AIBU to think people shouldnt be getting money for having children?

[normality]

i know it is is controversal but i dont understand why some people feel the entitlement to get money for having children and aibu to think it should stop?

I think that if people want children then they should have them but they should not feel they are entitled for some kind of monetary hand out for having them

I especially feel like getting money for being pregnant like the sure start grant, maternity grant, healthy start vouchers ect should not happen because if you cant afford to have a child why should the goverment pay you to do this? what about the people who do not have any children and choose not to or can not why should they miss out on multiple grants and vouchers when they are paying more and more taxes to support the people who choose to have children and then choose not to work?

• i have a dd and although i wanted a large family i could not afford to have more than one child so stopped but never claimed any grants ect because i did not want to be paid for being pregnant as it was my choice

@ TT!

I have nights like that, I find this helps!

I do think that these days ALL of us need to think about how many children we have and how we will support them til adulthood. It's no use relying on a present benefit being in place as these things change. Access to schools and higher education gets more and more challenging. Housing is expensive.

Probably it is irresponsible of anyone to have a huge family these days unless you can guarantee to be always self-supporting. The system was set up to help people who find themselves in difficult circumstances and it NEEDS to be able to do that. Some families need MUCH more help from the state than they presently get.

Interesting tangent this thread has gone down...

Does anyone seriously believe that the children of the rich are genetically more intelligent/capable/harder-working than the children of the poor?

Because if the answer is no, the next logical question is why are the children of the rich so much more successful than the children of the poor?

The answer is opportunity and the right contacts. Many of which are simply there automatically if you are fortunate enough to be born into the right circumstances. A study out recently showed that Oxbridge graduates who came from poorer backgrounds did significantly less well after graduation than their better off peers, despite mostly outperforming them in terms of results. The reason for this was put down to having fewer social networks.

Knowing that, I'm more inclined to ask "how can we direct money to make children from all backgrounds have greater equality of opportunity?"

I do NOT want benefits to be cut because it penalises people who can't help their situation. Those who have fallen on hard times will hurt even more. Those whose sum ambition is to play the system and live off benefits? Well I feel that if that is really all they are aiming for then they can have it - because no one with an ounce of self-respect would ever want to live a life of barely disguised poverty dependent on other people's handouts and people looking down their noses at the 'scroungers'. I pity these people rather than feel anger towards them and I believe that they are a minority, not a majority. Far more goes unclaimed in benefits than is lost through fraud or fecklessness.

However, generous benefits don't help much other than through alleviating poverty. They don't make a more equal society. Many children will still be living a life devoid of aspiration and opportunity because their parents either cannot afford to buy those opportunities or lack the education/skills to give their children aspiration. What we need is something to tackle this.

Better services for pre-schoolers, more money ploughed into education to give children from all backgrounds a much better chance and, most importantly, the opportunity to do all the extra-curricular activities (e.g. day trips, music, sports) that the children of the better off take for granted and which the children of the less well off hardly ever take up because it costs too much. It is these sorts of activities that often lead to future networking opportunities.

People will always look after their 'own'. It's stupid to try to change human nature and create a communist utopia because it won't ever work. However, there is a LOT that can be done to encourage social mobility so that people mix more and we lose an elite that is passed down generation after generation because of genes, not ability. Unfortunately, cutting sure start services and school budgets seems to be doing the exact opposite...

I think the people here who are saying that "accidents happen" or "we have a responsibility as a society to..." are totally right...but what about when people who survive off benefits have a second or third child?

And when people use the ironic argument "what do you suggest we do, sterilise these people?" it annoys me because they are basically antagonising a system that is helping them. Of course a society shouldn't condone that....but the people that are in these positions shouldn't get all righteous in defence, they should start to man up to their situation and take responsibility for their ovaries. If you can't afford kids then try to keep your dicks in your pants. There's an economic problem in the world at the moment...it means that benefits will get cut and cut and cut. It means that the tax payers money is getting spread thinner and thinner and thinner.

It's a really sad situation.

If people make a bob or three it shouldn't mean they should not empathise with those around them. I was about to say stop empathising but some have never started. I do know, however, that my ability to empathise has increased as I have got older, have become more experienced and have seen more of the world.. Oddly enough, I have got richer as I have got older so the correlation between wealth and empathy doesn't quite work

What DOES make me cross is threads you see here from time to time.."I really WANT another baby but we can't really afford it" followed by loads of posts encouraging the checking of entitledto.com and saying how ickle babies don't cost much really. This is invariably juxtaposed with a thread from mother with 3 children who desperately wants to work, but can't find afford childcare, or who has just worked out that jobs in school hours are likes hens teeth.

The world has CHANGED!

i am not convinced about the comment of how the children miss out on trips and music. Often they are entitled to reduced rates and subsidies if the parents are on benefits. They may receive a free musical instrument. (I remember this when my dd started playing the flute)

i think it is often the people who have low incomes, work and do not qualify for benefits who lose out as they do not qualify for any subsidies and have to pay out for everything.

But I do think some of the points you make are food for thought :)

It is a basic human behaviour to want to have children.

More than 80% of people in the western world become parents, and the figure is higher elsewhere. The desire to have children is the driving force behind the survival of our species. That needs to be understood. There are always going to be some people who choose not to have children, but in all cultures across history and the modern world they are minority conspicuous for their difference to the vast majority.

Having a children is only a lifestyle choice in terms of when and how many. It is not a real choice in the same sense as having Chinese or Indian or deciding where to go for your holiday.

People are going to continue to have children. It is one of the few things that crosses social and economic boundaries. Therefore, if we want to have a better society, we need to work on one that accepts most people having children as a core tenet. What we need to change is what happens to those children so that they grow up to become productive members of society, rather than a drain on it. You can't determine that by the earning potential of the parents without going down a disturbing path that equates salary with worthiness.

One of the most economically productive and powerful element to many economies is arms production. IMO that says all we need to know about the idiocy of assuming something's value is directly related to how much money it generates. The same is true of people and their jobs.

alemci - as I have recently found out, the subsidy for trips extend only to the low-cost type day trips, not the more residential trips that often do more to broaden horizons and encourage friendships (among those who can afford to go). Likewise, free musical instruments only extend to a set timescale. After that the child has to give up or pay.

I agree 100% with you though about the working poor or even the squeezed middle (so many soundbites, so little time ). I would lump this group largely in with benefit claimants in terms of affording to buy opportunities. However, aspiration can sometimes be higher in this group.

There are charities that will help pay for school uniform/trips etc if the parents can't afford them. One paid for me to go on the school German exchange trip as a teenager, and my MIL used the same one a couple of years back to help buy school uniform for youngest SIL.

There would be very few people who could produce statistics to show that the children of the very poor perhaps those who are on benefits into the 3rd generation are likely to produce children who will be as productive as those mumsnetters who are from families in work.

We do as a nation want the children of the middle classes and rich to have babies when we are short of people (although I am pro immigration so have no problems if instead we import labour) rather than the children of those who never work.

we have a terrible record in breaking cycles of poverty in the UK so by all means let the poor have 1 or 2 children (and 15 if they like as long as they support those over number 2) but let's remove the distortino and unfairness. We have families in London who move to Luton to have chidlren and commute in as they cannot afford to lvie in Chelsea and yet the poor are allowed to live tehre at the expense of the full time workers coming in from Luton because they cannot afford to live near work. Those distortions where the workers are worse off than those who don't work and the families who would love 3 children but cannot afford it whilst the poor can etc are the distortions we need to eliminate.

I have never said by the way that the rich have children who are clever. In fact two clever people having children result in a slightly less bright child.

(I never said I earned £100k).

sick

INeed - how do you know about these things though? Because round here most people who could benefit from these sorts of things don't know, and they're not advertised or anything... Many parents are too proud to go cap in hand and ask, especially if they've already had help for something else. That's why I think it's better to give the money directly to the school and make it free. Paid for with higher taxation. Even though we'd all be paying more tax, it would still be less than what we'd all have to pay to cover everything that the new tax would be providing. Same is true of childcare.

Xenia - what do you think would happen if your model was adopted?

I think we'd have a very closed society, much akin to the traditional Indian caste system, where there was virtually no social mobility.

sunshine I know because, as I said, my Mum used them for me to go on a school trip. I don't know how she knew about them though. And they were a charity, so funded by donations, not the taxpayer. I agree, many parents probably are too proud to ask for the handout, but, luckily for me, my Mum put her pride away, and asked so I could benefit from the trip.

I love the way Xenia comes up with things as fact.
*Two clever people ahving children result in a slightly less bright child(
What complete and utter rubbish. It is scientifically impossible for a child, under normal circumstances (eg. Special Needs) to have a child with a lower intellect than the parents. Obviously not combined.
As for the middle classes having children, piss off Xenia. I have pointed out that we are educated to an extremely high level. My ds2 wants to be a doctor.
DD1 a Lecturer and dd2 a vet. You are aware that I don't work, you are aware that I look after my disabled husband, and yet, you continue to insult whilst still being in denial regarding both tone and content of your posts.

for parents to have a child
Sorry, tired and off for an hours kip.

And what is wrong with the working class having children?

Moomin - I think the point is it is not a problem for the working class, but rather the non-working class. Unlless you are Xenia, whereby children are only worthwhile if you/they earn at least 100k and aren't thick..or disabled,

They're all feral, moomin. And they're ugly and clutter up the streets.

The rich peoples children might have to mix with the poor peoples children

much better to only have rich peoples children

BUt hand on US, who will richkids mummy and daddy pay to wipe richkids arse? Because mummy and daddy will be too busy being rich and successful to do it themselves, so they must employ someone from the lower orders to do it, but there wont be anybody they can employ. So society will collapse because Johnny Richkid has no one to wipe his precious, intelligent, high earning diamond encrusted bottom!

But on the the other hand.... bedtime I think!

They could keep poor people as pets

Like "Planet of the Apes" you mean! I can imagine a certain person would be thrilled to have her own "poor zoo" :o