If you can't afford children you shouldn't have them.

[MrsArchieTheInventor]

"If you can't afford children you shouldn't have them" [and] "child benefit and tax credits should be abolished" with the mantra that if she choses to be childless she should not be forced to pay for the 'breeding' choices of others.

A Facebook friend of mine. I didn't retaliate.

Yeah, we get free contraception.

Course nobody gets pregnant whilst using condoms or are on the pill do they?
Course not!

The implication is that people only get pregnant to get state benefits. That's just tying in with what the Daily Hate tells you. Those people are in a MINORITY.

Yes, they really are.

Making sweeping statements about not having kids unless you can afford to do so just shows complete ignorance and narrow-mindedness.

"There's no way to tell the difference, which is why i think people who conceive while on benefits should only be limited to help for the first child"

But, it's not the susequent children's fault is it? They didn't ask to be born () and then fed with actual food.

Since contraception is available I think it is a valid point BUT it starts to unravel once you have children you can afford & then life gets in the way (in my case divorce)

Much as I love children I don't think I could knowingly have them say, if I lived in an area contaminated by nuclear waste & was unable to move or if I knew I would be passing some inherent gene defect down.

Whatmeworry - would you like to ask everyone who has kids if they made a conscious decision to do so?
Would you like me to say that those who conciously decide to have kids whislt on benefits should be fined or forced to have an abortion?

Because those who are making such a statement should explain how exactly that would be carried out. How would you stop people who are on benefits, from having children. Please do enlighten me.

Surely if everyone who could not afford to have children didn't have children there would not be many people in the world? What a silly thing to say .

Everyone should have the right to be a mother or father.

This is such a strange argument. Everyone was a child once, and therefore their mother received cb for them, so everyone gets the same. Besides which, unless she's on quite a high salary, her tax would just be more or less covering the amount of spending she'd be benefiting from, iyswim, so she wouldn't be paying for our 'breeding choices' anyway.

Outraged - exactly! DS was conceived when I had the coil in situ. I don't think I could have done anything else to prevent conception, and though it was a surprise for DH and me we both embraced it as something that was meant to be.

I'm not sure what my FB friend thinks I 'earn' above her in terms of state benefits other than child benefit, which goes on DD's childcare fees. That's it. I daren't claim tax credits and it's not like we roll in luxury. We live in an ex-council house, drive an 8 year old Ford Mondeo, own one television (a cathode ray tube bought in 2005 and sometimes we need to hit it to make it work!), we've just upgraded from Freeview to Freesat as a wedding present - I can't honestly think of anything I do that would imply that we are better off as a 'breeding' family of four as opposed to a single woman. We just live and get by.

Well it appears Rhubarb, that what will happen is that those on benefits who get pregnant get to keep their CB and benefits related to that first child, but once the second one comes along they don't get CB for that one, or any increase in benefits.

So both children will suffer. Which is nice and fair.

It is a silly statement.

But OP, you should have told her so on FB

Talk of fines and abortions is just silly.

Condoms and pills are 98-99% effective, or something like that, so people could take personal responsibility for whether they conceive or not if they wanted too. I think we would find that people would have far fewer 'accidents' if they knew they would get nothing more than a few pounds extra in CB and no more.

So- nobody in a third world country should have children?

Or is this UK only?

"There's no way to tell the difference, which is why i think people who conceive while on benefits should only be limited to help for the first child. Harsh, but it might make people think more about their choices. We get free contraception in this country."

Echoing Shirley, what happens to the subsequent children conceived by people on benefits? What if their parents don't work? What happens then?

But you're punishing the children. Can you please respond to that point?

What makes posters here think that these children will grow up, earn lots of money and pay lots of taxes thus making up for all the benefits thrown their parents way?

The State should assist you for your first two but if you want to have more then you shouldn't really expect the society to fund you.

Now that would have been far too sensible Franca

Franca - there have been many a time when I've though 'you're a crazy cat lady who is afraid of interpersonal relationships' and therefore been tempted to befriend her, but then she goes and posts a string of threads (or whatever you call them) that are evocative to say the least. She's very intelligent, she just comes across as anti-relationship, anti-child (or breeding as she would put it) sometimes. When I read the 'Things You Only Know If You're Single' column in the Saturday Times I think of her and try and appreciate where she's coming from.

Outraged - really? What a load of tosh!

I didn't realise there were this many fascist Tory loving lunatics on Mumsnet.

"nobody in a third world country should have children?"

I might be wrong :o but I don't think they have child benefit payments in the third world. That is why its called the third world.

Sensible reactions to nonsense on facebook do not make a decent aibu thread

I wonder sometimes where the "anti breeders" think they came from.

Just so that I can get this clear in my head.

How would you enforce a policy that people who cannot afford children should not have them?

What would the distinctions be?

If child benefit is to be limited for subsequent children born to people on benefits how would you deal with high earning families on child benefit?

Would this also extend to disabled parents on benefits?

I'm not punishing children, the people who conceived them without having the means to support them are punishing them.

Of course, we would still be left with children who need to be supported, but there woudo be far less of them, which would leave enough money in the pot enable the first child to be supported better than they currently are. So if another accident does happen, parents would just have to share out the decent amount of support they could get between two children instead of one. Difficult but doable.

It's got to be better than just giving out endless amounts of money so parents never have to take any financial responsibility for the children they create.

Poosh- no shit. Yet many in the third world are too poor to afford to care for their children. Are they exempt from this rule? Or is their situation ok, because they don't have benefits and rely on charity and aid?

How would you enforce a policy that people who cannot afford children should not have them?

I doubt anyone would call for this to be policy. It's more an opinion on what people should choose to do rather than what people should be forced to do.

Also, this whole only having children for the increase in benefits schtick is just bollocks.

A whole £13.20 more per week in CB. I'm just chasing down how much extra you get per week per child.

Outraged- what if the parents went on to have third child? And a fourth? What would happen to them?

And what's the point of giving more money to the first child? I thought your proposal was supposed to save money?