Tax childless adults

[Acidburn]

Hi all

Just saw the below article on LBC news:

www.lbc.co.uk/news/childless-tax-birthrate-uk-cost-of-living-paul-morland/

AIBU to think that this insane?

Yes. It's rude. If you speak to a childless woman in her 40s then there is a high chance that the childlessness may not be a choice. She may have suffered failed infertility treatments. However the smug comments from mothers can be off the scale. They're really proud that they managed to shag and get pregnant. Not sure what there is to be so proud of, given even animals can manage to shag and get pregnant. You also see it on here all the time, mothers think they should be on a pedestal for doing something most people can do. They seem to think producing a sex trophy is on a par with a doctorate in physics.

My older sister is infertile and she has been told that she should sell her house and let a family have it because it's in a catchment area for good schools. Never mind that it also has good transport links, a nice town centre and is a safe place for a single female to live, all of which she values.

I honestly have never come across this (thankfully)

I'm actually shocked at just how insensitive this comment is.

TBF I think that if you hang out in educated circles then it's less common because a lot of women have either chosen career over kids or have had to put their career on hold to look after kids. So even if they've had kids they will have gone through a thought process.

The mothers who are guilty of being smug about their motherhood status are generally the ones who didn't bother with education and therefore never had to make that decision. They consider being a mum their career and that's why they think everyone else should pay them for it. When in reality, their only other option was a dead end job anyway. They are the type who write things like "full time mumma" under their occupation on FB etc.

@FortonServices You might be surprised. I work in law. It's a pretty persistent refrain I hear from colleagues that career women having kids and promoting motherhood is a feminist act, and anyone who isn't actively helping mums in the workplace (even over their own needs) is a dinosaur. I've been on the receiving end of plenty of comments that women without kids are living up to the stereotype of the cold, unfeeling, 'bitch' lawyer-type whereas female lawyers with children are the new frontier - smart and caring etc etc etc. I'm persistently told that I don't need time off etc. because I'm one of those people who "lives to work" (I don't, I just don't have a 'family' in their eyes).

Deification of motherhood is an endemic part of society and it crosses class/education/etc boundaries.

Ok, that's different from my experience but interesting to hear. I'm also in a profession, degree, post grad etc. I feel like my career is on hold for a few years due to DD caring responsibilities.

Nope, financial services previously and the very opposite of my experience. I was expected to facilitate working parents continuously because to do otherwise would make me selfish - also the place where I was told I wasn't allowed to discuss my infertility because it upset the mum to be in the office who was shamelessly listening in on my private conversation about it. Her talking about her pregnancy non stop was fine though.

Interestingly where I am now we have a 50/50 split of parents to non parents and its interesting how having a much more even split has stopped a lot of the comments and issues I have come up against before.

I have a week off in the summer holidays this year, this is my first week off in the summer holidays in over 15 years, and its the first place I have been allowed time off in the summer holidays and not told I am selfish for even considering it.

I'm 43 and I had my first child at 40. I feel glad that I haven't experienced what some of you are saying, pre DD.

My sister is 5 years older than me and infertile. She has experienced some horrible comments.

I wondered if it was because her working environment staffed by older people than mine and things had changed regarding childless women.

Clearly I wondered wrong and I've just been lucky.

Senior NHS manager here and if I find the same. My life choices are denigrated, my time dismissed as not important and I'm left out of conversations, told I'm not a feminist and every other insult childfree women meet on a regular basis.

@FortonServices Sadly I’ve yet to come across an environment that isn’t like this. My current role is the worst because I think women are under a lot of pressure and judgement because they’re maintaining career and children, so a lot of it is probably anxious projection, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

One of my colleagues, upon finding out I’d had to have a hysterectomy to save my life, blurted out that she’d rather have died than not have her kids. She was mortified when she realised what she’d said but 4 or 5 female colleagues who were present said she was only thinking and acting as any mum would. It’s a very us and them mindset, even in 2022. I’m guilty of that as much as them I suppose, but it grinds you down.

Don’t get me started on the handful of colleagues of mine who’ve united into a group to write individual weekly pregnancy journey blogs for our work intranet, which they share to us all with pride every Monday…

Don’t get me started on the handful of colleagues of mine who’ve united into a group to write individual weekly pregnancy journey blogs for our work intranet, which they share to us all with pride every Monday…

Sounds like an interesting read.

Oops forgot the grimace emoji 😬

I think Tracey Emin said that she didn’t feel she could be an artist and have children because she wanted 100% involvement.

“There are good artists that have children. Of course there are. They are called men.”

A great deal of extra powerful female creativity (and I don’t just mean artistic) can be unleashed for the benefit of the world by women who don’t have children, or women who don’t go on and on having various family responsibilities.

Years ago I recall someone remembering when as a child she had been taught by nuns, talking about all the energy they would put into preparing marvellous maps for their geography and so on. They opened schools all over the world for the hood of society.

Think of Mother Theresa and her nuns helping the poor and dying. All the dedicated nursing nuns there used to be.

Of course women with children do great things too by their work, or because their children provide the next generation.

But I think it should be welcomed that there are different forms of ‘giving birth’.

@ScrollingLeaves Mother Theresa is a bad example as some of her values were very dodgy.

Virginia Woolf reached the same conclusion long before Emin.

.

@RedWingBoots · Today 21:34
@ScrollingLeaves Mother Theresa is a bad example as some of her values were very dodgy.

I don’t know details about all her values, but was thinking of the sheer energy and time she and her nuns were able to extend to dying people due to their not having families.

@Blossomtoes · Today 21:42
Virginia Woolf reached the same conclusion long before Emin.

Yes, and I am sure there are other good examples.

I just happened to remember T E’s quip.

Im child free by choice. Im 49 I agree with the posts about housing. They dont even think you deserve a bedroom if you dont have kids. Started off in a bedsit with DH and have been living in a one bedroom flat since 1994. You cant even have two people in the kitchen at the same time. Its that small. Social housing. There is NO CHANCE of somewhere bigger in SH unless you have kids. Its also a real sweat box. Cant have guests over for dinner. There just isnt room. And YES to having to work the shitty shifts.

@rainbowmilk Im a carer (i dont currently work) but when i was working it was heavily hinted that DH was a bit of a malingerer. But anyone who wanted time off if it involved a child was bent over backwards for. Including when the DH of a colleugue was stuck in a supermarket car park unable to collapse a buggy. Colleugue was allowed to rush out of workplace to help him but me? Oh cant he manage on his own. Another colleuges 8 year old got ill and it wasnt questioned unlike DHs disability which prompted me to sarcastically ask at what age does genuine illness stop and malingering start. They dismissed me after three weeks.

@JennyBubbles That’s dreadful, I’m so sorry. We have a work caters network but those caring for adult dependants have recently had to leave and form another group as the only thing the network was willing to discuss or lobby for was caring for children.

I’ve also heard many colleagues get leave requests or emergency requests turned down but if parents have sports days or assemblies, no problem, someone else will pick up the work. I’m not a carer but it must be maddening.

Given how shit kids are these days. Society is doomed anyway. Unless tiktok & pouting will cure cancer and contribute to the economy.

Wow.... @OperaStation learn to read a room. Are you seriously that dense or just an idiot

Bonkers. I can't afford a child, so I don't have any. And then pay because I can't afford one
Logical!

Yep Governments spent ages moaning about people who have children they cant afford. People like me who live in social housing. Birth rate drops and they will gaslight us and try to rewrite history saying its our fault.
Though i didnt have kids because i saw/see it as a life of drudgery and it will always be women doing the grunt work

@rainbowmilk i wish i could say that i am surprised but im not.