To think people on here expect only the rich to have children?

[Geraldinefox]

I've seen so many posts in which people say 'Oh 50k is certainly not enough to raise a child on.'

Or, 'you should only consider having a baby when you have at least a year's salary in savings.'

Many people have children with far less and the reality is they're absolutely fine.

Should care assistants, retail staff, nursery staff etc. Just never have a child then?

No one "deserves' to have a family. Kids, on the other hand, deserve to be born in a family who can afford to raise them well.

When deciding to have kids, people should put their ability to best meet the kids needs before their own desire to be a parent.

What does raising them well look like?

When deciding to have kids, people should put their ability to best meet the kids needs before their own desire to be a parent.

money isn’t a guarantee re the above.

I do agree with what you're saying, especially the private care home and nursery subsidising profits.

However that's the way it currently is, and I left social care because I can get and do get, better pay and conditions in hospitality - with exactly the same qualifications and skills. And they're not really much to write home about either, but as a society we're willing to be paying people more to entertain and pamper us than we're willing to pay to have children and vulnerable adults looked after.

Team leader level, junior management with only a deputy and manager above me in both roles. I've no advanced qualifications - I have NVQ and several courses that I've done but no degree or equivalent. I've worked hard, learned and applied myself, I'm not done yet, but I won't be going back into social care, which is a shame because I enjoyed it and I was good at it.

For the same skills and experience I'm getting more money, and have been promoted with scope for more - that wasn't the case in social care and isn't the case in many hospitality settings because the bulk of the work is manual, hard, draining and poorly paid, I recognise that without that part of the workforce, there's no one for me to actually manage.

And some can see there are the childcare hours on offer (I don't have kids so no idea how that works tbh).
People using the benefits and childcare on offer are doing nothing wrong by claiming it.
Maybe it is a moral issue, but it seems to be one that the only people taking issue with it are privileged or have a lot of family support, and need to see the bigger picture.

I keep having an ad on here about being pregnant and disabled. Has anyone bitched about that yet?

Many also forgot that the child benefit equivalent back when I was a dc was universal. There is also no MIRAS now.

What you describe is exactly what needs to be tackled - that you can have experienced, skilled people who want to deliver care but see no progression and therefore leave. Childcare and elder care is a fundamental part of life and needs fixing to retain high quality staff that you and I would want looking after our dear ones. Much like being a teacher. Doesn't have to make one a millionaire but at least pay a professional wage

@XenoBitch I'm not sure 1 minimum wage has ever been enough to really support a family. And it's just not sustainable to have 1 minimum wage be enough for a house, car, bills, food etc.

Lots of families did manage it, but we are talking decades ago.
My parents did... but we were in a council house. 3 kids. There was not much in the way of top ups then either.
Now is different.

I think it's right that you think about what you can offer a child before you have one, yes.

I'm financially sound as a pound. Well, quite a lot of pounds, actually. But I had a mental health crisis three years ago and I didn't TTC until I had it sorted. I also studied for a salary boosting free qualification (ta, Rishi), and paid a reasonable sum (low hundreds) and self-studied for another.

I'm not naive and unaware of barriers to accessibility to these things, but I don't think that putting in at least a year of effort to sort your personal situation in readiness is a bad ask.

I think being able to have children, if you choose, is understood to be a basic human right. The second part of your post is why state support exists in the UK.

https://www.who.int/tools/your-life-your-health/know-your-rights/rights-across-life-phases---early-and-middle-adulthood/rights-on-having-children#:~:text=Everyone%20has%20the%20right%3A,support%20to%20make%20these%20decisions

If you take away the right from poor people to have children, that is basically eugenics. Who should we stop next?

Right now, there are alarm bells going that in the near future there won't be enough poors willing to work for measly wages and paying extortionate taxes and willing to fight in wars. Because immigration did not work out as expected.

Children are expensive, we only had ours in our mid to late thirties bcoz that is when we could afford it. We have not received child benefit or any state benefits ever. We both work hard and provide for our children, we have two. So yes, I do think people need to only have children they can provide for. This is the case in most asian countries, parents only have children based on what they can afford as they have to pay for everything including pregnancy check ups, scans, giving birth etc. Yes, I do understand that sometimes things happen which are unplanned and for that luckily in this country there is a safety net but people should not use that knowing they will not be able to afford a child. It is unfair and very entitled to expect others to pick up the tab. Like in most other countries ppl should work hard, study more, better themselves and provide a better life for themselves and their children and not expect the state and tax payers to do it!

Like in most other countries ppl should work hard, study more, better themselves and provide a better life for themselves and their children and not expect the state and tax payers to do it!

Does this just apply for children or all benefits?

And of course plenty of people who receive benefits are tax payers….

Yes, exactly this.

To answer the OP, Mumsnet is full of people who believe in eugenics.

Realistically that's what it should mean though, otherwise what's the point in it? You should be able to live on minimum wage.

@Ottervision the point of minimum wage is to support yourself. So it should be enough to rent a 1 bed place, basic transportation, food etc.

It's not to support a family home, children etc.

It used to be enough though. I knew plenty of people on NMW who had kids and lived well.
Now, it is not enough. It is not their fault.

Well firstly. It's not.

Secondly, there is no rule that only single people can or should earn min wage. Some people may only be able to do a min wage job, or want to in fact. That should be a valid choice because as we know, these jobs are v important. They shouldn't be only for single young people.

Or do you genuinely think people on min wage shouldn't be able to have kids?

The issue is the economy not the people earning min wage.

Do you use paid childcare to enable you both to work?

What a shame that people seem to think that only those who can afford to not use state subsidies (which is actually the state subsidising workplaces that are not paying people true living wages) should have children.

but of course, it would be easier to cope in pandemics, because all those key workers wouldn't have children to worry about, would they? Because when you want people to fully fund their children, that means you don't want the vast majority of healthcare staff, shopworkers, transport workers etc to have children.

I am literally one generation away from a time (pre-war) when there was not state support. Do you think people didn't have children? Yes they did, and my parents had many, many tales of the extreme poverty they witnessed daily. Children who had no food and no shoes. Living hand to mouth and using the pawn shop on a weekly basis (buying stuff back on payday) to make ends meet. Parents who were glad when the war came because army wages lifted them from destitution.

How easy do you think it is to 'better yourself' in those conditions?

Don't think that the government gives benefits because of compassion though. They do it because it is financially astute. Once more - every penny of benefit ends up back in the economy. People use that money, and money is meant to be used and passed from hand to hand.

What is ruining economies is the rich, hoarding their wealth so that they can buy a second yacht should the unthinkable happen and the first springs a leak. So their child can send their grandchild to Eton even if they don't earn 6 or 7 figures. So that they can fund lobbyists and get government contracts which they fulfill by paying minimum wage or outsourcing to foreign sweatshops. Parasites on the labour of others, every last one of them.

But no. All too many mumsnetters would have us go back to the days of the workhouse, and charity only for the 'deserving' poor.

Your taxes end up in the pockets of the rich too. Michelle Mone for example, and other government cronies. not just during the pandemic, but always - the pandemic just brought it into sharp focus. I'd rather my taxes went to the poor than the rich - the rich have enough advantages already.

A lack of state support would affect women the most for this reason too - it's not men who are left lliterally holding the baby when things go wrong.

I recognise my privilege - we were poor, but my parents were able to feed and clothe us, and I received full state support to go to University in the days of grants. And STILL my child ended up in poverty when I divorced.

The welfare state exists because it helps us ALL in one way or another. It's very few who will be better off when it is ended.

It's really comforting to think that you got where you are by your own efforts, and everyone else should do the same, and why should we help them? But it's not the truth. We need to punch up, not down.

www.boredpanda.com/privilege-explanation-comic-strip-on-a-plate-toby-morris/

So do all people have to send their kid to tuition paying school and euthanize themself before being admitted to a government supported care home? The taxpayers support a lot of things for a lot of people. Sometimes for people completely outside the system who never paid in. The best situation is when 2x as many workers as retired people. So everyone should have 4 if that was the point. People can have none or 22.

Meh. To turn this on its head:

"No business or organisation should be allowed to have employees if they can't afford to pay them the kind of salary that would take them above the need to be topped up by Universal Credit; such business don't deserve the luxury of employees as they rely on the tax payer to fund those employees."

It's immoral that large companies with healthy profit margins rely on being able to recruit national minimum wage workers, knowing that the tax payer will subsidise their poor wages, while pocketing the difference.

Ditto housing. The housing element of income based benefits goes straight into the pockets of private landlords charging unscrupulous rents while hiding behind 'market value': "No private landlord should be allowed tenants if the rent they charge is so high that they require the tax payer to subsidise those tenants' rent payments through Universal Credit: those landlords don't deserve the luxury of tenants as they require the tax payer to bail them out."