To feel a little sorry for the 7 children benefits Mum.

[MilgramsLittleHelper]

www.itv.com/daybreak/hottopics/benefits-mum/

Is just seems like another bit of benefit bashing to me.

I know she shouldn't have had children she couldn't afford, but what hope of improving her lot???

merrymouse I think the main suggestion is that she accept that she'll have to downsize in terms of her house, actually.

Not "sell a couple of children."

As has already been pointed out the number of families having large numbers of children on benefits is vanishingly small.

By far the largest proportion of benefits go to smaller families, many with working parents.

Otoh there is no evidence that the kind of people who do have large families without the means to support them will stop doing so if there is no welfare. Think about it! Are there no large poor families in the third world, then? No large poor families in Western countries with less generous welfare systems? And do the countries with more generous welfare systems than ours have more large families without visible means of support?

Freegle - Are we agreeing on something?!! Halleujah or however you spell it! 100% about the unecesaary bloody wars.

Merrymouse

The situation shouldn't be different. It has always been like this and previous societies have lived with the fact.
The trouble is that gov spin is encouraging many people to believe there are many families in this position, far more than there actually are.
Its ok that people are saying they have to work and balance childcare, but its ok for them to expect subsidy for this.
This to me isn't any better "IF" people believe you shouldn't have dc unless you can afford them. Surely, this includes childcare costs. But I suppose the argument is you are more "entitled" if you work and have dc.

Well 2 grand a month could buy some cancer medicine.

2 grand a month could pay for a teacher

2 grand a month could get a nurse on the wards

2 grand a month could buy some army equipment.

Not just for one month, but every month. And this is just one person coming off benefits as a lifestyle choice.

For the record I don't approve of the decision (whoever was in charge of it) that this family should have more children than they could support in a decent way. But my disapproval won't feed or clothe the family and for the sake of my children, as well as theirs, I would rather they were fed and clothed without being tempted to turn to crime or contracting diseases due to malnutrition.

Some of the comments on this thread sound quite bitter and a bit jealous.

I wish I could get pregnant and someone would give a bigger house and more money! That doesn't mean that I want to see this 7 child benefit woman and her children on their arses.

I'm a tax payer and I'd like a fanfare please!

She doesn't need to sell her children. She just needs to look on rightmove and she could see that there are quite a lot of slightly smaller (4 bed homes) in Birmingham that cost less than she is currently paying. She would save some money but her children would have to share a bedroom.

Instead of moving into a slightly smaller home and have her children share, she thinks that she should get more money and it is outrageous that there should be any cut to the money she is currently receiving courtesy of teh taxpayer. So presumably she is happy for people in work whose children currently share a bedroom to pay more tax so that she can stay in her 6 bedroom home and her children don't have to share.

Do we also need someone to point out that receiving DLA doesn't usually make anyone richer: it is there to support the far higher costs of looking after a child with SN.

We have brought up our child without DLA. We are considerably poorer than other families with a similar income but no SN in the family. DLA would have gone some way towards bridging the gap but we certainly wouldn't have got any change out of it.

If this woman is receiving DLA as a carer, then she can't come off benefits as a lifestyle choice unless somebody else steps in and does her carer job. And that person will presumably have to be paid.

Beau - we can agree on it IF you get my bloody name right humph you realise I'm Feegle, not Freegle

Instead of moving into a slightly smaller home and have her children share, she thinks that she should get more money and it is outrageous that there should be any cut to the money she is currently receiving courtesy of teh taxpayer. So presumably she is happy for people in work whose children currently share a bedroom to pay more tax so that she can stay in her 6 bedroom home and her children don't have to share.

That kind of says all that needs saying really.

"The benefit budget has gone through the roof in recent years."

I'm also busy with the arsenic hour, so can't go searching myself, but would be interested to hear the actual numbers on that. Obviously it will have gone up due to rising unemployment since the recession began.

Oh yeah!! That is bloody hilarious

I was imagining you as a recycling fanatic, living on food from outside supermarkets etc. Isn't that a freegler?

Isn't it a ticking time bomb, socially as well as financially?

What chances do her kids have? What choices will they make? Will they each have 7 kids that need to be supported by the state?

Why are only the very poor encouraged ( through benefits for being a single parent and a bigger house the more kids you have on the one hand, and making education, ilike University, prohibitively expensive on the other hand) to have many kids?

If this goes on, will the amount of hopeless people yes grow and grow?

Who will look after them? And how?

Is there even a solution at all?

I am echoing what cory said re DLA and Carers Allowance. You cannot earn more than £100 a week on CA. Claiming CA means you are providing significant care for someone and so earning £100 or more in a week would be difficult.

I'm tax payer, I got some benefits as well to top up my wages.

I'm not sure if I'm a hard-working taxpayer or a feckless scrounger tbh

It would also be interesting to know which proportion of the benefits budget it is that is rising: disability benefits, unemployment benefits, benefits for working people whose wages are increasingly insufficient to support a family in the face of rising prices?

I would have thought the percentage of very large single parent families is unlikely to have added much to the overall rise seeing how very few of them there are in the country.

can you be a feckless taxpayer or a hardworking scrounger, usualsuspect?

Thing is that if you had asked this Mum at age 7 what she wanted to be when she grew up I seriously doubt that she would have said "the mother of 7 children". Seven year olds have ambition, they want to be nurses, doctors, actresses, pop stars. They have lots of ambition and perhaps the debate we SHOULD be having is about when this ambition dies and they settle for early motherhood and a life on benefits.

"IF" people believe you shouldn't have dc until you can afford them
You make it sound like believing the moon is made of green cheese, potatoprints. Why should anybody believe anything else?

Beau - Oh yeah!! That is bloody hilarious

I was imagining you as a recycling fanatic, living on food from outside supermarkets etc. Isn't that a freegler?

Thank you Pffft

However, I still like Boulevard want a link for your nonsense evidence about benefit claimants choosing this as a lifestyle. You are wrong

I think there is hope for you and Bacon

As far as I can see people are objecting to her receiving £2k a month in benefits. Unless she plans to squat I don't see that she has any choice but to move somewhere else if her benefits won't cover the rent.

DP and I aren't entitled to any help but still need to really watch what we are doing.

I don't resent anyone on benefits. I think, thank fuck we're not having to live that life (yet...who knows...redundancy etc).