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

and what about all those old people, claiming pensions? as though somebody owed them a living. and don't get me started on providing health-care for sick people, useless shirking feckers....

children are an investment which, in large part, society recoups.

I know this is a wind up but....
What do you think will happen to the children if there is no system in place to support them? Have them living on the streets or The workhouse perhaps - they wont live that long anyway.

Oh dear...

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Let those who are badly off go there.

Many cannot go there, sir, and many would rather die.

Well then let them do it, and decrease the surplus population!"

Izzat you, Ebenezer? :)

Rocky12 I have 2 children. Council rented. 13 years in one tiny bedroom. Don't believe the DailyMail and the rest of the media. They ferret THOUROUGHLY for those stories in order to whip people with little ability to think for themselves into a hate filled frenzy towards people on benefits.

The population has reached 7 billion people and if the system was reworked so that there was less monetary incentive to have children people may think harder about having children and if they can actually afford to have them

Also parents often complain about so and so benefit or grant being taken away and then say it has made them rethink having a child or having another child it is a good thing in my opinion as if that benefit is the reason they rethink having a child then they should not be having children in the first place

The child trust fund was a perfect example of parents being rewarded by having children and in turn children being paid for having been born

Oh yes I planned for my husband to leave me for a family friend and promptly loose his full time job and leave me with an 11 month old and 2.4 yr old, penniless and still 2 years on barely support me.

It wasn't about entitlement it was the difference between feeding my children or not with the financial state he left me in It's still a struggle to put food on the table, so thanks, as next time I hand over the healthy start vouchers to get veg and fruit into my children I'm going to be feeling even more paranoid about being judged.

Oh and if you really practice what you preach you need to give back all the child benefit not stick it in an account for your DD.

*BW wonders if she could sew DH's sperm tubes back together and move to Britain,throw out a gansy load of kids and live in a big house that the gov'mint give me.And then get a tummy tuck and boob job on the NHS.

I am not sure whether it is a rich/poor issue. People who are seen as 'poor' are not necessarily not having children. There is a safety net now that really wasnt there when I was growing up, I do think it allows some people to make a lifestyle choice which means that others are paying for their decisions.

I think that if you can not afford children you should wait until you can and if you unexpectedly fall pregnant there should be a system in place to help but it should not be continuous as some people rely on this and do not do anything to get themselves out of that place

What you're basically talking about makes sense, and it already happens in a good many countries around the world, where there isn't such a problem with the benefits system being abused to such an extent.

I was talking to a colleague last week who comes from an EU country where child poverty is targetted via the tax system, rather than as a point of need system.

I.e. instead of handing out childcare vouchers, tax credits, child benefit to parents as well as taxing them the same as any other working adult (which happens in the UK), they have a system whereby there is less emphasis on handouts but a huge tax break if you have children to support. Hey presto, you have a system where people have no real method of living on welfare long-term just because they have children (because they are not directly supported) but they do have a means by which each family is supported if there is a culture of working in the household by some means.

Clearly there are issues with the alternative system described above (e.g. what if someone genuinely can't find work for a long period of time and still has children to support?) but I think that balance of focusing on the elimination of child poverty only in cases where there is a work ethic (if able bodied, etc) is an interesting one.

It's the complete opposite of how we approach things in the UK, which is to say there is no natural "limit" to how many children a state-supported family has, because there is no natural tailoff to the income the family has... unlike working families.

I also found it interesting that there was such an outcry earlier this year (last year?) when the government pointed out this "no end in sight" situation (where there is no limit to how much in benefits a household can have) was unsustainable. I'm not a Tory voter, but I was surprised at the backlash.

I only have three children and we are skint. Will insist husband impregnates me at earliest opportunity to boost the coffers. Thanks Norm for the tip.

PUNCTUATION!!!!!

Thank you tooearly. Equally annoying is the use of more than 3 full-stops for an ellipsis. It is not 4, it is not 2, and it is most certainly not 8, 9, 10 or 11.

at "paid for having been born"

Bugger. There was me thinking DD had done pretty much nothing bar cost me since she appeared, the expensive little blighter.

OP I have zero kids and I still think YABU. Unless you pay your child benefit back, to encourage the others...

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Is your rl name Marie Stopes and if so, how are you still alive?

You readily take that child benefit op....... You are on benefits, you are taking taxpayers money

You are what you are complaining about!