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.

I saved for several years for maternity leave (we didn't get as long off paid, it was a while ago), nursery fees, and other child expenses. I also bought nigh on everything secondhand that wasn't gifted/passed down. We didn't get funded nursery and had no family nearby, although you could get a paid-for pre-school place from aged 4, it was 2 term's worth for a summer baby.
I think it's probably harder for people to save nowadays.

This is a London based group of friends as well who I went to school with and would mostly come from very wealthy families. Out of my friendship group 3 of the girls were from families of 4, the others were from 2/3 I was the only 'singleton'. I now live in Ireland where child care can still be prohibitively expensive (Dublin) but thankfully not where I am. I really don't see any of them having 4, and most probably won't even have 2.

I can see why the population is dropping but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

At some point the narrative will change from we need more dc in a kind of pyramid. I don’t know when most people will see that (not yet going by this thread), maybe when there’s loads of people without a job.

You’ve summed my thoughts up perfectly.

I suspect the real reason is that it is no longer the vote generater it once was.

Less people are having children at all (bit of a cause and effect) so less voters are parents or want-to-be parents.

Increased career opportunities for women mean they delay having children for longer and then the chances of having them reduce - so even from the group of women who want to be mothers, there is a reduction. So less voters there too.

Plus, the country as a general rule, is right leaning. That's low state interference, low state help. So it won't generate votes from people along politics lines either.

Youcannotbereallyserious. I agree, when I had my DK it was 6 weeks maternity leave paid, nothing else,you were on your own. It's not the governments job to bring up your kids. We worked around it,by shifts.

If you're an honest, hardworking taxpayer you are invisible to all mainstream politicians.

@CwmYoy “People afforded it for centuries.”

I mean there’s about a million comments to add here based on precisely which period in history you are talking about.

But for simplicity, pre-1960s there wasn’t accessible contraception for most. So the babies just kept coming. People lived in dire poverty - lack of food, terrible housing, no education, children working etc. Is this aspirational?

Post-1960s there was a period in time where you could afford to buy a home on one wage, and as a result you could raise a family in a modest way on a modest wage.

That is now vastly more difficult. The cost of housing has spiralled. I’m sure you have read about the ‘cost of living crisis’ - funding a family on one normal wage is increasingly impossible (already impossible in much of the country.

If we don’t support working parents to have children, it will become the preserve of the very rich and the very poor. This is not really productive for the U.K. - or desirable for its residents.

I really hate when people compare today to many years ago. It is not comparable. It was probably a lot cheaper 18 years ago. The day rate at my DS's nursery has gone up 20% in the last 2.5 years alone.

Also he gets 30 funded hours, but even using this plus tax free childcare for only 2 days per week equals £120 per month, so it's not free.
Before he qualified for the 30 hours it was £400 per month!

I'm lucky my first will have started school before my second starts nursery otherwise I don't know how we'd afford it and me and DH are both working.

This, I was not supported at all but I did not expect any support. We paid for our own childcare and we both worked around looking after our children. As a tax payer, I don’t want to contribute towards childcare for other peoples kids.

The rates of child benefit have barely risen in the last 20 years, until 2006 lone parents recieved a higher rate, this no longer exists. Child Tax credit has been replaced by Universal Credit. SMP is £172.48 a week for 9 months. If you can't afford that and need to put baby in nursery, you're looking at around £65 per day. Out of interest do you have DC and if so when were they born?

People saying it was much harder in the 90s, I remember as a child being one of the only ones in school with two full time working parents. But both Grandparents were retired so no wrap around care needed. Most families had a SAHM or a Mum that worked part time whilst Dad had an average job. It was very normal to be a SAHM Mum and have 3 or 4 children without needing your DH to be a high flyer. That is not possible now.

I don't think they support anyone. SSP is crap, the NHS is falling to pieces, mental health care is a state. I'm not disputing your argument but it's not working families specific.

We have an aging population so we need people to have children. The government should be encouraging and subsidising beneficial behaviour like healthy living and having children and discouraging non-beneficial behaviours by taxing them like smoking or having a gas guzzling car. Countries that do this are wealthier, safer and healthier which saves money for everyone and have the highest happiness indexes. Why are we ignoring these facts...? It can only be for ideological, selfish reasons as even the wealthy are disadvantaged in unequal societies.

So depressing that those on here think it's ok just because'it's better than it was in my day'.

The fact is it should be better. I earn NOTHING after childcare at the moment. Tax free childcare barely touches the surface. I am not entitled to any help until child is 3. I can't not work as I need to pay half the mortgage but I can't it pays me nothing to work. I fact I'm over drawn every month.
It's not just the early years, after school care for two is £400 a month plus holiday provision.

Lots of other countries in Europe manage it. Why shouldn't we aspire to having non profit, high quality childcare?

I don't think the country can afford to pay more. Having children is a personal choice. I paid nursery fees, I spaced my children out, and we lived very frugally for a number of years. It's not forever.

Actually, since you brought it up, SMP is a joke and an affront to working women.

After years of hard work and paying your dues you are suddenly expected to live on about £650 a month while supporting a baby? You either have to get benefits if you qualify or become dependent on a partner (and there seems to be at least a thread a week about how a partner still expects to go 50/50 on expenses or control the family finances). How is that fair?

I think the question isn't so much regarding to targeted support - it should be 'why is it so hard to have children (and remain financially comfortable)?' Having children is indeed a choice and many are deciding not to. For lots of reasons but a large one being unable to afford them due to how poorly everything else in the economy is being managed.

We should be having high-quality childcare! And I don't have kids. We also shouldn't have pensioners freezing. We shouldn't have operations cancelled. We shouldn't have vital drugs missing because of massive shortages. I went on SSP and it was about £90 a week. It is NOT just childcare, it is everything and don't blame each other because that's what they want us to do. Look upwards, please.

The issue is that OP said
”the country doesn’t support families ‘anymore’.
Hence the comments on how it used to be.

Well you’re a big meanie then.

l’ve been a tax payer 36 years. I am more than happy to support our country’s children. They are our future.

Its attitudes like yours that have got us in the mess we’re in now. ‘I’m alright Jack’

Isn’t an advanced country supposed to look after its young and its old? Just like now eh?😂

What do people think the workforce will be like in twenty odd years when these dc get there?

I doubt it’ll be the same requirement for workers

I assume that the government isn't funding childcare in the hope that people (apart from the rich) stop having children. That way they can import migrants to do the jobs and ship them back home when they want to retire. Making it really hard for migrants to bring their families over will help them in their master plan. Doing all this will mean that they won't need to fund schools/childcare settings (due to the lack of babies/children that no longer exist in their perfect world) and they won't need to find anything for OAPs as there won't be any left in this country as they will have been returned from where they originally came from when they can no longer work.

So tired of hearing the same old crap about having children to support the population. We can't outrun the post war baby boom by having another baby boom! It just becomes an unfillable black hole in terms of cost to the planet and scarcity of housing, food, and fresh drinkable water.

We'd be much better off recruiting young folk on short term visas / youth mobility schemes to fill the stopgaps in care and health for the next 20 years or so - they're going to need to come here anyway, much of equatorial Africa and Asia are going to need to migrate to the northern hemisphere in future due to climate change & lack of resources (its already happening with the sub-saharan young men in dinghies). We can't keep this country & our air livable with less pollution whilst also having between 2 & 22 children each!

@Lucyintheskywithadiamond Luckily you don't get to choose where taxes are spent. Your post is all a bit "Me, Me, Me".

Because the government would rather import masses for cheap labour from elsewhere than to invest in families...