Having a baby to get a council house

[Tryingtobenice]

I've always thought this was nonesense and the sort of thing spouted by men of a certain age and type but since becoming a mum I've realised what utter utter bollocks it is.

Having a baby is so much harder work than work. Certainly than sitting on your arse in an office (like me) and even standing for hours on end in a shop or behind a bar (always found this much harder than office work!).

It makes me feel real contempt for anyone trotting out the line that girls have babies to get a house. Especially if they have a child themselves.

Also gives me new found respect for the teen mums I know. I may not respect their lacklustre approach to contraception ( this comment is person specific, I know genuine accidents happen all too easily) but boy do I respect the way they've handled the result. I'm too selfish to parent well in my thirties, at 15 I would have been a disaster.

Given that so many people have done the newborn baby thing how on earth can such prejudice survive? Teen mums (and dads) need awards not vilification.

Oh, goodness.

Well if I told you that ex-p used to say, let's have six children, we'll get a massive house for free, it might alter your perception a bit.

He was such a wanker.

I think women who have had children probably would not be so flippant about it though - and it is nice to see a thread that doesn't seek to villify people on benefit.

I agree with you on some points but think you're bending over backwards a little too far in your support and encouragement.

I don't agree that teenage parents need 'awards'

...and not all teen parents are good parents.

NB please note, EX-p. I thought he was joking at the time, but he wasn't.

It doesn't happen anymore either, I know a young girl who was in a bnb but ended up living with a family friend as one room is no life for her or her dd.

I had my son just before I was 19, and your right it is bloody hard work, the council list was different then and me and dp were offered a house, but it was made very clear it was because he was in long term employment and we'd been registered living together at my mums (council house also) since way before I fell pregnant.

I have met people who've thought a baby will get them a house, or another means a bigger one. It does not. But that's not saved for teen parents at all, We had our dd and chose to leave for a private rent to have a 3 bedroom house.

Op I just have to say its very nice to read your post, all too often there is a harsh judgement of young Mums, rarely on mumsnet I must say, but in general. For example my midiwfe looking shocked and saying "really, REALLY" when she discovered me and dp were happily together and parents of both our children and the one were expecting, she then said "actual biological parents" um yes.

I know a woman who had another baby to get a bigger house

I don't think you can cite the toughness of motherhood as the reason why people wouldn't get pregnant to get up the housing list for the simple reason you generally don't realise how tough it's going to be until it's actually happening.

Maybe awards is a bit much but society should be quicker with praise and recognition when kids who have kids make a real effort and are brilliant parents. Of course not all teen mums are great but then not all mums are great. I have plenty of money and acres of support and still wouldn't claim to be doing all that bang up a job!

Why did you used to think it was the sort of thing spouted by men of a certain age and type?

Many different men and women think that some people have babies to get them up the housing ladder faster.

IME, some of them do and some don't.

It will work in some LA's and in others it won't due to lack of properties.

Teen parents need 'awards' no more/less than any other aged parent imo.

If having more kids means u automatically get a bigger house we should have been living in a mansion when i was growing up. And not the 8 people, three bed house situation that we did have.

I was a teenage mum but i didnt get pregnant to get a house. I fell pregnant coz i was a fool. And also having a child is not an easy job.

People do have children to alter their housing situation. Sometimes this is purely to play the system, more often it's out of desperation as their current living arrangements are unsuitable.

There are good and bad parents of all ages and teen parents do get loads of stick which is very unfair.

I think parenting is hard because you so desperately want to get it right. Sadly some people (of all ages) don't really give a shit whether they get it right or not and therefore happily have lots of children without finding it hard.

I'd still rather not see anyone under the age of 18 become a parent and NOT getting pregnant is very very easy.

I used to live on a council estate in a one bedroom flat. I had neighbours living in the 2 bedrooms flats who were already overcrowded and had been waiting years for a larger property who had another baby as they thought it would mean they'd get moved quicker. What they failed to realise despite it being explained by the council and many of our other neighbours was the reason they hadn't been moved already was because the council had no suitable properties for them and having another baby wasn't going to change that.

DP and I moved out 7 years ago, they were still there last I heard of them 5 years ago.

Worra, I think my prejudice about the kind of person who says it was founded on experience, albeit limited. My dad and many of his mates are torygraph readers and this is where I heard the line most often. I bet Eric Pickles believes it completely.

Are we talking about young parents... Both together?

It is usually about feckless women who have babies to get council houses. No mention of the men who beget these children or who move into said houses.

I had lunch with a former pupil the other day. Incredibly talented and bright but not academic. She is one of eight children from a non-working family and is living at home in her mid-twenties. We were talking about housing and she told me that every one of her brothers has gone down that route in order to have an affordable place to live.

Some are good fathers to step-children and some have moved on from their original families without a backward glance but not one of them had the opportunity to get a job which enabled them to buy a house unlike my father who bought a house in 1965 as a semi-literate unskilled worker at twice his yearly salary.

I am old enough to remember the demonisation of single mothers in the eighties under the Tories. It is coming back.

I agree with what pygsney said ie. "I don't think you can cite the toughness of motherhood as the reason why people wouldn't get pregnant to get up the housing list for the simple reason you generally don't realise how tough it's going to be until it's actually happening. "

Unfortunately, though OP, you have no idea what the reality of having a baby is until it is actually there.

You yourself have said you only realised since having a child just what it entails.

So just because you think it would be harder to have a baby than to work doesn't mean that no one has ever made that decision!

Not all teen parents are good parents. Just as not all 20 something parents are good parents. Just as not all 30 something parents are good parents...

My DH's mother was a teenage mum. If he were born today SS would be involved.

A woman I know was a teenage mum (at the same age as DH's mum) and she'd grown up in care. I don't agree with all of her parenting choices but she is a fantastic mother and a brilliant role model to him. And I really admire her.

The problem is that a lot of intentional teenage mums become so not for the council house per se, but for the whole package of being a family and having a home. A lot of them cite wanting "to be loved" as the reason and, as we all know, babies take a lot more than they give.

Oh and when DS was 1, we were 'given' a 2 bed HA flat. There was a couple in there who had 2 children in their 2 bed flat and when they had their 3rd told me it was because then the council would have to rehouse them into a house because they were overcrowded and they'd requested a transfer to Somerset because their children deserved to grow up by the seaside! Believe me or not, I know it's true because it wasn't hearsay, he told me.

Actually it sounds a little bit like you're trying so hard to be nice that your rose tinted spectacles might need a bit of a wipe!

Being a sahm teenager or otherwise is hard, no1 can deny that - however I have been a sahm and I find it much harder to do what I do now which is work 35+ hours a week (i know this is not as much as some) plus look after the house, do the food shop, cook all the meals, look after DS, spend time with DH and have some kind of life of my own.

I remember being 19 & hearing a girl of aged 15 or so sat behind me on a bus saying to her mates 'well thats ok I'm just gonna have a baby as soon as i leave school and then i will get my own house for nuffin & wont even need to work'. Oh how pleasant that this girl had such ambitions!

I was a relatively young mum at 22, married (not that it matters) and I do look young for my age but I used to HATE the looks and the questions I got from midwives on my check ups. I didn't turn up in a track suit with my stomach hanging out & a fag in my hand. I am well turned out (i think) and well spoken and obviously took extremely good care of myself in pregnancy just to have some snotty woman ask me 'are you and the father together then, did you choose to get pregnant or was it an accident' etc.

I'm 26 now and I still get looks in town when walking with DS.

Grrrr

nancy66 it's not always possible to stop pregnancy. I was 17yo when I got pregnant and had dd, I was on the pill and using condoms. I was above the legal age of consent, but without abstinence there is no way of guaranteeing not to get pregnant.

I don't think as a teenage parent I deserved a medal. But I worked as hard at bringing up my children as any other parent I know (more so than a few) so I would just like people to stop the rubbishing of 'teenage parents'.

Thankfully 8 years on I have a beautiful dd, a hansom ds who are both doing well at school, polite and well rounded. I know a few stories where things haven't gone quite so smoothly (a cousin of mine being one who has just had her 3rd child taken by social services as she doesn't have the appropriate skills to parent her children. This is not because she was young, just the way she is.)

I agree with the thing about wanting a family. I strongly suspect at least 2 of the teen mums i know of getting pregnant to hang onto their boyfriends.

I'm surprised so many replies seem to say that it's not a misconception about people having kids to move up the housing ladder.

I still don't believe it can be the norm though. Surely these are the stand out surprise cases, a bit like the daily mail features on people on DLA running marathons? (exagerating for effect but you know what i'm on about)

I don't know how common it is.

But it's naive to suggest it doesn't happen. As much as anything, teenagers aren't exactly known for their wisdom and good choices at the best of times.

My MIL didn't get pregnant because she wanted to get a council house (although that is what happened!) and she didn't get pregnant because she wanted a family.

She got pregnant because she is irresponsible and doesn't ever consider the consequences of her actions. She doesn't see why she shouldn't do something if she wants too and she drinks too much. I know that because she's no different now!

I think that when you've spoken to people who've admitted it, or you've done it yourself, then (whilst you might not apply the same model to everyone in that position) you can't say you don't believe it ever happens.

Oh but my ILs did have their second child to get rehoused from their 2 bed maisonette to a 3 bed house.

And I know that's true too because they still live in the house (bought it on rtb) and DH remembers the maisonette. But that was in the days before the council had sold off council properties and there were more to go around.

I wouldn't much fancy anyone's chances these days, but that doesn't mean people won't hear stories about how someone else did it 20 years ago and got a house and then give it a go.

My dsd got pregnant at 16 and had a baby to get a council house. She was very articulate about her purposes. This was only 2 years ago.