Children are a lifestyle choice

[Seriouslywhatnow]

I've actually lost count of the times I've read this on Mumsnet. Posters saying things like "I don't want to have to pay towards little Jonny's education/ food / maternity care. People should t have kids they can't afford"
It's like they can't see that these children are actually PEOPLE. in their own right. And you're not paying for their education as a favour to their "feckless" -it's always "feckless" - parents but FOR THE CHILD. Just like your education /maternity care / whatever was paid for by others as well.
So many people seem to see kids as just an accessory or possession for their parents, and actually like they were never kids themselves so shouldn't have to pay towards other kids. AIBU?

It’s the irony that kills me. These adults were once kids, who didn’t ask to be born. Just as kids are now. But kids are needed to sustain the human race, it’s not a lifestyle choice, it’s literally the whole point of human existence. Reproduction is normal, important and valuable. To think otherwise is just selfish.

I do think there is a bigger issue though that plays into all of this which is that while increasingly children (who are needed for society as a whole) are unaffordable, we have more and more people depending on differernt kinds of payments and subsidies through the state to make ends meet, and increasing numbers of working age adults who are not working and receive benefits.

At the same time with both parents working in a family, there is little time to dedicate to childcare, and meet the other needs of family life. I've always felt that for a middle class family, once you get to three or four children, you really need one adult in the family who is not working in paid employment, or is working in a more pt, flexible capacity, in order to maintain good quality of life for the family as a whole.

What people really need, imo, are jobs that pay enough for a couple to raise a family on one salary with maybe some augmentation from a second income, and homes that are reasonably affordable to families. Taking care of kids and elders and similar things needs to be seen as important, and economically important, even if it doesn't earn a wage.

The flip side is people need to feel an obligation to be as productive as they can be and contribute. There can't be a welfare state without high productivity, that is just how it is.

But there is no denying there is some sort of generational curse where the people who are paying for other people to have children have less children and the children who get paid for by others tend to emulate the same problem and have more children who need to be paid for. Who is going to do all the paying?

My dentist once said that to me.

It's not that simple though is it. Those with more money paying for others, on the whole have more opportunities to begin with, hence, patterns of behaviour get repeated by following generations, especially in times of austerity.

This

I wouldn't call what is, for most people, a biological imperative a 'lifestyle choice'

I think we are saying the same thing though. If the people with more money don’t have children then who is going to repeat that pattern of paying if the children of people who are having lots of children they can’t afford keep having children that can’t afford to pay.

Like a PP said we need to somehow bring back a society where responsible family dynamics are an ideal to be attained. Ie productive working parents, affordable housing etc

Exactly same here which is why I agree that kids is a lifestyle choice.
Noone should choose to have more kids than they can afford. Personally I am happy to pay tax for the first 2 kids but if parents choose to have large families without having a plan of how they can cope financially then sorry I don't want to pay extra tax because of parents irresponsible actions.
If we pay for every child via tax, it is not a fair system at all. Parents need to realise the actions of their consequences

Why are you coming on 'Mumsnet' complaining about having kids? There is clearly more to it than just a lifestyle choice. Having kids is a biological and unexplainable urge for some. Part of the human condition

Everyone paid for your education. That's just the way it goes. We care for each other as humans regardless. Of age

Not having children is a lifestyle choice.

Of course at an individual level in the UK having children is a "choice". No one is forced to bear children they don't want (outside of a few highly abusive situations). Whether you consider it a "lifestyle choice" or otherwise will depend on where you stand on the question of whether we need more people on this island or not.

What you're really asking is whether the state should support children knowingly conceived in suboptimal conditions or conditions where it was fairly obvious the state would need to finance their upbringing.

At a moral level, yes it should. No child chooses to be born and no child should be punished for the actions of its parents before it came into existence. It sets an awful moral precedent for children to be forced to live in poverty and deprivation because their parents didn't properly plan for their arrival or lacked the funds to support them. The difficult question is how society should go about disincentivizing people from having children that they may not be in ideal positions to raise.

I personally think the best way to do this is to continue to make life without children as attractive as it possibly can be for women. Continue to encourage them to get educated, get the best jobs they possibly can, get paid as well as they possibly can and become as independent as they can.

That tends to disincentive them from having babies for the sake of it just because they can and there's nothing much better to do. And it provides a very strong bulwark against abusive and controlling men who want to use them as baby factories and cash cows.

Oh and contraception and maintaining access to abortion also go a very long way.

Children are a biological necessity. Our biology makes us want them and continue our genetic line. In this way they are different to a lifestyle choice of buying a big house or fast car and the reason why even those in poverty still choose to have children.

We need children - they are tomorrows workers and the ones that will keep society going when we are too old to do so. We should support any children that are part of our society. How can we refuse to support them because they happen to be born third but then demand they pay taxes to support us once they are grown and working in high paying careers? Once they are born into our society we should be supporting them and their families to give them the best start possible so that they are able to reach their potential. A lot of the historical improvements towards housing, health and child support is based on the benefits to society in the longer term and something we seem to be forgetting today.

Yes I agree, people talk about children in a way which commodifies them e.g. 'liking' or 'disliking' children. It's the only group that it seems acceptable to say that about. You'd be quick to be jumped on (and rightfully so) if you said 'I don't like old people'.

Not wanting children and saying you dislike them are two very different things. They are still human beings, and deserve to be acknowledged, and treated with the same basic respect as everyone else. They're mini people with their own wants and opinions.

I've never heard anyone make that point, but if someone tried to argue their taxes shouldn't be spent on education, etc, I'd think they were incredibly stupid. Education is something that impacts an entire society and has nothing to do with your opinion on children.

It's also hilarious to me that people say 'having kids is selfish because of the planet' whilst eating meat and dairy, which is one of the biggest contributers to global warming. But because they want to eat meat/dairy, that suddenly doesn't matter anymore.

Humans all do want they want to do. Every species is selfish by nature because it's how we survive. People also want children because it's a basic biological urge. Like it or not, we are animals and ensure the survival of our species. There's not always more rhyme or reason to it than that.

Those people live off 15-20 year old TV shows like benefits Britain (which i admit is a guilty pleasure of mine) you can see the comments under old clips of such shows full of outraged people unaware that it's not 2005 anymore benefits are capped at two kids and unemployed have weekly job centre meetings and have to prove their looking for work from their youngest child's age of two.

Outraged over big benefits families that were filmed twenty years ago, like the twelve kids aren't all grown up now 😂

Definitely a lifestyle choice but one that society should part-fund given the overall benefits to continuing the species. I think the two child limit on child benefit should stay, but I think children from poor large families should be helped in more targeted ways, as it’s really not their fault that their parents brought them into this world despite having 6 other children or whatever.

Also, I disagree with the idea that lifestyle choice = children are a fashion accessory. That’s not what lifestyle choice means.

In the interests of protecting their citizens, most countries want to keep their babies rather than sending them to other countries for adoption. Foreign adoption is controversial even in countries that allow it because it can be very exploitative.

I'd love to know what "lifestyle" having children is?

Because I am not sure we are getting it, depends what it is.

Many people who have children, during their lives, are at the top of their tax paying game, we, as a family are net contributors, even with x2 teens in school.

People think about tax as just income tax, but it's not is it, there is VAT on a whole heap of stuff you buy for kids and what you pay for them to follow their interests, read, watch on tv, the "child" economy is huge.

Think about the diverse amount of people who are employed because of children, they all pay taxes as well, party entertainers like magicians, I for one am pleased there are magicians in the world, book illustrators, more children's books are illustrated than adult ones. Horse riding schools, swimming instructors, playground equipment designers, clothes, shoes, computer games, trampoline builders, craft supplies, bedding, desks, I mean jesus I reckon we spend about 85% of our disposable income on them! If we didn't have them we would have retired by now and be spending most of our cash on holiday overseas, so ours more than contribute to the nations purse I can assure you. (We have a Foyles loyalty card, we don't live in London just to give some idea) board games, how could I forget about them!

Children are a huge industry, to think it's just Susan on an average job with just her income tax paying for children and that having children doesn't contribute to a part of the economy and society in a not insignificant way is very unimaginative.

@TempestTost

What people really need, imo, are jobs that pay enough for a couple to raise a family on one salary with maybe some augmentation from a second income, and homes that are reasonably affordable to families. Taking care of kids and elders and similar things needs to be seen as important, and economically important, even if it doesn't earn a wage.

Hmmm... I certainly agree that we need more affordable homes

But the problem with this elysian rhetoric of the good old days when families could survive on one salary is that almost invariably this means the man's salary, with the women retreating back into the domestic sphere.

That may be marginally better for some families on a short term basis. But its not better for women overall. It's a step back.

I digress a bit, but it always depresses me when I see this argument presented as the silver bullet in these conversations.

My neighbour had a job but decided he didn't want to work. He then didn't like having to go to the job centre every 2 weeks and didn't like how little money he got. He went to his GP and told them he had bad depression and such bad anxiety that he could not leave his house. So he was put on universal credit for supposedly being unable to work.

He has been receiving this for 2 years now but it's absolute bullshit. He leaves his house almost every day, quite often multiple times a day to walk his dog, go shopping, meet his girlfriend, collect his son, take his son out and, best of all, work cash in hand several days a week

Completely agree. If you are a child of one of these “7 kids and counting” style families, it was nkt
your choice to be born. That child doesn’t deserve to be hungry or have a shitty life just because their
parents can’t get it together for whatever reason. More needs to be done to intervene with these kids at a young age to show them that there is another side to life.

I’ve never read this on mn!!!!

They’re only becoming an issue because rampant consumerism will finally come to an end. We likely need to lose 4 billion people to make Earth a more habitable place for all. We’ve been too successful as a species and we’ve royally fucked it up. But, back to the original point, will no-one think of big business and their profits?

Report him! I would be filming the bugger through my net curtains if it came to it.....

You’re right. I guess I was approaching from the viewpoint of not cutting opportunities for those are seen to be doing nothing but having children…. Which I feel to some extent was whole motive behind the two child cap on child benefits