To feel irritated when families have multiple children they cannot afford

[Teddy7878]

First of all I accept that no contraception is 100% foolproof and pregnancy sometimes can occur even when people are trying their hardest to be careful.

I also accept that sometimes people's circumstances change and they could go from being financially comfortable to losing their jobs etc during their children's lives.

What really winds me up though are people who actively try and get pregnant when they already have several children and cannot afford the ones they already have. I sometimes see threads on here where people state they have less than £50 to feed a family of 7 for a week and no money at all for any luxuries whatsoever.

My DP and I will be in our mid 30s when we have our first child and we have decided it might be our only child. We want to be able to afford to give it a great life so have saved up hard for a few years beforehand. Between us we earn 65k so we live comfortably and don't have debts (other than the mortgage). It upsets me that we have to make the decision to only have one (possibly two) children and other people are having 5+ kids when they can't afford them.

Money isn't everything, a loving family home is always going to be the most important thing, but if you can only afford to eat lentils and never take your kids out anywhere fun or go on holiday or afford a car or pay for them to do activities outside of school or buy them a few nice things for Xmas then why keep continuing to have more and more children and making your situation even more stressful for everyone involved?! Why not just stick to one or two children?

Op just because your life choices and priorities are about materialistic things you can buy, it doesn't mean those who choose differently are wrong.

I have three dc, dh and I have worked all of their lives. We earn little over minimum wage and rely on tax credits. Personally I feel that employers should have minimum wage set to a rate that means you don't need tax credits.

My dc have great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. They have learned how to get by on a budget and how to find fun without cost.
I will also have my house mortgage free when I'm 50 and will be able to travel and save for retirement then. I will also possibly have my dc thinking about starting their own families so that their dc have youngish grandparents to support them through life.

I think you are coming across as bitter and I judge you for putting money and materialistic things first. I judge you most for thinking your life choices makes you better than me when I feel that my choices have brought happiness in a way that only children can.

Yabvu.

It's weird that when previous posters have talked about having financial difficulties with large (often blended) families; no space, no spare money, children sharing rooms etc. and then finished the post by saying they're pregnant or ttc...

...most people berate them for having more children they can't afford.

Think the OP is being deliberately misinterpreted a bit here.

As I've already said my argument was only aimed at people who can't afford kids who actively choose to get pregnant again and again

But that's the point, how can you possibly know a stranger's circumstances to be able to differentiate between who planned and who didn't and who can afford them and who can't? YABU to go about daily life judging people with 2+ children based on no information about them apart from how many children they have with them.

My DD is 5 and has been to Florida twice, each time spending 3 weeks there.

Single parent on benefits here. I must be doing something wrong because I can't afford to take DCs to the local farm half the time never mind Florida!

@juicystrawberry Jesus Christ! I don't go around judging every family I see with more than 2 kids. There are plenty of happy families out there with lots of children and I obviously don't know everyone's circumstances.
But when I know the parents are using foodbanks (like the woman on my Facebook I initially mentioned, or the families I work with who tell me they are planning more when their current children are half starved) then I find it very difficult to think it's not being selfish

It sounds like you are talking about my brother.

Neither him or his wife work and currently live in a 3 bed council house. She loves the baby stage which has ended up with them having 10 children. 8 of these live at home.

She can't have anymore now so they want to adopt.

It's sad because his eldest is now going down the same route. 18 with two children.

So how do you know that family isn't made up of two adults who have difficulties caused from abuse in their family of origin that leads them to have disordered thinking ?

Yadnbu. It's not as rare as people seem to think either, I see it over and over every day at school. One family today - no income other than benefits, four children, regularly comes for referrals to food banks, has a lot of support from school etc when children arrive at school with no breakfast, school subsidise trips, in tears due to not being able to do things in summer holidays like the other kids - pregnant with her fifth because she 'wants a boy.' There are dozens of other families in the school in this position too. Quite frankly it's ridiculous - and actually often I think, cruel.

Sounds like something from Nazi Germany. Stop the underclass from breeding

Bingo!!

Not quite sure how declining to pay for parental choices equates to ideologically driven forced sterilisation, but hey ho

I think you should change your job op

some 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."

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

Pixies. I think what holidays you can afford as a lone parent depend on things like how much maintainance you get etc. I have quite a few lone parent friends and to be honest they all have holidays abroad and mini breaks etc but Most of them get a lot of help from family and decent amount of CM on top of the tax credits etc so I guess that's how they do it.

/sub
Pass the popcorn

Babyroobs at the minute I get no CM off him. But that's because my 'free money' (his words) has been cut and I'm currently awaiting an appeal.

ghosty HMRC figures regularly state more people in work claiming child related benefit than out of it but some people can't seem yo put 2&2 together.

Also meant to clarify babyroobs. He doesn't think I should be trusted because he's a knob so I'm having to fight it. I still cant see how people afford it though but it must be possible!

I think that the people who have 5+ children tend to be wealthy, or from the underclass and claiming everything going. Both are small in number. I feel sorry for the children born into the latter category but I don't feel animosity towards the parents, most of whom weren't brought up to know any differently themselves. The new "2 child max" benefit rules might change things, it's too early to tell.

The Planet really doesn't need lots and lots of very large families.

Nobody should be having more than a couple.

I was loooking at my paternal great grandparents. They had ten children although I think noe died but interestingly only 2 of those ten including my grandfather actually had any children at all which really surprised me. perhaps it was WWI killing off suitable spouses. On the other side my great grandmother bor in 1876 had 11 (again one died young aged 1) and they had a fair few but more like at most 1 - 3 of those who married. Interesting tracking back on the mother's side back to the one born in 1822 I was the youngest to have a child (at age 22) which really surprised me. I thought I would find people having at 16.

I think that the people who have 5+ children tend to be wealthy, or from the underclass and claiming everything going

The ones I know of are wealthy because they told HMRC / DWP that they're a single parent / single working parent and just omit to tell them that the 'absent father' is doing a 40hr a week or more and never actually moved out.

I think a point that is missed is that often older siblings have to care for and take responsibility for younger children and babies. I am also speechless about holidays to Florida twice for a 5 year old whose parents are on benefits. They must really know how to play the system with regard to rent and bills. Many people who work long hours can't afford a holiday.

YANBU

Totally pisses me off that a lot more unemployed people have loads more kids than employed people.

I have worked all my life, everybody in my family works. Most of my friends work. The number of kids we have is totally in relation to how many we can afford, therefore 1 or 2.

Of all the big families I know, none of them work at all.
The average is 4 kids per unemployed household. I have known these families for years and they have never worked, so it is not a case of being down on their luck.

It just never seem like a serious consideration when they have kids. It just happens. How can they not plan and see that financially things are not going to add up?

Housework. I have 4 kids and we both work and don't claim any benefit apart from child benefit which most people claim. I know a few families with 4 kids and all the parents work, usually working around each other. The only large families I know where no-one works are where the mum has been left to bring the kids up alone and it's virtually impossible to work until all the kids are school aged.

Baby I totally understand there are different families and scenarios. I am not saying it is always the case of being unemployed.

But in my (working class) area, I actually don't know any large families with one or both parents working.

So many people have misconstrued the OP to make it fit their own personal circumstances when it's (I think!) not what she meant.
I've stated already that she unfortunately probably has a very blinkered view working in the area she does.

The common theme on here is that everyone posting is a good parent who would do anything for their children.
Having to queue up and regularly use a food bank but still contemplating a planned extra child is not being a good advocate for your living children. It just isn't.