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

Interesting comments and it explains why the number of births is decreasing. This is bad news for the economy and very soon parents will be encouraged to have more children. Have the number of children you want and don’t be put off by what other people think you should have.

I had a small business and two children I then went on to have my third child, my third child is non verbal autistic, something we could not have foreseen! I had to give up my business as I could not do both, I am now what you call an unpayed career, I am not allowed to work over 16 hours, I am not aloud to go and study further, I am on call 24/7, if he is at school and I am needed I am expected to be there in 30 minutes to collect him. Or calm him down. He sleeps 4 hours a day which means I sleep under 4 hours a night. He can not be left unsupervised I can not fall asleep, or very dangerous things could and have happened if I have fallen asleep when it comes to 4am, and I’m exhausted and have to be up for the school run for all my children. Things are most definitely not always as simple as you make out….

I am certainly not envious of him but I am just stating that if you lie about your health you can get benefits you are not entitled to.

He certainly does not live on a pittance because as well as whatever health related benefits he gets he also gets a working wage as he works 4 or 5 full days a week and, obviously, does not pay tax or national insurance

@Talii the reduced childcare hours scheme isn't available across the UK unfortunately. So there's still a huge number of parents in certain areas who aren't able to get support with this and cannot afford to work as a result. Since mothers often make up the majority of those coming out of work to take on caring responsibilities and given how many absentee fathers there are, it ultimately comes back on the mothers and as demonstrated by this thread, they're damned if they do damned if they don't.

YANBU

Well you can disbelieve me but it is true. He is not the brightest spark and me and DH have helped him a lot since he moved in. He was working but told us his then girlfriend was not working and claiming mental health problems and getting benefits and he was thinking of doing the same.

When his car packed up DH was taking him to the Job Centre and when they started pushing him to get a job he told DH he was going to his GP to say he was very depressed and suffering anxiety which stopped him being able to go out.

We know the neighbour that is paying him cash in hand to do gardening and diy work and often see them going off in the morning and returning in the evening.

Also am I right in saying that vasectomy is now no longer a free service available on the NHS for family planning reasons? Meaning people would need to be able to afford to go privately in order to have this procedure done? I'm not sure but I think I read something similar recently. If that's the case then you can't cite that as an appropriate option for low income families.

Which again leaves the vast majority of contraception options to the woman and as someone who has used nearly all the methods and struggled massively because of the way my body reacts to hormonal contraception- that's not always a good option. Really for me the best and least imposing option is condoms but we all know those can fail even when used correctly. As can hormonal birth control.

I don’t agree with a two child limit on benefits, but I support benefits not being higher than the minimum wage after tax.

Yes, but some will tell you that circumstances changes. Well, yes sometimes but the big majority can’t clearly afford them. I have met people like this. Poor kids starving and cold and the bloody parents blaming the government. Last time I check family planning helps you to prevent pregnancy and there are terminations. It is unfair poor kids come here to suffer.

And women had to stay in abusive or unhappy relationships then because they couldn't afford to leave. Thank god they actually can now.

That wouldn't work. You can't pay rent on less than minimum wage. Kids would end up homeless.

Yes I agree with this.

Was op talking about the children? No, she was talking about the low lives that keep hving them in taxpayers money. But unfortunately those children usually end up the same as it’s all the know.

Maybe educate ALL children into not having kids they want other people to pay for.

Do you believe we should just keep throwing our hard earned taxes on them so they can have the same lives as the people who work and restrained themselves into only hving 2 children. Stop the money and the breeding will stop.

@canonlydoblue

That's great you feel able to manage and purvis adequately for your children. But surely you must recognise that there have to be certain factors in place that are allowing you to be in this position to afford 6?

For example, the cost of your housing and secure accommodation, the area you live in and associated costs, potentially having family who are able to support if one of you is sick or needed to go into work for example, and outgoings that allow you to manage on one wage plus the wage itself to be able to do that.

Both myself and my dh work full time, we both live frugally, we don't have anyone who can offer us support with childcare as grandparents are either too far away (poor job prospects where I come from) or are still working full time. If I reduced my hours dh wouldn't earn enough to cover all bills by himself. If I did a few hours we could probably break even but we'd not be able to save for anything- and being able to save is an essential part of being able to sustain accommodation in a crisis and provide essential things for your child as they get older. We have one child and it's tight so I'm genuinely wondering what your dhs income is that he's able to provide for 6 mainly by himself alongside the hours you're working.

If it were maybe 5 years ago, before things got so incredibly expensive we could have had a second without really worrying too much.

So I'm now in a position where I either need to retrain and work in a different sector that pays higher, or we don't expand our family and I stay in the job I do now which I love, which is at the top end of my sector and which I've studied and trained and worked hard for. I'm genuinely wondering what the ways you're talking about are because maybe I'm missing something or maybe you're taking into consideration factors that a lot of people don't have access to.

We're careful with our food and electricity and heating costs, ds clothing is all second hand as are toys and furniture, we've DIY that needs done that we're just working around at the moment, I've set myself up to wfh to reduce my petrol and parking costs etc and we shop around for things before we make purchases, no abroad holidays. Really the only 'non essential spending' we do is on our pets because while it's essentials for them I guess pets themselves are not essential and paying slightly extra on our mortgage each month?

I'm fine with my tax going towards children, yep. Rather that than going towards an MP's breakfast.

Well don’t complain when services are stretched to breaking point and the population is far higher than what we can sustain.

They already are. And welfare isn't the reason.

It's all down to personal responsibility, and sadly the majority sleep through life without engaging

Chronic underfunding of essential services with money available to the government would be what you need to look at there. Let's not forget that many politicians feel it would be beneficial to privatise the NHS and funnily enough are the same folks who keep reducing funding for the NHS... this problem starts from the top down not the other way about. Even mps wages, expenses etc- they're much much higher than the average wage will ever be and that's all coming from the public purse. Lack of accountability for people who could spend huge amounts on tax and choose not to or are supported by the government not to... that's a much bigger impact than the family of 5 down the road on benefits.

To me it's similar to environmental impact- if you don't have gov support and the big producers of plastic and pollution held to account and forced to do things in a more sustainable and ethical way, the day to day impact of individuals and their families who are eco conscious will of course make some change but it'll only be a small dent in the overall problem. And they won't collectively be able to undo the impact caused by major corporations etc. Money and power talk, and scapegoating the poor and pretending its all their fault is just old news. Similarly to the blaming of 'illegal immigrants' by the government. Even though there's no such thing as an illegal immigrant since everyone has the right to seek asylum. And the correct term is refugee... all very pointed and clever marketing by the gov to scapegoat the vulnerable and the poor and the least empowered in our society.

Can you put some figures to all that?

No, of course I knew they had to work before their kids were 12. In the original post I made about it, I said "until fairly recently you didn't have to work til your youngest child was 12". I knew it was around 2010 or thereabouts, but not the exact year.

There's no resentment here towards those people, just questioning why the state thought it was a good idea in the first place.

A lot of people on benefits have children as a form of a money making business. I know some!

@TerrysNeapolitan but surely you can’t make money out of it?

even awful parents have to put some effort in