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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Benefit Bashing

823 replies

Kendodd · 18/02/2011 16:40

A mum I know and her DP with two children live in a two bed (nice) HA house. Neither of them work and have not worked for as long as I've known them (two years) I don't know about before then. She has told me they are trying for another baby, not to get a bigger house or anything, just because they want four children eventally. I would love four children but can't have that many because for one we just can't afford four.

AIBU to feel a bit pissed off that they can have more children and I can't or am I just a jealous benefit basher.

ps They are both nice and don't have a flatscreen TV.

OP posts:
ScramVonChubby · 18/02/2011 19:27

Kendodd you are right- there isn;t a way around it without harming the kids.

And the new rules were announced yesterday, come in starting from 2013. nobody will see a direct drop in tehir income but rates will not rise with inflation etc until the new levels have been reached.

I expect to start back at work in 2013 God willing (applying for PGCE next year, want to work in an SEN school, will already have MA in Autism) so will give us that lastt but oif breathing space to adjust. Scary long term for many though.

Original poster
Kendodd · 18/02/2011 19:29

BTW I don't know exactly what benefits they are on, their DD gets FSM so I know they're not just independently wealthy.

I should get off this thread it's just winding me up and making me not like them. As I said earlier I can completely understand longing for another child, maybe it's just tough that they can have one and I can't.

OP posts:
MillyR · 18/02/2011 19:36

KD, I do sympathise with you. Not being able to have as many children as you want is a truly horrible situation to be in. I kick myself all the time for not finding a way of having a third.

BooyFuckingHoo · 18/02/2011 19:38

again OP, you can have another child. you just prefer to have X amount of disposable income. if you had another child and couldn't afford to support it you wouldn't be left homeless and starving. you have made a choice not to have another. no one told you you cant do it.

gysela · 18/02/2011 19:49

I should get off this thread it's just winding me up and making me not like them.

Confused Am not sure what you were expecting to happen when you started the thread. Were you expecting to go away brimming with love for them? Or did you not get the benefit bashing you expected?

CityGirls · 18/02/2011 19:57

YANBU

Families in these circumstances in receipt of benefits to support their existing children should not contemplate adding to their family unless they can financially support them.

MarioandLuigi .......of course we should care/comment on what others are doing when it comes to claiming benefits. There are deserving people out there that need benefits who can't get them because others are ripping off the system. And, as a taxpayer with no children and not claiming any benefits whatsoever I have to right to say this!

BooyFuckingHoo · 18/02/2011 20:02

even if you weren't a taxpayer, did have children and were claiming benefits you would still have a right to say that citygirls. we all have rights, taxpayers or not. i don't understand why you said that. do you think those claiming benefits have no right to say anthing WRT it?

gordyslovesheep · 18/02/2011 20:04

prolly already been said but why don;t you make yourself jobless and homeless and then have as many babies as you like - because it's obviously such an ace way of life :)

StuckinTheMiddlewithYou · 18/02/2011 20:10

You say that you don't know the full circumstances.

My situation.

My DP does not work. He recieves benefits. People keep asking when he will get a job. I smile and say "soon".

In reality, he suffers from severe depression and anxiety. The people asking only see him when he has the strength to go out. When he doesn't, I deal with a grown man crying and shaking at thought of getting out of bed. I do not tell anyone as he would die of embrassment.

Never judge a household other than you own - you do not know what is really going on.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 18/02/2011 20:13

ShirleyKnot has said exactly what I think.

The 'benefits system' wasn't set up to prop up feckless parents. Society needs people to work, not just take money out of a pot because they can. I'm certain that when the system was designed it was to ensure that nobody in this country would starve; it was never anticipated that so many would abuse it as a life choice and decide to have even more kids whilst they were on benefits.

I've got every sympathy for those who find themselves in circumstances where they need benefits but there something pretty disingenuous about those who say that they 'struggle on benefits' yet decide they can afford to have more children, so obviously they can't afford it as children are expensive... which is it?

CityGirls · 18/02/2011 20:17

I don't think those claiming benefits for existing children have a right to claim further benefit for more children they bring into the world. They have a right to have them of course, but should be responsible for supporting them financially and not expect others to keep them.

MillyR · 18/02/2011 20:26

LWIW, I'm certain that when the system was designed, the jobs people were expected to do were things like growing food, building ships, sewing clothes, making furniture and looking after the elderly. There was a clear relationship between paid employment and the work society needed doing.

It is a lot harder to convince people that society needs them to go out of to work when 75% of our economic output is from the service sector (mainly financial). People find it hard to understand how working in a call centre or pushing bits of paper around in an office is of more use to society than bringing up a child, particularly when so much of the money made from banking goes into people's private finances and isn't paid back into any pot. There is now a bit of a mismatch between paid work and the jobs that need to be done, particularly as many of the jobs that do need to be done are being removed in the name of the Big Society.

If we were all stood around ploughing fields while one family sat and watched, I could see your point. But we're not, and it seems as if a lot of paid work has very little to do with the wellbeing of society.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 18/02/2011 20:33

MillyR... So, who decides who needs to work and who doesn't? I certainly don't agree that all of the people who are sitting at home having children are the best sort of parents. What are they teaching their children and just how big do they think the benefits pot is?

The UK has become a service sector because we all want to buy everything cheap, it's all from China and there's no need to have the industry in the UK... well there is but it's too late for that now.

It's not 'benefit bashing', it's justified annoyance at those selfish and lazy people who decide that they don't need to work when they could. Unfortunately, they think the world owes them a living and they don't consider that there's any type of stigma, believing they have the right to drain the system. Thank goodness that is going to change, it's the first government to do it in a long time.

StarlightPrincess · 18/02/2011 20:35

Thank goodness that is going to change, it's the first government to do it in a long time.

Here's to hoping!

usualsuspect · 18/02/2011 20:37

Yes OP it is benefit bashing ..the usual shite is being spouted

Ryoko · 18/02/2011 20:38

YABU altho I don't know what your point is really, you have one life live it, you want more kids have em.

if you can't afford em get state help, nothing to be ashamed about the state sucks anyway I look forward to the day the state falls and we are all free.

StarlightPrincess · 18/02/2011 20:39

Yes OP it is benefit bashing ..the usual shite is being spouted

Please, explain to me how this is benefit bashing.

To me, it seems like a justified moan at a lazy family who's only ambition in life is to breed and multiply.

StarlightPrincess · 18/02/2011 20:39

*whose

NoSuchThingAsSociety · 18/02/2011 20:41

As long as we pay people to have children, we will have this problem.

CB should be limited to the first child, second at most, as a precursor to abolishing it altogether.

BooyFuckingHoo · 18/02/2011 20:42

hat wasn't what i asked citygirls.

i asked if you thought those that were claiming benefits had no right to a say in relation to it?

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 18/02/2011 20:42

Ryoko... Free to do what, exactly? Get a job? Have more children who grow up as feckless and pointless as their parents?

... and who is going to pay your way then?

Baggypussy · 18/02/2011 20:42

YANBU. Myself & DP have 1 child, and thought carefully as to whether or not we could afford to have a child before we conceived. We will assess our finances etc again before we decide to have another or not. There is a tremendous sense of entitlement within our culture which in the long term has detrimental effects for our entire society.

BooyFuckingHoo · 18/02/2011 20:47

starlight, where does it say anywhere in the OP that the people in question are lazy?

and their only ambition to breed? isn't the man doing a college course? presumably to make him mor employable

we don't even know what this family's reasons for not working are. there could be a disabled child or parent and a carer. they could be actively seeking work.

all we know is that this family are in a HA house but yet in your eyes that is enough information to brand them as lazy. why?

does HA = lazy to you?

NoSuchThingAsSociety · 18/02/2011 20:50

BooyFuckingHoo - not lazy...just unable to raise children without state support and therefore f*cking irresponsible and wholly selfish.

BooyFuckingHoo · 18/02/2011 20:51

i was asking starlight why she has branded them as lazy.