to be really angry at Benefits House:Me and My 26 Kids

[Discopanda]

Is anybody else watching this on 5*? It's mainly focused on the bloke with 26 kids by 10 mums who is demanding a bigger house paid for by the government, most of his kids are old enough to work but only one does. His main complaint is that the benefits cap means they can't buy a playstation! I kind of understand the single mum who needs a bigger house, but there's another family with 8 kids, neither of them working but both drinking and smoking! AIBU to be absolutely reeling that the government makes it so easy for some people! I'm self-employed because we don't qualify for 15 hours of childcare yet and my other half has been doing 60+ hours a week recently to support us!

So there I was, granny a history lecturer. Dh, a philosophy lecturer. Bringing in a good amount between us per annum. Only thing was, twins were born early. Creates a few problems if born at 33 weeks, not always, but now and then. (It was 18 years ago). However, we managed. At various points over the next seven years, three of our four children were diagnosed with ASDs. Again, it happens, we managed, I went part time, dh continued, once we'd got them settled in High School things weren't too bad. Not great, lots of sleepless nights, reassurance, teaching of coping strategies, dealing with the various anxieties, physical problems and co-morbids. But we did. Then four years ago dh got an infection. He cannot walk, toilet himself, dress himself, get out of bed himself. I am 56. I get no help with him, my twins are still at home, but one has CP and the other EDS, so no help with lifting, toiletting, nothing, nada. He isn't going to get better, we were finally told that last week. Benefit scroungers? In your book we are. We have four children. We didn't plan to do that even, twins were a bit of a surprise. We were both earning, both in good, safe jobs, the likes of you and Newdawn are deeply unpleasant, not least because you judge without doing the research.

Brilliant posts Annie and Dawndonna - now maybe newdawn will go away but I'm not holding my breath. So sorry for all your ill fortune Dawn (sorry can't think of another expression) how awful for your dh to be robbed of his independence at 56 - surely( even with this awful govt and their sheer disregard of anyone other than themselves and the wealthy,) your dh should be entitled to PIPs and you a Carers Allowance. Have you had CAB do a benefit check for you. Might be worth a try.

I despair at Cameron and his ilk, but even though I've been a life long Labour voter, I am pissed off with the deafening silence from Milliband. NHS staff on strike today because their 1% "rise" is being denied them while the MPs are getting 11% - it isn't a rise at all because all public sector workers' salaries have been frozen for 3 years whilst the cost of living has been rising. I know there are thousands of people worse off than public servants though.

I think the Labour party is dead........RIP

Thank you Nina. The awful thing is, dh is younger than me. He is 44.

Newdawn, you are really quite scary. You clearly haven't thought about possible scenarios that could land people in need of benefits. Words really do fail me. I can only hope that other foaming at the mouth DM-ers will read your views and be slightly horrified into rethinking.
Sorry you've had such a difficult time, Dawn.
More clear sense from NanaNina - thank you!!

Where the hell did I say anything against parents with disabled children or people on benefits? The point I was making was that if they weren't wasting money on people who CHOOSE to breed many children that they never had any intention of funding themselves and aren't arsed taking care of them properly there'd be a hell of a lot more resources to help people who do need it. Ffs.

I can't help it and know I shouldn't but if less intelligent people should be sterilised, where does that leave the advocates of eugenics and leaving children to starve because their parents were "breeders"?

Interesting. How do you define intelligence? Would you make everyone take an IQ test? Some benefit fraudsters are highly intelligent. Who else would be for chop in your perfect world Newdawn?

New. As stated before your (extraordinary lack of) research is flawed.

1. Evidence clearly shows that large families on benefits are in the minority, in fact they are extremely rare. ( Joseph Rowntree Foundation et al)
2. You automatically include disabled people due to the fact that there are some disabled folk who are unble to work but would still like the opportunity to become parents, thereby producing children funded by the state. Why would you deny a disabled couple this opportunity?

But Newdawn, you havent said what you'd do with the children of "breeders"?

I was a child of someone on benefits. She wasn't on benefits when I was born though.

Luckily the state helped me out, and here I am, a higher rate taxpayer contributing plenty to society. But as a child of a breeder, I should have been left torot.

You don't think things through, people like you.

The point I was making was that if they weren't wasting money on people who CHOOSE to breed many children that they never had any intention of funding themselves and aren't arsed taking care of them properly there'd be a hell of a lot more resources to help people who do need it. Ffs.

It doesn't work like that. When someone's benefits are taken away the money doesn't just sit growing in an account waiting to be spent on lots of lovely resources.

Your posts come across as very immature, like something from a secondary school debate.

some pesky factoids

To quote the Economist: "Though most of them seem to end up in newspapers, in 2011 there were just 130 families in the country with 10 children claiming at least one out-of-work benefit. Only 8% of benefit claimants have three or more children. What evidence there is suggests that, on average, unemployed people have similar numbers of children to employed people ... it is not clear at all that benefits are a significant incentive to have children

www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/06/welfare-britain-facts-myths

"The point I was making was that if they weren't wasting money on people who CHOOSE to breed many children that they never had any intention of funding themselves and aren't arsed taking care of them properly there'd be a hell of a lot more resources to help people who do need it. Ffs."

Look - you have a choice.

Accept a benefit system which provides a decent safety net for everyone but in doing so is open to exploitation by a small number of determined individuals.

Or

Create a benefits system with such draconian rules about eligibility that the vast majority of claimants who have no intention of exploiting the system struggle to claim.

You could also introduce enforced sterilisation for those who are not intelligent or able bodied enough to function normally in society in order to stop them being a burden on the state. They tried this in Germany when Hitler was in power.

I don't want to live in that sort of world. There have always been people who can't hold down a job and can't support their children - for a whole host of reasons: poor physical or mental health, personality disorders, lack of intelligence, lack of motivation. Before the invention of the welfare state these people died quite young, and lived lives of utter desperation. Their children suffered hugely, through no fault of their own. I'm absolutely convinced that there will always be people like this, and the only way to reduce their numbers is to invest in supporting families, social services, and education. We also need to look at our housing system and cost of living so that people in ordinary jobs aren't impoverished by working.

You really need to stop hating and focusing on these individuals.

Did nobody else notice the repeated low income = can't take care of your kids ?

Psst.. They can probably afford not to work because.. oh I dunno... Being on the show is their job? :)

...and of course Needs Low Income = Low intelligence.

My IQ drops every single time I read one of those idiotic posts!

Accept a benefit system which provides a decent safety net for everyone but in doing so is open to exploitation by a small number of determined individuals.

But the system doesn't provide a decent safety net for everyone.

Take the case I put across about my own mum (several posts back) who despite appealing time and time again gets no help because a work accident put her out of work for a few years and she survives on my Dad's pension and she has another 3-4yrs to go till she gets her state pension.

You pay your taxes (NI) for that reason right to help others who need support and so that should you yourself need help than you will be supported. Sorry I don't believe in the system no more because of how my mum has been treated by the system - shameful she paid her NI for over 30yrs and when through no fault of her own cannot work she gets no assistance whatsoever. Pray it doesn't happen to you because you might not feel the same way when you are rejected support.

Lilmiss the law states that your mother is entitled to something, it may possibly be via your father getting pension credits. Please go to citizens advice.

Very well said, sorryforher

I live in Mexico where there no social safety net and there are still people who "breed" fecklessly. It is an urban myth that people have children to get benefits, of course, there are some fools who get pregnant to make a man marry them or to get benefits, but these people are so stupid they would get pregnant anyway and the children need all our support.

Dawn - no offence but we have been over the past two years several times to the citizens advice bureau, filled in umpteen forms, when rejected appealed several times, mum had to go in for appeal meetings only to be rejected. The Law can state my mum is entitled but does not mean the law is always carried out.

We also did the pension credit and got rejected. Its pointless even trying now - its the same people who will still say no.

"It is an urban myth that people have children to get benefits"

Honestly I'm not sure that it is, or that it should carry a huge amount of blame.

The majority of women who are having babies young and outside of stable and long term relationships are very young, poorly educated, and are right at the bottom of the income distribution range, even when they work, because they tend to be over represented in the 'minimum wage, poor job security'' group.

What chance do these women ever have of a stable income and a secure home if they don't have children? They have little or no hope of social housing if they don't have children, private sector housing is expensive and wages for this group are low. The majority of men who are separated from their partners pay nothing towards the upkeep of their children, the state is a safer and more reliable provider than the majority of men in some social groups.

It makes absolute sense to me that having children in order to access housing and a stable income is something some women choose to do - most women want children anyway, and if there is a dearth of men within their social group willing and able to support a family you can see how it happens.

I'm not condemning this behaviour - it's probably what I'd do if I was in that situation. I've always wanted a family and a home, like most people, but I was lucky enough to be born into a sector of society where people earn enough to support a family, and where men are willing to marry their partners and provide for their children.

"You pay your taxes (NI) for that reason right to help others who need support and so that should you yourself need help than you will be supported."

Surely the answer is not to remove that support for everyone else, because the system of means testing is discriminating unfairly against some individuals? The answer is to look at the way means testing is working - as it's this which is resulting in unfairness to people like your mother. Calling for more means testing and tighter regulation? Why? How does that help people in your mothers situation? Or is it a case of 'if we can't have it then nobody else should either?'

Would add, that one of the conservative's proposed reforms is to remove entitlement to housing benefit completely from all under 21's except those with children.

If they push this through, expect to see a massive rise in teenage pregnancies.

What an intelligent and thoughtful post sorryforher

How strange sorryforher that your main concern about this govt's plan to remove HB completely for those under 21, except those with children will be a massive rise in teenage pregnancies. This latest "reform" is going to have dire consequences for thousands of young people who aren't parents. What Cameron and the other wealthy toffs don't understand is that many young people aged 16 and over are "kicked out" of their family homes and without support many of them end up on the street, and then get led into drug taking and crime. I remember him saying that these young people had to go "back to their childhood bedrooms" - he has no fucking idea - none whatsoever.

I was a social worker/manager with a career spanning some 30 years and I can assure you that vast numbers of young people aged 16 are "kicked out" of home and there IS no childhood bedroom available to them. Typically the parents are divorced/separated and both get new partners and the teenager is bounced backwards and forwards between the parents and finally gets kicked out as he "doesn't get on with his step dad/mom" and the parents chose the partner over the kid. We could offer "advice and assistance" if they met certain criteria but for many we could do nothing. Since the govt slashed the budget of all public services I imagine now that most LAs will not be able to offer any help whatsoever to these young people.

Organisations like Centre Point see thousands of young people homeless in London and living on the streets. But what do the govt know or care - when this "reform" is brought in we will see a "massive increase in young kids living in cardboard boxes on the street" - do you care about that?

To return to teenage pregnancy you talk of teenagers getting pregnant to access housing and a stable income - really ?- do you know that when a child is 5 Income Support and Child Tax Credits are stopped and the parent put on JSA and so have to be available for work. Do you know of any jobs for unskilled young parents where they can work 10.00 - 2.00 (to enable them to take and collect children from school) and have 13 weeks paid holiday a year - no I thought not. But the govt expect them to find such jobs and at a wage that enables them to pay their way - utterly ridiculous.

Suspect you read the Daily Mail or a red top.

NanaNina that is a very valuable post, but I don't understand your attack on sorryforher. She is not advocating the removal of benefits, quite the contrary.

Nana - it's not my main concern.

It was an observation.

I think removing HB from young people is cruel and unfair, and will result in a big increase in homelessness in this group.

You need to read posts a bit more carefully before frothing and jumping in with comments about people reading the Daily Fail. You really can't infer from what I've said that I think removing HB from young people only matters because it may cause a rise in teenage pregnancies.