Is it a right to have Kids you can’t afford!?!

[KN2212]

I am totally fed up of listening to people complain about how broke they are after having kids. Babies and childcare are cripplingly expensive but that’s pretty much common knowledge, right?

I fell out with a long term friend of mine about a year ago. Since the birth of her DD all she did was complain about the situation she’d orchestrated.
Her and her (now ex) partner had no home of their own, low income, high debt and no savings when they decided to go ahead and have a child (though granted had been together for 7 years). The poor boyfriend busted his butt working 13 hour shifts 6 days a week in a call centre whilst they all lived in one cramped room at her parents and she complained he wasn’t doing enough. Due to her crippling shopping debts and inability to hold a job they were never going to make enough to live and knew that pre getting pregnant.

(Other friends are in similar situations, complaining about how they ‘can’t afford to go back to work’ because of childcare costs but equally can’t afford to live if they don’t go back to work!!! Come on and take some responsibility you knew this was going to be your situation.)

Whilst she was complaining over coffee one day about how the benefit system wasn’t giving her enough free money I called her out on her obvious poor planning and asked why she didn’t wait and save pre child. She got very defensive and said that they were never going to be able to afford a child due to their financial situation so why bother waiting?

It just got me thinking really hard, since when did having children become a right? It seemed so clear to her that she deserved to have a child despite not being able to afford one and that the government should now support her because she deserved to have her daughter.
Am I wrong in thinking that having children you can’t support is completely irresponsible and shitty and entitled?

I know a lot of women who want kids but are having to wait and plan and save and do it ‘the right way’ it seems unfair to them. When women like my ex friend do exactly what they want without planning and then hold the government over a barrel saying that their kids don’t have food and clothes. It just sucks like the children shouldn’t have to suffer but the tax payer shouldn’t have to pay for your unfair choices.

To clarify I have empathy for unplanned pregnancy’s no contraception is 100% but that’s not the kind of situation I’m talking about here. I’m talking about planned pregnancies.

Do people not understand what 'right' means? "It's not a right to have children, it's a privilege" is your opinion. It's not a fact.

No people are not relying on the state to have children. If you take away the welfare state, as evidenced in many many countries across the world, people will continue to have children, they just live in poverty.

What people do is procreate (because we are hardwired to do so and no amount of social control will stop that) and then try to access as many resources as possible to help raise their young. If state support is there it will be taken. Take it away and the offspring will still come.

The word ‘right’ is problematic. Who gives out ‘rights’? Are we talking moral guilt? God? Government? Who is the keeper of ‘rights’?

Excellent post Goat.

What Goat said.

What about people living in third world countries?

People in third world countries do not expect the state to support their children, because it won't. I don't see how that is relevant. No ones arguing that people shouldn't have as many children as they want, providing that you can adequately provide for them. In the third world where there is no state support many couples have children to support them in time, especially old age because the state will not support them when they are too old or infirm to work. They need to have children for this reason. Also having multiple children in countries with high rates of infant mortality makes sense because you increase the chances of some making it to adulthood. The other side of the coin is that third world countries do not have unlimited access to contraceptives, morning after and abortion so the element of choice to have children is removed because you can no longer chose not to have them. Particularly in patriarchal societies where women are expected to keep having sex and reproducing and have no way of avoiding pregnancy. Totally ridiculous comparison to the UK.

Suggesting having a child isn't a human right is amin to thinking like a Nazi.

Exactly.

Poor Winnie. You haven’t understood a word, have you?

Ha I’m on a stable 50k and I still can’t afford my child.

YABVU I’m afraid!

Ive not read the whole thread...yet but OP I agree with some of what you've said maybe just not the way you've put it. What annoys me is working parents not getting help with childcare yet people who won't work do! Yes I think there should be benefits for people who can't work but I know of a woman who doesn't work (never has) and has popped out 4 kids before the age of 21. She says she has no intention of ever working and gets handed £2500 a month!!! I know of another Mum who's a nurse and who's partner disappeared after the planned baby, yet she gets no help. I think that part of the system needs addressed

100% agree. If you can't afford it don't have kids, and don't rely on others (the taxpayer for example) to pay for them.

Obviously poor people should be able to have children. 'Affordability' when it comes to children is about whether they have access to Surestart style schemes, decent education, affordable food, family tax credits, etc.

What you mean is should child raising be the responsibility of society and subsidised via public money? Yes, it should. Why? Because many, many useless and frankly detrimental things are subsidised by the public purse - private companies, fossil fuel extraction, defence. Subsidising the next generation to ensure we have healthy, fit future generations who will in turn help keep the economy turning is more than worth the investment.

I grew up in a very poor household, with amazing, loving parents who validated and supported me. I fee much, much luckier than some of the people I know who's parent's could 'afford' them and packed them off to expensive boarding schools!

I think have multiple children when you're already poor is a bad decision but it'd be very unfair not to have the right because you were poor.
It's an instinct we share with all species, it's just that squirrels & the like don't have to worry about mortgages!

I think YABU because u don't know people circumstances, however In your friends case it does sound like they should have got their 'stuff' together beforehand.
My partner and I decided to have a child last year when we were both working full time with a house and a very supportive family who would help us out.
Fast forward to April this year, I'm 20 weeks pregnant, and the company we both work for goes under and we are made redundant. I haven't been able to get a job since but luckily my boyfriend did.
We are making it work, it's hard, but we're doing it.
It angers me to know that people would judge us despite not knowing what has gone on with us.

@Liverpoolgirl you weren’t in that position when you fell pregnant though and obviously couldn’t have foreseen it. I think the OP is referring more to people like her friend who are already facing hardship and still go on to have kids even though they know they won’t be able to afford the basics

In a country where a full time wage isn't sufficient in some cases to support a child YABVU. People are hard wired to have children and have a certain window of time to do that. Most of us rely on the state to support our children anyway - unless you're completely covered by private health insurance, pay for private education and never use public facilities.

I actually think it's more important that people have sufficient time and emotional energy to support their children.

Accessing state education and the odd doctors appointment is hardly having the state support your children
Ffs...

Dia Antwood - you cant run this country like a pyramid selling scheme, which are banned by the government by the way. The more children have..... they too will get old so how will we fund them, by having more and more, I ask again who will fund them.

This planet is over populated as it is! And if you cant afford them don't have them. Tax payers are NOT there to fund other kids brats. Did you know 80% of the tax bill is payed by 20% of the population.

We cant afford the people on the planet as it is and the population is set to rise at an alarming rate in the next 50 years. How will all the billions of extra people be fed and housed and employed?!

What exactly counts as "relying on the taxpayer" though? Tax credits? I personally don't know anybody who doesn't get them whether it's to help with childcare costs or because their wages don't pay enough.

I haven't read the full thread,
However my opinion is that the problem is not with the people having kids.
I quite frankly think it's disgusting that companies can pay full time staff a wage that isn't enough to live on. Forcing the government to step in with tax credits and the like. That is not the workers fault. Childcare costs are crippling and you have huge companies paying minimum wage. They should be forced to pay a living wage.
As someone said- our desire to reproduce is a natural instinct. It's what we were built for. I think it would be sad to live in a world where only the rich can afford to have children.
I do think some people don't think it through properly- but it's the middle classes that are most effected in my opinion. Me and DH both have relatively well paid jobs and are having our second. We will have to seriously budget to afford childcare and mat leave.

What about me? I had my kids when I was married to a high earner.

Then, you know, he fucked someone else and I spent a few years on benefits. Should my kids have been taken off me during that time because I had been abused, was traumatised and wasn't capable of work?

Now I'm earning is it OK should the state have given me them back then?

DS is a doctor and DD is training to be a physio. They will give back to society. Does that mean I'm allowed to have had them? DS2 works in a Bank does that mean he's an evil little shit and should have been drowned at birth?

This thread is incredibly offensive.

@thecrabby

"In the third world where there is no state support many couples have children to support them in time, especially old age because the state will not support them when they are too old or infirm to work. They need to have children for this reason."

You do realise its the same situation here - but its through the state? Who do you think finances the state who pay for old age? Its the next generation obviously. If you only want people to have kids if they can afford it without help - even with nursery - we'll be looking at a massive demographic crisis. And this is partly why countries with long-term problems with low fertility rates, like northern Europe, give such good provisions for children and early motherhood - ie, free or extremely cheap childcare and long maternity leave. It's to encourage people to keep having kids.

If only people earning 30k - or more like 50k in London - had kids, then there would be anywhere near enough tax-paying workers to pay for an ageing population.

Children aren't a "right" or a "privilege" - they are needed for society to continue!

It all depends on circumstances.

One friend of mine already had 3 kids, was not working and on full benefits, met someone who already 2 children then they went on to have another which turned out to be twins. They couldn't afford the ones they had without relying solely on benefits yet "had" to have another to "blend our family properly." She then complains about the cost of school uniforms..

Another friend has 3 children, was married and both working but he ended up going off with another woman and she was left with the kids to bring up on a part time wage and benefits.

Two very different circumstances on how people can't afford kids per se, one could have been avoided and the other was just life's unavoidable shit circumstances.

Oh, RTFT, scrumple. That’s been done already. Multiple times.