Funding everyone to have multiple children???

[MyLimeGuide]

Hello all, this issue seriously gets me down, as someone who has worked solidly since forever (im 45) always wanted 2 children. I have 1, realised I cant afford 2, seeing what labour have done, lifting the 2 child cap for benefits MADDENS me to the core! Not because of my own circumstances, im more than happy with one and I can give him everything.
Im a teacher, currently working in a SEN school, the majority of the cohort are from non working families with multiple siblings. Their biggest problem is neglect. Often these kids tell us their mum is pregnant again!!
i have seen this pattern with neglected children un every single school ive worked in. Unbelievable that Labour want to increase this!
It's not to help children, its the opposite.
Its unfair on hardworking people to be expected to fund it.
I believe EVERYONE is entitled to be a parent, regardless of circumstances, but NOT breed like its a hobby (a freeloading one with no care)

AIBU - Let everyone breed as much as they want regardless of circumstances its their god given right.

AINBU - This is unfair, children should be born into families that can afford to look after them fully and offer them the time and nurture they need to develop into humans with good mental health.

OP, I'm the same as you and really do not share your gripes. Don't fall for these stupid diversions.

Have a look at the millionaires and billionnaires not paying a fair contribution. They haven't earned that wealth fairly or through merit. How could that level of wealth ever directly relate to 'hard work'.

'I've paid all my taxes.', 'hard work', and 'worked all my life' are big red flags for closed minded people. It is also often totally untrue.

@MyLimeGuide Unfortunately it's not so much of the 2 children scrapping. It's about all the disability benefits (because not linked to ressources) that causes havoc in the budget. I am all for free healthcare and supported assistance to those in need to support those needs. But in a personal and professionnal capacity I have seen families where both parents are on bnefits (uc etc) and with DLA for children that are not suffering from a disability but from pure neglect. But since no diagnosis is needed for neither PIP or DLA they qualify. And don't think those families are using that money to get help for the children (which was the legislator's intention)- it goes straight to incompetent parents spending on things they don't objectively need. So ofcourse there is already an incentive to pop out more kids to get DLA so they can go on not doing anything constructive in society.

I have met so many of these that I am disgusted. I would like a DLA reform that makes it mandatory to account for how parents spend this money. Because I have seen too many children in need of therapy, speech therapy etc that don't get it because the parents are too lazy. They will say it's too long time to wait with the NHS "forgetting" they are receiving money monthly to help their children so they have the possibility to go private.

And yes, I know there are many parents struggling to do what they can for their children and obviously I am not talking about them. I have got an autistic teen at home and I have been through hell with him. We're slowly seeing the light in the tunnel..

Idk I think it's two separate arguments. Yes, I agree that people should have as many children as they want as long as they can afford them financially/emotionally/physically etc.

But the child tax credit (or whatever it is now) limit didn't change that, you said yourself they're still having kids they can't look after even when there's less to go around.

100% agree.

How is this change is going to make a difference to the day-to-day lives of the children? Giving more money per child to the parents, who are already having more children that they can ill-afford, isn't a wise move.

Better to create more opportunities for those children to ensure the money is spent on them - vouchers for nappies, formula, day care, healthy fruit/veg etc. Families who can't afford more children but have them anyway, clearly aren't responsible enough to spend that extra money where it's needed ie on the kids.

We should be investing in these children in order to try to level out the disadvantage that they are born with. We should be trying to break the cycle, and not just perpetuating it from one generation to the next.

We already do this. University is available to more than ever before, with poorer kids
getting more access to funding. Top universities run summer schools aimed at getting disadvantaged children into the system. Wes Streeting benefited from such a scheme run by Cambridge University.

Let’s not kid ourselves, a higher birth rate does not equal more tax payers and better services all round. It equals more families on benefits, with an ever decreasing cohort of tax payers paying for them. Bar a few lucky exceptions, the children of those feckless parents will be the next generation of feckless parents.

Statically they won’t though. The chances are they will be in the exact same cycle as their parents.

Have you any idea how difficult it is to work with a child with disabilities?
My son is 16 in a few months i have to be around in the mornings and afternoons to put him on and take him off school transport
There are no child minders for teenagers and hes has the mental capacity of a toddler so needs 1:1 supervision at all times.

What kind of special school is it where the biggest problem is neglect?

I belong to the least selfish group in society - single and childfree. My taxes go to sub anyone who wants a child. This legislation is a slap in the face for me and I resent every penny of it. There is nothing to help single people with the expenses they face.

Yeah that extra £90 a month is definitely the difference in being able to afford more children and not...

You might not need a diagnosis but you need a lot of evidence to have a successful claim.

Do you really not see that your samples are skewed? You frame is as the majority of children at your SEN school are from parents who don’t work - but often working parents have to reduce their hours or stop working because their children have SEN 🙄

Also, neglect exists across the board. You only have to read a few threads here to understand a lot of parents work, are financially comfortable and could provide for their children but don’t, for a variety of reasons.

And I understand that some people have numerous children that they don’t look after properly (I became a parent to one of these via adoption), but I don’t think it’s connected to the benefit cap.

Logically, the benefit cap didn’t make any difference. People didn’t have less babies but more needed food banks/additional assistance elsewhere.

How?

Given that the evidence clearly shows that the cap didn't actually deter people from having more children, can you explain how you think lifting it would "incentivise" more poverty?

It seems to me that people are basing their arguments in favour of keeping the cap on their own personal assumptions about what they think the impact of the policy should be - i.e. to deter people from having kids that they can't afford - rather than on the reality of what the impact actually was.

I would suggest that a study of the actual evidence is usually a more reliable basis for decisions than gut feelings which are uninformed by the data.

I partly agree.
I think this money would have been better spent by the state, tackling poor outcomes from the other side, things like Sure Start etc.

I fully disagree they are paying MORE than their fair share if they are earning more they are paying more tax. Its BASIC maths.

So we need to invest more in improving their life chances so that we can somehow break the cycle.

Pushing them further into poverty is not the solution, and will cost the state more in the longer term.

Oh come on! It's absolutely not judgemental to call out neglect. What on earth are we becoming as a society?

I absolutely judge crappy, irresponsible parents that neglect the children they currently have and bring more and more innocent children into this situation. We should be able to call a spade a spade. The idea that shame and judgement should be non existent is nonsense. We should be shaming people that make crap decisions that adversely impact their children and all of us as a society.

Well OP you are certainly pissing off the parents of disabled children on this thread so not goady at all.

Right OP. So you personally would have liked more children, and might have if you'd had this benefit. You are apparently good, your child is good, more of your kids would have been a good thing. But anyone who has more than one and is helped by this change is definitely raising multiple feckless lazy kids for bad reasons?

What about the money that has been saved since the policy was introduced? Presumably that went into funding services which benefited poorer families? This is an ideological move by the Labour Party, nothing to do with increasing funding to get children out of poverty.

Precisely. If you go back a generation, or even two, how many children repeated the exact same pattern. And, frankly, who can blame them.

Back in the early 90s my workplace in London ran a scheme to take some school leavers from an estate in Pimlico and pay them well and train them in secretarial skills (a job long gone!). Every Single One (three) left because they were pregnant. Their friends were all single mums, and they got a flat. Working was a mug’s game.

SEMH mainly but its not just my experience in this school, many previous mainstream school also.

You teach? 😱

Poster as a teacher in a disadvantaged area, i would strongly recommend that you read the Book - Poor by Katriona O'Sullivan.
It will give you an insight into the children you teach and the difference you could play in their life. I mean this sincerely -please read it X

Anthing to help families is good. Its such a shame the tories cut a lot of early help services set up in the 2000s. I am.happy that this cap is scrapped.