the "don't have kids if u can't afford them" mentality...

[MermaidCheeks]

Who exactly do this lot think are going to be looking after them in hospitals and care homes when they're elderly and infirm?

If only those who could really afford to have kids had them - a decreasing well-off demographic -we'd be even more fucked than we already are.

Immigration is not a long-term solution when 80% of elderly are going to be spread across low and middle-affluent countries by 2050, either. Every country is going to need their own citizens.

Instead of resenting people who need their wages topped-up by the government in order to afford having a couple of kids - maybe embrace those who are making sacrifices to have kids at all, especially in the face of the overwhelming decrease in value that society and successive governments have placed on the role of raising children.

OK. Let’s make it easier to have tons and tons of children. From 2025 onwards we see a population boom. It’s 2090. Those children are now the elderly and are retiring. How many more children will we need to be having to pay for the care and retirement of the 2025 babies?

Its a pyramid scheme. The answer is voluntary euthanasia. Or the planet will sort it out for us.

I’ve no interest in fawning over people who’ve chosen to have kids. It was their decision, it wasn’t altruistic, and I’m paying my contribution to society in other ways (not least by minimising my contribution to the climate change that’ll affect the society your kids will have to live in).

The denial that children are needed from an economic purpose is ridiculous. As OP says, someone needs to sustain and pay for the aging population. You only need to look at other European countries with lower birth rates actively encouraging people to have babies to see this. Either people need to have children, or we need to let in loads more immigrants (preferably economic ones that will leave and go back to their countries for old age).

I don't buy that people are having babies for this reason though.

We need to stop over population. Yes that may mean some difficult years where we have an insufficient work force to meet care and pension needs, but we cannot sustain the current population, let alone increasing it.

Starting with not having kids you can't afford would go somewhere to solving the problem.

How about making absent dads ( usually) pay for their kids also. the number who seem to get away with paying nothing is shocking. I know it doesn't affect what benefits the resident parent gets as such but having the extra child maintenance can make an enormous difference in quality of life for the child.

No, but unless you're going to start chucking the elderly off of cliffs, we need more working-age paying taxes, building infrastructure, training staff and maybe if we paid medical and caring staff a bit more, more of them too.

If you are already struggling to provide for the children you have then yes don't plan another at that time. Common sense really.

How about raising sell rounded educated individuals who will earn a living wage to support themselves and their own families without having to take benefits?

Jesus wept. The ignorance in that statement is shocking.

I agree with you both @Threelittlelambs and @Weefreetiffany.

it’s quite fascinating how the incredibly few families in existence that rely solely on the state are vilified yet the companies paying such low wages their staff even in full time posts have to claim in work benefits (there’s an oxymoron) seem to be largely ignored as they merrily post profits.

How about making absent dads ( usually) pay for their kids also - absolutely

Circumstances can change and sometimes more children come along than bargained for ( multiple births ) . If we all waited until we could afford a baby we would never have any!

it’s quite fascinating how the incredibly few families in existence that rely solely on the state are vilified yet the companies paying such low wages their staff even in full time posts have to claim in work benefits (there’s an oxymoron) seem to be largely ignored as they merrily post profits.

Exactly. There is something very wrong here.

We have a horrendous problem with overpopulation

No we don't. Europe has a problem with a too SMALL birth rate. We need to have more children, not less. or the whole pyramid scheme is soon going to collapse

Or jobs the elderly can do to be economically active longer.

health really starts declining around 60ish but people can reasonably expect to live another twenty odd years now. At least the first twenty years at the other end of a life cycle are generally pretty light in terms of health costs and social provisions.

I think that having 4 kids is risky full stop unless you are super wealthy. We are pretty comfortable but have two kids because we knew we could manage two no matter how our circumstances changed. People having three and four kids when they earn very little or are on benefits is something that I simply don’t understand.

That being said, I do think it’s our responsibility to support these families and that more finding should be directed towards this. No child deserves to grow up in poverty whatever their parent’s choices, and hopefully by supporting the kids to have a better life and more opportunities we might break the cycle.

Oh yes thank you so much for having kids so that I might have someone to look after me when I'm old. Have a medal.

*more funding

So in your world, it's a good plan to raise children in poverty so they can then go on to do a job they don't want to do because it's the only option available?

have you considered running a communist dictatorship?

You recognise it's a pyramid scheme, yet you think it should be propped up? Lunacy!

@EmmaH2022 Eh? I think that’s the opposite to what the OP is saying.

I guess our problem with recruiting into the care sector is sorted then now that all of MN are having kids to wipe old backsides.

I was the third of five children born in the 70's and 80's to parents who were barely above the breadline. We were the kids who went to school in dirty clothing and shoes that were patched up because my parents couldn't afford to replace them and couldn't afford to wash our clothes because they only had two 50p pieces left for the meter.
While other children had lunches with fruit and chocolate bars or crisps, we had lettuce sandwiches with so,e salad cream if we were very lucky.
We had no hobbies or could join no clubs.
None of us are able to swim because our parents couldn't afford lessons and the ones we had at school were inadequate.
As our father worked as a farm labourer we never had a holiday in the summer as he was working long days. Occasionally we would get a day out to the neighbouring county, but that was it.
I didn't go on holiday until I was 21 and earning my own money.
We missed out on so much. We didn't go to the cinema, we couldn't go to birthday parties because our parents couldn't afford presents.
As we got older we all got little jobs and hoped to have a bit of money to buy things - but it all ended up being used by our parents.
I went to university and got a full grant - yet I still had to send money home because they were struggling to pay the mortgage on their council house that they bought a few years previously. The house was repossessed and my parents and the younger children had to go into private rented accommodation.
My abiding memory of those years when I was at home was a fear of the post coming in the morning or a knock on the door being a bailiff because they were in so much debt all the time.
After I left university I was still having to help with rent and food because by then my father had had to give up work through ill health.
To this day I have no savings because I'm still supporting him (my mother died a few years ago). I. Also supporting my brother who is in a low paid job and who still lives at home with my father despite being in his 40's because he has never been able to afford to move out.
Our other brother and sisters are in council,housing elsewhere having married young and are dutifully dishing out lots of children for which I'm expected to provide clothes and showers for - I'm not.
It is regularly said that children don't need a lot of material things, only love. And while that's true up to a point, they do need feeding and clothing and to not be the ones who are picked on for being smelly because there is no electricity in the house to wash clothes and they can't afford a stick of deodorant, and have to wash their hair in washing up liquid.

Oh yes thank you so much for having kids so that I might have someone to look after me when I'm old. Have a medal.

Ha, my OP was obviously written terribly - this is not what I am saying.

I'm saying, society/gov should not be vilifying the ever-increasing group of people who can't afford to have children, given the ticking demographic time bomb.

This. This this this.

Not necessarily working directly in care, although that needs an abundance of attention right now, but with advances in medicine and technology it’ll be future generations propping up any system with their taxes.

My grandparents (actually parent) had a pretty decent expectation and experience of retirement and elderly care because their generation was supported by a larger younger one. Even someone who has invested heavily and wisely in their own retirement can’t afford to completely build the infrastructure they can buy elderly care from. If there isn’t an investment in care then it simply won’t be there to buy.

So in your world, it's a good plan to raise children in poverty so they can then go on to do a job they don't want to do because it's the only option available?

Really not what I'm saying, no.

Oh look another bash those that don't have DC thread 🙄