Why doesn’t the country support having children?

[NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting]

Just seen an article on The Guardian about the 15 free hours for childcare for under 2’s and how the whole system is a mess.

I’m just starting to lose hope that this country doesn’t support working families anymore?

AIBU and need to think more positively, or have we screwed up massively by not supporting families?

The Guardian article which I read.

As a mother of twins, childcare has almost bankrupted me.

What the planet is already struggling with, massively, is fresh, drinkable water and enough farmland for crops and meat/dairy production. Intensive farming on a massive scale is draining the land of nutrients and polluting water sources with the runoff. An ever-increasing world population is going to run out of resources sooner than you think - they've already had water riots in places like Bangalore in India, because their states were selling their drinking water to others that had run dry.

Babies in developed countries like ours take 3x their share of these resources compared to babies in developing countries. Personally I don't want to see our country become like Mumbai or Dhaka in Bangladesh - massively overpopulated, slum housing, and no healthy food or water for the poor.

I'm old; my parents got nothing like what parents today take from the taxpayers.

Having children is an expensive lifestyle choice, and it's 100 percent a choice, so don't complain to me about the costs.

It costs the planet and other species a lot more.

I’m with @LardyCakeAgain and @ParanoidJo resources will go down.

We can’t keep stressing over lower birth rates but use tech to mitigate instead

I’m old too. My parents got nothing, and my mum was a widow so got double nothing.

l got nothing when my son was little. I was a single parent ( not by choice) and was villified by the government of the time. I got nothing towards childcare, it cost me £600 quid a month 28 years ago.

But the children of this country deserve the absolute best they can have. And this government have a shameful record on child poverty. Why should the youngest and most vulnurable not be invested in?

I'm old; my parents got nothing like what parents today take from the taxpayers.

@LaurieStrode what on earth are you talking about "parents today taking from the taxpayers"?! Most parents today ARE taxpayers - we have to work to afford to live, and so we have to pay for extortionate childcare - that's literally the whole point of this thread...?

As a worked example I have a 2 year old. I just checked my final payslip for last year and I paid £4908 in tax and £2700 in NI. I "took" the maximum £2000 tax relief for my child, which is split with my also-tax-paying husband, so effectively worth £1000 to me. We don't qualify for child benefit as my DH earns over £60k.

So as a parent of a 2 year old, I contributed £6608 more in tax last year alone than I received due to having a child. God only knows what that figure would look like for my husband - much higher obviously.

You are literally talking out of your child free arse when you say that parents are taking from taxpayers like yourself.

@LaurieStrode
They will have recieved family allowance, You still received an education, possibly free university and a grant to go with it.
Health care.
Married persons tax allowance.

Back in the day in the post war years they didn't have enough jobs, they wanted the men returning from war to be back in employment and it really suited the country to have women work minimum hours.

Times have moved on we want women to be 'economically active'. We don't want to waste half the country's talent and education.

It's inevitable that reducing the birth rate will result in a higher proportion of older people, especially as life expectancy rises. It's just whether we tackle it now or in future decades when things have got worse/resources depleted.

I often wonder whether in the future we'll be digging up landfill sites to harvest the plastic etc. Having worked for one of the world's biggest waste hauliers and seen 40% of recyclable materials go to landfill (mainly due to customers contaminating/not segregating properly) I'm probs more aware than many of how wasteful we are as a society. And we try harder than a lot of other countries.

I was listening to radio 4 this morning - I think it was more or less - UK life expectancy is falling

https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/07/06/uk-has-one-of-the-lowest-life-expectancies-among-rich-countries-why

the lower life expectancy is due to the UK healthcare system having fewer key resources than its peers - including "strikingly" low levels of clinical staff.

There's also been recommendations to government that retirement ages should be raised again to 68 by 2044.

So we'll work longer and likely die younger - that should help with the aging population.

It's inevitable that reducing the birth rate will result in a higher proportion of older people, especially as life expectancy rises. It's just whether we tackle it now or in future decades when things have got worse/resources depleted.

Exactly. Continuing to grow the population as resources deplete will result in a worse situation

Childfree not penalized. But people who are keeping the species going do so at the detriment of their later years?

@TripleDaisySummer trying not to shoot the messenger but the idea of raising retirement is bonkers.
By the time people are 65 many aren't fit for full time work, particularly those in manual roles, so they end up on sickness benefits.

Then those in well earning professional roles will be taking early retirement with private pension.

So who exactly is still going to be working at 68

I will already be working until 67, if I do not die first.

@ThinkingForward

@Daphnis156
@BlueGrey1

May be this should be a bit like the state pension, support for childcare would depend on your employment NI record. Let's say you need 15years employment/first child and +10 yrs for each one after that between mother and father to access free childcare hrs? This would support those who have been in work but are either down on luck or don't have a great income but would still reinforce the need for personal responsibility.

As 5 kids and never worked (as in a earlier post) shouldn't be a choice that everyone else has to pay for.

Yes, I agree, there needs to be something like that in place, I personally don’t want to contribute (my taxes) towards lazy layabouts who contribute nothing to society in order for them to have multiple children……pay for your own kids by getting a job otherwise don’t have them!

Which would mean the family with 5 children where the mother has never worked, will never get out to work.

But as others have said, who is actually going to pay for this?

Many people are having problems at the moment, difficulty finding work at all, high fuel bills, having to replace a car because of emission zones, rapidly rising food and transport costs. I live in a flat where the rates and service charges have gone up enormously in the past few years and we live on a pension without the pay rises that others have had.
My daughter paid nursery fees until last September and dealt with it, she was very grateful to get the good financial help that she had as well as paid maternity leave.

Yes, why don't we compare ourselves with Germany? 🙄
https://www.dw.com/en/child-care-in-germany-leaves-mothers-with-few-options-to-work/a-62780575

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-age-review-2023-government-report/state-pension-age-review-2023#:~:text=The%20Pensions%20Act%202014%20brought,68%20between%202044%20and%202046.

The Pensions Act 2011 accelerated the timetable for equalising State Pension age at 65, so that it was completed in November 2018, and brought forward the increase in State Pension age to 66 to between 2018 and 2020. The Pensions Act 2014 brought forward the increase to 67 to between 2026 and 2028.
The current legislated pathway is for the State Pension age to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028 and 68 between 2044 and 2046. The legislation stipulates that this Review must consider whether this pathway is appropriate.

It's not certain it will ever hit 68 but it's already on table being considered.

I'm not sure it's ideal either- ill health ageist workplaces forcing people out in 50s or people in active roles making themselves very ill trying to keep up with younger workers - seen all that in my own immediate family.

I also agree that many in better paid professions will use private pension to retire earlier than those dependent on state pensions further entrenching inequalities - with poorer occupations and areas also having lower life expectancy so less likely to live as long to enjoy state retirement pensions.

I'm old; my parents got nothing like what parents today take from the taxpayers.

unlikely & fyi some parents are taxpayers!

@TripleDaisySummer
I think it's bonkers to raise it.
There is definitely a thing where you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Some people are very good, but lots of people get to a stage where they just can't keep up with new technologies that are changing ALL the time.

We also as a country have to look at the amount of work available. Keeping old people in work, stops younger people getting jobs, young people who need help with housing and kids are more expensive to have on benefits than to have older people collecting their pension. Big picture.

I get no childcare hours.
I get no child benefit as just above the threshold of me ending up paying them back.
i dont get tax credits.
I have worked long days & hours all my life and let myself have a long maternity leave but only got paid 2 months and well SMP is not enough to cover nappies for a month. it was a struggle!
Before you say I probably earn too much thats why i'm not eligible - well by the time i pay for everything out of my own pocket, i may aswell not work! i can only afford 1 child - barely

@Stopthetankerimtryingtosleep All very well but that blatantly discriminates against those ladies that were unable to have children.😐

My £80 odd quid a week state pension is a real motivator! We were so hard up I paid a reduced NI contribution after I went back to work. Didn’t count towards state pension. The years I stayed at home, no paid maternity leave, with our DC, also meant no contributions. Of course if I hadn’t eventually built up a modest occ pension, all the nice tax payers would be funding me fully in my retirement.

@Outthedoor24
What a load of tripe. The idea that there is a finite amount of jobs is the same rubbish that was peddled after ww2 to take jobs off women and give them to men, or that migrants "take our Jobs". The more people that are active in the economy the more money there is to spend and the more jobs there are.

You must be living on cloud 9 where you pay in average wage £2.8k a year in NI for 35 years and then pull out 12k a year for 20 years. The only direction of travel for the state pension is either it will require alot more years of NI to get a full entitlement. This could allow those that started work younger to draw on it earlier than those that were at university until they were 30. Or an increase in age back to it's original intent with eligibility being close to life expectancy.

Pensioners who can't do maths and demand higher state pension and a lower eligibility age are a millstone around the countries neck.

Oh absolutely, I don't think we should be charging any groups more. I was just giving the flip side of PPs idea.