Don’t have more kids if you can’t afford them!

[SportMum1982]

I’m not a raving Tory! But honestly I would have loved more children!!! I would have loved 4 kids but I know we cannot afford 4 kids.

Why do people expect the state to pay for their children? Bar education though! If I’m being really cruel tell me, but I feel I did want more kids but stopped.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67999028

As has been posted earlier maintenance is disregarded for the purpose of benefits so it doesn't make any difference.

Why can’t the UK adopt the Australian system? Gives the state power to track the biological dad down, court ordered DNA test if he refuses to admit paternity and take maintenance straight out of father’s payslip before the money even gets into his account?

I think that would immediately make the birthrate about 0.

Report him.

Totally agree with this!

To be fair, quite a lot of people plan for in case life changes.

I'm not having three unless I have twins second time, and we may not have a second because twins run in the family.

I only have two hands for starters, that's one resource which is maxed out already.

Five children is pretty reckless for a family on an ordinary income, let alone a low one.

You can believe what you like but I am telling the truth.

The couple don't go around telling everyone but the guy did tell DH because he was telling DH what a mug he was to still be working in his 60's when it is so easy to lie about health and get benefits. One lies about their health and the other pretends to be their carer.

The other neighbour is a friend and DH was taking him to the Job Centre when he was getting job seekers as he didn't have a car then. He told us that he is depressed (which may well be true) and that has anxiety and told his GP he can't leave the house.

As I said, it's pretty obvious to know that is a lie as he goes out and works 4 or 5 days a week upto 8/9 hours each day.

And if your second pregnancy had resulted in twins, would you have put one up for adoption?

I have reported him. Twice in fact, the first time being about 8 months ago. He actually had someone come to see him 2 weeks ago about his health and not being able to work. He told them he doesn't go out, gets shopping online etc and they believed him.

Unless someone sits and watches his house and sees him going out every day they are not going to know he is lying

I've read the article and not all of them have been left in the lurch by a useless father.

As I was reading it I thought the same, why have kids that you can't afford.

I've said many times that the 2 child limit isn't fair and it should be that you can only claim for children in existence at the start of you claim and/or born within 42 weeks.

It was spelled out 12 months before the two-child cap was introduced that it was on the way, so that's not an excuse. Multiple births are exempt from the cap, unless the first pregnancy. Children born before the cut off are NOT excluded and child benefit will be paid until they reach 18.

People may want large families. I am at liberty to disapprove of large families.

There is an exception for multiples. So if the second is twins / triplets/ quads etc you can claim for all

That is a bloody good question!

I suspect that men will be able to continue spreading their seed with gay abandon whilst women are left in the lurch. As per usual.

You sound like a raving Tory. The fact that you've had to even put a disclaimer at the start of your post...

So tired of people looking down on other people. Just stop. People fall on hard times. Shit happens. I'd rather we looked at the companies and wealthy individuals who are avoiding paying tax, 'legally'.

@RobertaFirmino it is an EXCELLENT question. Does anyone know??

There definitely needs to be a societal shift in what should be expected of men. There is no stigma for them. I bet most of us can think of at least one man who has merrily upped and left their children and started another family without a backwards glance other than to point fingers at the mother of his children for this, that or the other reason. I will never, ever forget the disgust I felt one one acquaintance shamed the mother of his child on social media for daring to go out and let her hair down despite being a 'doley' and 'scrounger'. Where was HIS financial responsibility? It would never even have occurred to him that the state was picking up HIS slack!

Are you for forced sterilisation as well op?

Not all pregnancies are thought out choices. Often people are vulnerable in more ways than you'd expect. Even a traumatic childhood is enough to make someone feel they need to have lots of children to in some way heal their inner child.

Often peoples circumstances change and suddenly they can't afford the kids they'd previously been able to budget for.

Realistically the majority of people now can only afford one child (If any). We're on the periphery of that line and I hate the idea of ds being an only child, I want to know that if something happened to me and dh that he'd still have someone in his family to figure things out together. If we needed care when older I wouldn't expect ds to provide that but I'd prefer it be split between siblings if they did want to do that for us so it wasn't a huge burden on ds alone.

I would rather pay towards this in taxes than have children live in poverty any day of the week.

yes accidents happen and people have multiples etc and circumstances change but in this day and age 4,5,6+ kids really is only achievable for the very rich. Any normal working family is not able to fully support more than 2-3 kids to the standard that society dictates.
We have 3 kids and not a mumsnet high income but definitely highish compared to the 'average' household income. We do ok, kids have own rooms, we can provide decent food, clothing, activites etc. I don't think we would be able to afford a 4th child comfortably so we didn't. We have life insurance polices in case one of us dies to enable us to carry on bringing up the children. DH might leave me but I know he would pay his fair share of maintenance or 50/50 custody. Even if he hated me he loves his kids and also his mum would not let him get away with not paying!
I don't think any normal working family would or should think they could support 5 children.

I agree about benefit bashing and grabbing the tax avoiders by the short and curlies. The rot always starts at the top, not the bottom. Our current government (and the Tories in general) are a perfect example.

However, there is absolutely no need for anyone to have 5 kids whether they can afford it or not.

Lots of posters have agreed that shit happens but also that if you are planning on having children you should think about that possibility.

Also, if shit does happen, having 2 children is much easier to cope with than 3, 4, 5 or more

It's children in the household.

It's all bollocks anyway. Even if you are a higher tax earner and have 4 children...the amount of tax you pay is stil a lot less than the education for the 4 children, nhs, dental, etc cost for the children.
I don't think you should have children if you can't afford basic needs. Yes things change and if they do there should be help but there shouldn't be child benefit for every child I don't think.

Yes things change and if they do there should be help but there shouldn't be child benefit for every child I don't think.

Child benefit is means tested. I'm not sure why they changed it, it wasn't mean tested for my parents

Absolutely this. Unless it's a genuine change of circumstance you are completely right. In another note, someone in dh's family is claiming benefit for looking after their own dh. Are there any other countries that pay you for looking after your own dh?

Let me rephrase that for you. Their husband is disabled, they can't work due to their caring responsibilities so get a pittance from the government to compensate and support the household income.