Astounded that this is actually legal

[movingthemountains]

A friend of mine has 4 children, 1 with her ex partner from years ago and 3 with her husband. They have been separated for a year and plan to divorce eventually. He moved out of their rental property and now lives with his mum. He doesn’t work, never has really, apart from the odd job here and then over the years but it’s never lasted. She works part time, 2 days a week. They share the kids 50/50 and it’s all amicable.

Due to the two child benefit cap, which applies since the youngest 2,were born after 2017, they are unable to claim for all 4 kids simultaneously. As a result, they each claim benefits for 2 kids instead.
He receives between £900-£1000, a substantial amount considering he has no rent or bills to cover. It’s wild that they can pull this off, but if they were living together, it wouldn’t be possible.

AIBU to feel shocked by this?

Additionally, before anyone suggests that this is just a bait (generally how these threads go), friends do talk, you know!

Are you aware that people claim benefits because wages don't pay enough to cover basic living costs? UC is a wage subsidy as much as it is anything else.

So before we start banning the poor from having families, perhaps we should look at the real issues.

So is your position that his benefits should be lowered because his mother chooses to support him?

Agree with this.

@AthWat I think that’s fair yes

Common sense? We can't afford more than one. So we now use contraception....it's not rocket science. Maybe if there wasn't free money for having children, more so, MORE money from being from a separated home, people would need to be accountable for their OWN actions and decisions.
I have indeed gone long periods of time without new clothes, takeaways and hair salon trips, to ensure our DD is in clean clothes that fit and has food in her tummy. Perhaps the suggestion should be education and accountability?

It's like when high earners are advised to put extra in their pension so they avoid tax, get free childcare and child benefit. I don't see much judgement upon them types though. People like to save their judgement and righteousness for those on the lowest income.

There are plenty of children being born to keep payments going WITHOUT people who cannot afford to have children, bringing them into the world to then live in poverty.

It’s completely incorrect to say that I have to accept one or the other. Nobody needs, or should want, children being raised in situations whereby they have clothes that don’t fit right, blisters on their feet from shoes that are too small or too big, skipping meals and sleeping in freezing cold houses under this guise of “we need them to keep the country going in 50 years”- we don’t.

Not to mention the fact that those raised in poverty often go on to continue living that way into their adult lives and so they aren’t the ones paying anybodies pension.

If we are to avoid poverty and alienation from work crawling down the generations, we need to show the next generation there's a better way to live and equip them to live it. Jobs at the lower end need to be better paid so there's never a question of being better off on benefits. Which may mean those at the top end taking a little less of the fruits of other people's labour.
If parents are feckless and raising children to be poor citizens, we need to stop hard wringing about how awful it is and pontificating about how they should be better (they're not, and thats too bad) and instead accept that if we don't want it to be a never ending cycle, society needs to step in and fill the gap. Which means free school meals, tooth brushing lessons, free cultural trips, nusery places, basically, all the things people moan that we 'shouldn't have to do, because it's not fair'.

I could afford my child before I was made redundant at 37 weeks pregnant are you suggesting I terminate at that point?

I’ve absolutely never said wages are not an issue- they are- it is criminal that people working full time can still require UC top ups to get by and it shouldn’t be that way.

But that doesn’t change the fact that if I could not afford to feed, clothe and house my daughter then I would not have had her. Again- that shouldn’t be controversial. It doesn’t really matter the reason I can’t afford it, what matters is that bringing a life into the world that I know full well I cannot afford to support is cruel, and wrong.

The absolute bare minimum a parent should do is take care of their child, make sure they are warm, fed, housed. If you KNOW you cannot do that, then why on earth would you think it was okay to bring a child into the world to live like that? Maybe it’s just me but as a parent I cannot think of a single thing worse than having to watch my child go hungry, to have her ask me for food and me to have to say we don’t have any and can’t get any, there is not a single thing in the world that would make me have a child if I knew that was going to be their life.

Literally read the thread, absolutely nobody has said that. It’s been very clear that circumstances change and that is a totally different situation, so it doesn’t apply to you. It WOULD apply to you if you’d been made redundant and THEN thought “you know what, now is the perfect time to try for a baby”

There will always be people like the ex unfortunately, but at the end of the day I am glad they have the money for the children's sake. The alternative if he is work shy is them starving. I do think people are quite comfortable with children living in poverty in this country if they think the parents are useless, which is really disappointing. Children can't choose their parents, and there will always be shit ones.

He does not have a joint UC claim with his mother. To say he should is ridiculous.
The only people who have joint claims are couples in a relationship that are living together.

So, your solution is that everyone uses common sense, and acts responsibly? Unfortunately that is more of a wish than a plan, because clearly people are not doing that, and i dont know how we can force them. So the question remains, what should we do about it? You don't think we should pay them more benefits, but if stop that, the children will suffer. So to me thats not a solution. So I'm wondering what is.

So you think people who are being exploited by big business should also be morally obligated to remain childless? So basically just worker drones then?

What about disabled people? Do they meet the criteria you think should be allowed to have families? No I don't suppose they do.

What you are suggesting is dystopian, and the right to family life is there to protect people from exactly these grim ideas.

So you think it’s totally okay for children to be starving, skipping meals, not having clean clothes to wear or shoes that fit, just so everybody and anybody can have as many children as they want? Fuck the life those kids have, that doesn’t matter to you, as long as their parent gets to have a child they can’t afford to bring up?

And how are going to give her benefits but not the people you deem undeserving of them?

And why do these children not matter?

Maybe if the benefit system wasn’t as it is, more people would make different choices?

In retrospect?

You're still giving the deserving (in your eyes) nothing.

Because ultimately it all comes down to the same thing in these threads.

You want poor people to just disappear because you find them unpalatable.

I'm saying that benefits should be enough to feed and clothe children, and that wages should be enough to enable working families not to have to claim the benefits in the first place.

There is no way on Earth you will ever persuade me that the disabled shouldn't be allowed families. That I am having to type that out actually makes me feel a bit fucking sick tbh.

What a load of shite, honestly.

What is so controversial about believing it is not okay to bring children into the world if you cannot afford the absolute basics to look after them?

I’d love to have 4 children, I would love a big family, but finances mean we will stop at 2, that’s just life. It’s more important to me that any children I do have are fed, clothed, have everything they need and a home to live in than it is to have more children- that honestly should not be a crazy concept to anybody.

So again, to be clear, you don’t care what standard of living a child has so long as their parent gets to exercise their “right” to have a child, yes?

If you are disabled, in a stable relationship, with a home and your disability still allows you to care for a child, I can't see why you wouldn't consider having a child.

BUT if none of the above apply and you still went ahead it would be a cruel decision as your child's life would be severely impacted.

Indeed it is a loophole which is exploited when 2 partners are no longer together.

When I worked for housing, we had a mother and father who each, want their own 3 bed council house as they shared 50/50 custody of their kids. They did not understand that dad would only be entitled to a 1 bed flat. The entitlement is unreal. Imagine if we had all single men living in 3 bedroom
houses because they have shared custody!!

I just literally listed two things to prevent children being born into poverty. So that's my alternative to your "ban the poor and the disabled from breeding" policy. Your idea is beyond hideous. Mine gives people the dignity and respect they deserve.