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?

Why are people on this thread actively trying to suggest that the OP has said something she hasn't said? She has clearly said she has no issue with people having children they can afford to look after. Or people who have children and then their circumstances change so they can't afford to look after them. She also hasn't said that people need to be able to look after their children into adulthood or with certain types of holidays etc (she has just said that that is what she wants to be able to do). She has questioned people who actively choose to have more children when they know they cannot afford to look after those children (e.g. Already Need foodbanks and are dependent on benefits). All of those posters who are shouting her down with examples of their own lives presumably can afford their children, as they have expressed what a good life their kids have. So why are they so angry at the OP? If you can afford the kids you have to a standard of life that you think is good for your kids, she clearly isn't talking about you, so why are you taking so much offence?

I do take on board the point about education etc. But that isn't the point most of the angry people on this thread - who seem to have taken the post as a criticism of them - have made.

Yanbu op. Look at the hoo ha caused when it was announced (in advance with plenty of notice) the child element of CTC was going to be restricted to 2 children after April 2017...

AIBU

Why do people not financially plan better so they can have more than one kid? I'm sick of having only children hanging around my house all the time hanging out with my kids because they're bored at home?

OP you are coming across as quite bitter about this whole thing!

Perhaps ONCE you've had a child, and fall in love with them and realise what being a parent is about, you'll understand why many people pinch pennies and make the decisions they do to have subsequent children they 'can't afford'. Who can really afford it anyway? That's really subjective isn't it?

YOUR financial circumstances could change for the better as you get older, generally salaries go up, right? So that second or third child's University fees you couldn't afford in your 30s might not be a problem in your 40s or 50s.

We are on a similar income to you, I'm nearly 32 and pregnant with 3rd child. We make do and always have. Small amounts of debt here and there for holidays, a car etc but all under control and most importantly we are happy and I don't feel bitter that I made financial projections before even experiencing motherhood that dictated my entire life.

I think you need to unclench a little, tbh OP.

Why is it your responsibility to fund them beyond their teens, when they are adults? Surely, you'd parent them to be able to stand on their own two feet confused

I don't agree with OPs attitude towards other families at all, but I don't think it's that unusual or unreasonable to want to be able to help your adult children. DH and I both received help with university and when each set of parents inherited from their parents they were able to pass it straight onto their children: that money from our grandparents is why DH and I were able to buy our house. I personally know no one who has bought without family help (we live in an expensive part of the south-east: DH and I couldn't manage London, but a lot of our friends have). I know it's not necessary but I'd very much like to be able to do the same for my children. At the moment we'll be very grateful if we can just have one child, but when we assumed we would be able to have children easily we decided we would stop at two for that reason. As I say, I don't at all share OP's judgement of others, but that's the decision we'd make for us.

Yeah my 19 year old neighbour took on three of her sisters kids, if she had been fostering non related kids she would have got more than just basic IS.

What a bitch eh, taking on three kids when she is barely an adult herself.

You vouldmt pay me to have say 7 children. The drudgery of housework would kill me. Ever mind the physical pain.

No one breeds for benefits - what a disgusting phrase

People have large families ..... does anyone question why people living in war torn countries have children? It is what humans do - to start making moral judgements about who can and can't have a child based on your own decision is horrid

Plenty raise a large family on 65k it's about priorities

But it's also "selfish" to have larger families even if you can support them some would argue due to there being to many people

Is that an OK level of selfish though as long as your not a despicable tracksuit wearing , massive tv buying scrounger ???

Why is it your responsibility to fund them beyond their teens, when they are adults? Surely, you'd parent them to be able to stand on their own two feet

Because if they go to Uni, they can only work for a few months in the summer, on minimum wage. That does not bring in nearly enough cash, for them to be self sufficient all year round.

Even if they were lucky enough to get a full time summer job, that would bring in around £3k. (And trust me it's really hard to get a job, when thousands of students are applying for these jobs). Accommodation at Uni is over £6k per annum, then they need food on top and a little cash for fun.

They start Uni at 18 and finish at 22-25 (depending on which Degree they do).

So yes, you do have to provide financial support well in to their 20's.

can't believe you even had to ask

Itsonlysubterfuge
I'm glad your 5 year old daughter has spent 6 weeks in Florida
My kids haven't been and we are not a family of benefits. We have child benefit only.
Surely you can see why comments like that piss the op and me off?
I don't think the op is being unreasonable in asking this question. I see this situation so often. I work in a school and some families have two children in the same year, or a child in nearly every year. They then complain that they cannot afford the school trips etc. Why wouldn't they stop at the number of children they could afford to pay for school trips for?

I'm completely with you on this, Teddy, but as you must realise mumsnet is largely populated by left wing supporting middle class mothers who can pontificate from afar because this matter doesn't affect them much.

People who work (especially those on over £50k) don't get a pay rise every time they have a child so why should those on benefits get one in the form of extra family credits/child benefit/larger housing etc.

I also think it's totally irresponsible to have more children if you are in a war zone or a country where there is not enough food to go round, as someone mentioned, and it is not the UK taxpayers' responsibility to feed them. If you want to give to a charity that does this then that is your choice and I wonder how many mumsnetters actually do give large sums of their income to that end or just spout on about the injustice of it all.

£25 million a DAY goes on foreign aid. If that was stopped and spent here instead then that figure could be replaced by all the do-gooders giving a large part of their income to charity instead. Let's see if that would happen!!!

Start voting for a political party that wants to reduce the benefits to the first two children only. The world is overpopulated and the future of all of our children is at stake so stop feeling sorry for those who act irresponsibly in having children they cannot afford to feed.

YANBU
Tax credits and child allowances etc all need to be paid for too so those that are saying it's none of their business, it is if you pay taxes.

There isn't too many people either - we are not over populated we have an ageing population so need to actually increase birth rates

@alittlepotofrosy well duh, state the obvious why don't you. Of course I feel grateful that I don't live on the breadline and have a partner who earns a decent wage. We worked our arses off at uni to get our jobs though, and 22k isn't particularly high at all when I have a degree and a masters and got into a shit ton of debt to get them.

@gillybeanz I'm not saying families who have 65k joint salaries can't afford more than one child. I'm sure there are many families out there with 2-4 kids who earn less than that between them but survive happily.
What my whole argument has been on this thread is that I'm irritated by families who know for a fact that they cannot afford to feed their kids properly or have the heating on during winter or pay for anything fun to do outside of the home, but will go out of their way to get pregnant again and again. It happens because I see it on a daily basis with the people I help at my work.
Yes, I could afford 2-3 kids if we tightened our belts a bit. But as has been said several times already, circumstances can change at any moment which is why we pump a chunk of our money into savings and pensions. We would also want our child/children to have the choice to do things like go to uni, learn to drive etc without having to bankrupt themselves in the process

Everyone's circumstances are different and we all have different priorities on terms of where we direct the money we have available to us. For some, that might be more children. I do, though, take issue with people who don't/can't work believing it is their entitlement to continue having children and allowing the state to fund their decisions. We live in a society and are ALL responsible for making sure we act reasonably and responsibly within that. OP wants to be responsible in that she wants to make sure she can fund her retirement, for example. Her choice to provide a particular standard of living for her family is just that - a choice. Others may choos3 differently, believing other things to be more important than activities, holidays etc. Each to their own. The PP who referred to people coming from different starting points is also correct - we don't all start from the same playing field and some people genuinely don't have the education/understanding to make yhr same decisions someone else would. I remember once reading on a different parenting forum a mother staying that it was her right and entitlement to have as many children as she wished and claim income support (back when you could still claim for longer) to be a SAHM. This is not her entitlement because it relies on all of the other people who make socially responsible decisions - those that work and pay tax fund the welfare state and it is not ok for people to use that system selfishly and with entitlement. It is there for people in genuine need, to try to even things out a bit. It isn't there for people to make a lifestyle choice to be a SAHM and / or deliberately continue having children. YWBU to criticise other people's self-funded choices. But YWNBU to find the decision to have children in circumstances in which you KNOW that you will be reliant on state support, because you cannot afford childcare and cannot work, selfish and irresponsible. The issue is NOT with people who have children and THEN find themselves with a change of circumstance which means they need to access the welfare state system; it is with people who believe it is their entitlement to have children, regardless of not having the means to support them, at the expense of the taxpayer.

@quizqueen

Be careful your prejudice is showing.

Yanbu, to ttc another child you really can't afford is irresponsible. If money was no object I would like to have three. But I think about the cost of holidays and days out for three, and then things like mobile phones, university, needing a 4 bedroom house, not to mention the cost of feeding and clothing three teenagers and my head dictates that we stick at two children.

Our neighbour has 5 children, all of different ages. She had the oldest whilst still at school. She lives entirely on benefits and is always drinking and smoking and throwing loud parties. Her extended family are seemingly also on benefits and have a similar lifestyle. They also have multiple children of different ages. The council isn't going to make a family homeless, nor should they of course, and she will be eligible for benefits and a free house for as long as she keeps having children. Again, that's right - as a society we need to make sure those children have money to live on and a roof over their heads. But I think it's wrong of her to keep having children and just partying all the time, setting all those children the example that they too can just have kids, get a council house and party all the time with no need to contribute to society. What can you do though? You can't plunge children into poverty by stopping benefits, however as long as there is money and free housing to be had you will get some people who abuse that welfare state. I'm very pro welfare state, but find if hard to reconcile that with seeing so many local families choosing it as a lifestyle!

Who can really afford it anyway?
Those who will get more benefit as a result?

My friend has a child with her ex, until he decided that his PA who followed him to his trips abroad was more exciting. She raised their son on her own working FT not claiming any benefit. She then met my current husband. He'd been married but never had children. They decided that they would want one together after marrying, unfortunately biology is sometimes cruel and they discovered that he was infertile and their only chance at a biological child together was through ICSI?IVF except that they were then told that they wouldn't be elligible for NHS funding because SHE already had a child. They talked through it and decided to give IVF one go at £5K but they were told that due to her age, the chances of success were not great, and indeed it was negative. They decide that paying another £5K for a less than 5% chance and a lot of emotional heartache wasn't too much.

They tried adoption, but again, as she was 43 by then, she was told that her chances of being given a baby were low and ended up deciding that it was all too much for them. Instead, they are continuing to pay high taxes every month, so that some couple who can hardly raise children have more just because they can.

For those who are getting defensive with me - please explain why I'm a 'cunt' as someone so kindly called be above to think it's out of order for families who are having to use food banks etc and cannot afford the kids they have to then start panning for another?
I'm not talking about anyone whose financial circumstances change, or anyone who has failed contraception, or anyone from a different cultural background.

For everyone who has mutiple kids on here and can afford them then that's great. I'm not judging you FFS

I must be a really bad parent. As far as I'm concerned once my kids are 18 and at uni /wanting to buy their own house/car etc they can fund it themselves......like most adults do! They might not even want to go to uni so I'm not going to have less kids because one might want something they can get off their ass and contribute to themselves.

They will not bankrupt themselfs by going to uni or learning to drive

My parents saved up for my driving lessons and I have a student loan like most people I know . I worked and bought my first car , again like most people I know .

As pp have said when you actually have a dc and feel that overwhelming love you might find that the desire to give them a sibling overrides your worry over paying for uni 18 years down the line .

So who are you talking about ??

And obviously no need for people to be calling you a cunt

This is a really interesting discussion.
I am the oldest of 6 children, Irish family, most of us were born in the 70's, not unusual at all. 6 kids didn't seem like a lot to me and I had a few friends from big families' like ours

When dH and I got married we thought we'd have 6 or 7 kids. My experience of growing up in a big family was very positive and I thought it would be fun to raise a big family.

As it happened. We weren't able to have any children at all. After 10 years of marriage we adopted our son and 5 years later a daughter so now I have 2 children, am nearing 50 and that's all I can cope with, thank you very much. Financially we could afford to have more children but I'm happy with my lot.

People have different priorities I guess. If we had more children we wouldn't be able to go on holiday, save for the future, buy new furniture etc. None of those things are essential.

After my experiences of infertility I would never judge someone for wanting to have a baby. Maybe for some women with less education and little in the way of life choices, having babies is they way they achieve success in their own way.

What really gets my blood boiling is all the absent fathers. I know so many women who are on their own and the father of their children don't contribute a penny. It's a scandal and those men should be so, so , so ashamed of themselves.

It depends for me on a lot of circumstances.

I can't grasp why people have more children (on purpose, planned children) when they're actively struggling with the children they already have. Not always for monetary reasons, but I know somebody with a pair of very energy consuming SN children. They're wonderful kids, but their needs are quite high and she's constantly moaning about how little anybody does for her, how little she can get, how her eldest is being bullied (the bullying is awful and the police have been involved, multiple school changes and even a house move because of it) and despite the fact that she honestly can't handle them and their needs, which I don't begrudge her for at all, she's having a third PLANNED baby. That's where I start to understand less, as much as I want to help her.

I'm not hating on her in the slightest, I'm legitimately concerned at how thin she's stretching herself with little support. I won't be around to help her because I'm moving to uni before anybody chastises me :/