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

Well I stopped working for my last employer ten years ago, and I saw then what madness the benefit setup entailed.

I'm not stupid - I have a degree, and lots of work experience in my field. I won't ever earn hundreds of thousands of pounds, but I wasn't on National Minimum Wage - far from it. Yet when DCs arrived, when I was working, we were much worse off; this was especially so with both of them being in childcare. With the costs of working (and, most importantly, the benefits we could not access because we ever over the earnings limits) it actually paid for me to quit working altogether.

How can anyone think that's a viable system, long-term? From the economic point of view, wouldn't it be better if I was working and contributing to the economy directly? I'm just thankful that I was in a sector where it was relatively painless to set up as a freelance, with minimum business costs, and part of an established professional network. Not every new mum is that lucky/fortunate.

That is the best example - because you had to have those benefits because of a situation that wasn't necessarily your fault.

Some posters on here would have seen you with virtually nothing or forced to work when you were ill.

Well it's very very sexist for women to criticise other women for returning to work at 2 weeks when men do. We will never rid this country of sexism until that anti woman type of atitude is stamped on. You wouldn't say it to a man. Why on earth is it harder for me to sit at a desk getting paid with people looiong after me than being at home with a 1 year old, 3 year old and new baby. How can anone suggest it is easier for stitches to heal? Weird.

Obviously if life at home means a nanny looking afrer the other 2 children and helping with the baby , a cleaner on hand and the alternative of work being 10 hours a day breaking stones then I might be a little more convinced.

Yeah, because someone who is a cleaner can afford a nanny?

Men don't give birth though! I had a caesarian, stiches and lochia to die for, plus strong pain killers. No new father is subject to that, no matter how good he is at night feeds. And MOST people cannot AFFORD a fecking nanny!

i am going back to work shortly after major surgery, why??

because sick pay is 81.40 a week and sustaining a house and family on that is nigh on impossible. heres hoping my health wont worse!

but its ok cause i couldnt afflict another child on the tax payers now!

Xenia, I am a great believer that it takes a village to raise a child etc. that GOOD childcare is fine, even for small babies, and that women need to earn a living. But you just strike me as SO selfish. You weren't going to starve/be made homeless if you took no maternity leave.

And it's hardly manual work that you do, Xenia.

No, it is sexist to suggest that it OK for men to go back to work after 2 weeks because they are men. And I dont believe that that should be the norm, which is why I support the "shared leave" thing.

I believe that having a baby to walk out of hospital and straight back into the office makes having a baby an accessory.

so tis not ok to criticise you xenia for going back to work after weeks, but its fine for you to criticise sahm parents which you do rather a lot on mn?!

and fwiw i dont care if another woman returns to work two weeks after having their baby, as long as they feel well enough and are happy with the childcare they have sorted thats fine, its not what i would/have chosen to do, but families need to do what works for them and there is no one size fits all, but you seem to think anyone that doesnt work, gives up/or puts their career on hold for a while is wrong, i dislike that attitude, women need to suppport each other and respect choices different to their own.

the world needs all different kind of people, yes we need an intelligent workforce for some jobs, but equally we need people to do other lower paid jobs, huge sections of the economy would grind to a halt if those people who do the lower paid job suddenly stopped doing so and they are just as entitled to have children and a reaonable standard of living as any other person is.

Well said 4mad!

Xenia how is it sexist and anti women to encourage women to return to work two weeks after having a baby. You know nothing of individual women's histories or their exact personal circumstances and are usually very dismissive of other people's points of view if they happen to be different from yours.

People are different. I had a very successful first career and married a man who has become very successful. When we had our first baby I didn't need to go back to work due principally to the fruits of my first career. I thoroughly enjoyed 8 years at home and then started a new and more altruistic career. I believe the entire family or partnership benefitted from me being at home when the dc were young. The family also benefits from the fact that I started a second, albeit more altruistic, career.

It's a great shame that you can't celebrate the fact that different things make different people tick and that people have all sorts of ups and downs to contend with that make life easier or more difficult and that it isn't appropriate to brag and to criticise others because although we can plan for changes in circumstance none of us can plan for what might hit us from left field.

I am a great believer in choice and responsibility and independence and consequences, but life has taught me that it has to be tempered with a little empathy and humility. I would find it very hard to survive on the average wage and certainly wouldn't want to have to manage on benefits but I am not going to criticise anyone who has to do that or declare that they are less worthy for doing so. One does not know why people are in that situation and certainly children shoudl never suffer.

I am conservative with a small and a capital c (some of you may have noticed) but I woudl never support "work fare" systems for people on benefits. If there is work available for work fare and it is work that needs doing then it is my considered opinion that it shoudl be turned into a proper, salaried job.

Xenia - none of the extra money you've made will ever buy back the the time you missed with your babies. Thanks for all the great advice you like to dish out, but I think I'll pass.

Success is not about how much money you make, I pity the people who think it is.

What 4Mad said.

How can a mother bond with her child and learn all about her child if she is back in her sharp suit and sat at a desk by the time baby is 2 weeks old?
That is a very selfish way to parent and not a very conducive way to a great mother/child bond.

I think itis different for dad most of that is due to traditions. But they haven't spent 9 moinths carrying a child and then a long hormonal labour. And some dads just don't want to be at home with a tiny newborn all day. Plus they don't have the required equipment to give a baby breastmilk

untill recently men only got two weeks paternity leave , women allways got more so it's hardly the same thing.

I am pretty gung ho professionally, but personally I think you need to arrange your life so you are back at work for at least a couple of months after childbirth. Even if you aren't entitled to much maternity pay you can take annual leave and so on.

aren't back at work

"Well it's very very sexist for women to criticise other women for returning to work at 2 weeks when men do. "

Oh come on. You were very very fortunate to be physically capable of returning to work after such a short time. To imply that every woman should do that is plain irresponsible.

What is very sexist is to imply that women should be the same as men. The most empowering thing for a woman is to recognise her unique qualities - that is the ability to grow and nurture another human being. Men can't do that and they feel inferior because of it, hence making such an effort to make women subservient in every other respect.

Well said, gaelicsheep! I had a pig of a time in late pregnancy, poly hydramnious, unstable lie, 2 weeks on the ante natal ward, planned cs, cancelled cs as dd decided to turn, 10 days at home, induction, long labour, emcs etc etc I was in a complete HAZE for weeks of painkillers and sheer panic.

I can remember week 2 of dh's paternity leave he went to the pub quiz one evening - he was regular participant and it was for a couple of hours. I was happy for him to go. I nearly went into meltdown with a screaming baby. I was a 35 yo professional woman, who bought her own house and managed everything. I could NOT cope on my own at that point. No way on earth could I have gone back to work.

Ditto Porto. I ended up with PND and was a complete emotional and physical wreck for months after having my second. A grown professional woman cowering in a corner and screaming at the top of her lungs, not once but many times.

No doubt we're just weak minded and not dedicated enough.

i am in the 'i go back to work as soon as physcially possible' camp, but friends have taken unpaid ML when it is meant putting grocery shopping on a cerdit card.

i think it is a personal choice & if anyone doesnt like my choices - they are welcome to disagree with them. however i wont be caring what they think.

back to benefits encouraging claimants to perceive themselves as ill: the placebo effect shows that belief is important in medical outcomes.

so a system which pays people more to be ill than well is likely to results in more people considering themselves unable to work.

And a system where there aren't enough jobs that don't drive people to the depths of depression and beyond is a system where more people will consider themselves unable to work.

If my only two options were working for next-to-nothing packing rubbish (nobody really needs) into boxes for 10+ hours a day, with 20 days holiday a year; or becoming ill I'm pretty certain I'd 'choose' the latter.

TheRealTillyMinto - the point is that "when physically possible" varies hugely from woman to woman, delivery to delivery, and is wholly unpredictable. So to imply, as Xenia often does - and maybe yourself as well, I've only skimmed the later posts - that you're behaving like a weak anti-feminist if you take more than a couple of weeks betrays a worrying lack of common sense. The fact that you juxtapose the going back to work comment with others about people being encouraged to feel ill suggests that you are not thinking things through properly.

FGS if growing and giving birth to another human being doesn't warrant a woman taking time out to properly recover what on earth does? She owes it to herself, but more importantly to her baby and her other children. As a mother taking risks with your health, physical and emotional, is foolhardy and selfish.