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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be fed up of George sodding Osbourne and his Knobbish Ideas

999 replies

avivabeaver · 08/10/2012 11:04

The economy is proving harder to fix than he first thought

Solution- suggest cutting £10bn from the benefits budget and "limit the number of children people can claim for". So- are you supposed to choose your 2 favourite and just feed them then? Or what?

OP posts:
sleepingbunnies · 08/10/2012 21:21

I haven't read all the replies but I think it's a brilliant idea.

Someone at my daughters pre school has 8 children. She has never worked. Why the fuck am I supporting that?! I have 2 children and have worked since i was 16 - I saved to be able to to afford a years maternity with both my babies and I will have to think long and hard before I feel we can afford a third no matter how much I want one!

I will be going back full time to pay for and support my children why the hell shouldn't everyone do that?!

MiniTheMinx · 08/10/2012 21:22

He couldn't cope on his own and wasn't offered any support. He lost the flat and ended up on a friends floor. The system lets these young people down, he needed help to deal with bills and budgeting his finances, he was quite literally dumped in a flat in the middle of nowhere with under £60.00 to live on and told to spend nearly 2/3 of his money on train and bus fairs just so he could sign on and meet the ever increasing and dehumanising demands of the work placement agent and the job centre. If he didn't turn up he lost his money, which is what happened. He was a child, he needed support.

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 08/10/2012 21:24

FWIW, I believe you Flick. Some people will argue that black is white just for the sake of it.

gordyslovesheep · 08/10/2012 21:25

sleepingbunnies you should give up work and go on the dole then - have as many kids as you want - it will be lovely ...or maybe you realise that working means you have a much better life than she does - and maybe it's not her 8 kids fault so why punish them?

MiniTheMinx · 08/10/2012 21:26

"I will be going back full time to pay for and support my children why the hell shouldn't everyone do that?!"

Firstly there is the tiny matter of there not being enough jobs!
Good on you but if you asked my mother she would tell you that women put men out of jobs, women entering the workforce was a capitalists dream come true.....all he needed to justify lowering men's wages and getting two workers for the price of one. So if both your husband and you work, well done but it was only 30 years ago when one wage would support a family.

Flicktheswitch · 08/10/2012 21:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

KarlosKKrinkelbeim · 08/10/2012 21:26

I am not sure that the point of this is to tell people how many children they can have, La cicciolina. The point is to tell people that they should not have children if they are not capable of supporting them, which is not a suggestion that would have struck anyone as radical apart from during roughly the last 40 years of Western European history.

gordyslovesheep · 08/10/2012 21:28

so if you work and have 4 kids - then get made redundant should you give, what, 1 or 2 away? People do end up on benefits because through no fault of their own sometimes

JamNan · 08/10/2012 21:29

Curry goat anyone?

Shout if you want JamNan's recipe?

sleepingbunnies · 08/10/2012 21:29

mini if people are unemployed and having trouble finding work maybe having more children isn't the answer?...

My OH got made redundant whilst i was on maternity leave which was awful, but that what you save for - I'm sick of everyone expecting people like me to pay for their fucking safety net.

gordyslovesheep · 08/10/2012 21:30

is this the way we want to go -- cost 'the hard working tax payer, a hell of a lot more to put kids in care

Toombs · 08/10/2012 21:30

MiniTheMinx

"Wages have stagnated for the past 30 years, profits and output rose, people can't afford the products of their labour, the corporates pocketed the difference, diversified rather than share the wealth created, lending the money at interest to the workers. There has been a massive consolidation of class power and wealth since 2008 and the Tories have very effectively shifted the blame from the real pick pockets to the poor."

Are you on drugs? Wages have massively exploded in the last 30 years, people regard things as normal today that we as children could never aspire to. People can't afford their own products? Are you mad, is there nothing in your home? As a child I never had a foreign holiday, we didn't get a freezer until 1975. Don't look to the Tories for your excuses, blame the regime that allowed it to occur, the man who wants to be the next chancellor is the man who was responsible for the activities of the City of London during the New Labour "boom", do you really want him back in a position of power?

ShellyBoobs · 08/10/2012 21:30

...apparently now I'm being told how many children I can have?

I think you've been misled. No one has told anyone how many children they can have.

KarlosKKrinkelbeim · 08/10/2012 21:31

Saying you should not have children you cannot support is not the same thing as saying you should give children away if your circumsatnces change, unless you are (a) extraordinarily stupid or (b) trying to twist the debate so as to dodge the central issue.

cinnamonnut · 08/10/2012 21:31

Flick and Outraged, there are a certain bunch of people on this thread whose (sometimes valid) points sound ridiculous and whiny because of the way they frame them - the tories are evil, they eat children, blah blah blah.
I believe you Grin

Flicktheswitch · 08/10/2012 21:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

usualsuspect3 · 08/10/2012 21:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

fabsmum · 08/10/2012 21:32

sleepingbunnies,

The result of changing the system to penalise those parents who give birth to more children while on benefits will certainly plunge those feckless parents like the one you mention into dire poverty. Because some people will carry on having children even though they know they can't support them properly. They always have. They always will.

It'll be FANTASTIC for the self-righteous and bitter, who will really enjoy seeing those families have to put their children into care because they can't feed them. Or see the children going to school half-starved. Or maybe see the parents lining up for crap food from food banks - whatever they can get. Will you feel happy then? You can look at those hungry children and think 'serves you right for having feckless parents!'. Sad

IMO the way to stop women having children they can't afford to raise is give them something more fulfilling to do that gives them a chance of a steady income, a decent home and a decent lifestyle.

The reason why middle-class teenage girls and married women delay pregnancy and have small families ISN'T because they're just nicer, better people, but because they are incentivised to by the chance of fulfilling work and a home of their own.

Glitterknickaz · 08/10/2012 21:33

Ok I'll go out to work because EVERYONE should.
Who is going to meet my kids' care needs?

I know, I know 'it isn't about disability'
Only it is, because we're being subjected to these exact same cuts.

As for only having kids you can support - our three were born into a working household. It's not now and that's not down to our direct actions. Ok we needed tax credits but that's because employers do not pay a living wage.

MiniTheMinx · 08/10/2012 21:33

Well my childhood certainly wasn't like that, so no I am sorry, that is not how I remember it. I haven't got time now but you really should do some research....profits rose, output rose but wages in real terms have fallen.

The fact that at the end of the 70's onwards most families started to need to two incomes seems to have escaped you Bunny?

gordyslovesheep · 08/10/2012 21:34

do keep up Glitter ...you would be the deserving poor - to be patted on the head and pitied ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/27/rich-poor-deserving-undeserving sigh

sleepingbunnies · 08/10/2012 21:35

fabsmum I do see your point I really do. I am just beyond frustrated with the benefit system as it stands.

Glitterknickaz · 08/10/2012 21:36

Not according to our esteemed leaders who don't have the mandate

sleepingbunnies · 08/10/2012 21:36

glitter I am not talking about parents of disabled children in my comments.