffer if the government put caps on the amount paid and that's not fair.

Laquitar - play the ball and not the man. Labelling people Nazis is (a) childish and (b) a clear case of Godwin's Law!!

OP's MIL is NBU - people should pay their own way in life and desist from having children until they can pay for them themselves.

Our country's decadent way of paying precisely the very people who should not be encouraged to reproduce to do so at others' expense is lunacy.

tell her it's none of her business, and YA definately NBU, and would have a polite chat with my DH about not dicussing our financial situation, good or otherwise with his mother.

In general terms, also YANBU, but people will inevitably listen to and belive horror stories in the Fail too much and think that anyone getting HB lives in a mansion, CB is a £1000 a week to spend on booze and manicures if you don't work and that CTC will pay all your nursery fees while you are abandoning your children a WOHM, because it lets them feel smug

I agree with electra, to me is seem the idea is esentially saying that unless you are in the x to % of earners you should be sterilised

'Our country's decadent way of paying precisely the very people who should not be encouraged to reproduce to do so at others' expense is lunacy.'

Sounds very eugenic.

Charming.

Again, tell MIL you'd be well able to afford more children if you weren't paying her state pension for years on end and her Winter Fuel Allowance.

I just can't understand someone deliberately putting themself into a position they know will lead to having to obtain handouts. Surely benefits are for people that fall on hard times, not a deliberate choice?

to be not entitled to child benefit or child tax credits, one of you needs to be a high rate tax payer and you need a household income of coming up to 75 thousand pounds

going by the household income statistics for 2009 - that means that 2/3 of families shouldn't be having kids

I'm all for if you're planing children make sure you can afford them, but that seems a bit excessive, rofl

@ the idiotic post of Pascoe28

tabulahrasa - I thought the new government was taking child benefit away at £44k? That is for a single earner so doesn't matter if the other parent is working or not. Yet if two people earn £43k each (£86k joint income) they'd still get CB.
Or do you still get child tax credits even if you earn £44k a year? We'll be earning nowhere near £75k as household income so maybe I spoke to soon and we would qualify for some sort of benefit. Wouldn't claim it though as we've made provisions to be able to afford the new baby.

I am shocked that words like facist and Nazi are being used about people who think that you should be able to afford children if you have them.

Truly shocked.

Is it really such a bad idea to be able to afford children before you bring them into this world? People fall on bad times and the state should be there to help them, but to knowingly have a child when you will have to survive on benefit is just lazy and selfish.

Hammy, most women who get pregnant are entitled to a hand out - it is called maternity pay.

I would much rather people use the tax credits system to have children when they are young, than wait until it is too late. They can pay back into the system later when their kids are older and the parent's careers have progressed. Many women also want to stay at home with their young kids for a few years or work part time. It is often (but not always) very difficult to get back into a full time role at the same level if you take time out mid-career. It makes far more sense in terms of women's income (and as a consequence the tax they go on to pay) if they have kids at the beginning of their career or while training.

I waited until I could afford to have my children. Seemed sensible to me.

A factor impoverishing many women is that they can't afford to work after having children because they can't afford the childcare.

yes that's how child benefit will be working - it's the tax credits that go up to about 75 thousand, that's combined income and it reduces in increments after about 45 thousand

I'm not quite sure why you get tax credits up to that amount, but if you use being entitled to it to base being able to afford children - then that's how much you'd need to be earning, lol