aibu in thinking that the couples on the news

[TheUsefulSuspect]

shouldn't have had a first child, let alone a second if they think there 1 Bedroom flat is insufficient.

Why do they think they deserve to be rehoused?

But to get maternity pay you are at least working and paying something in. Surely you can see the difference between someone who puts in and then takes, and someone who has never contributed, takes and demands still more?

No, I don't see a difference. They are just doing things in a different order. Is there any evidence to support the idea that people who have children young (while studying for example) spend fewer years of their lives working than those who have kids mid-career?

Maternity pay is one of many examples of middle class welfare I posted. And since when were we limiting our 'people in small houses shouldn't have children' argument to those who have never worked? Even if we are, you're firming up my suspicion that this is not about responsibility towards children, it's a sense of 'it's not fair, they get more than I get'.

(going to bed now, not running away from argument but have to sleep!)

I'm guessing (hoping) they must be Riven, or there would be no-one left to pay the taxes!!! And certainly no tax money left over for anything else.

Tortoise - it's more than a sense of 'it's not fair, they get more than I get'. It's a sense of of 'it's not fair, they get more than I get, and I'm paying for it!!!'.

It isn't just about tax though, is it? If a GP gets paid more than a waitress, the GP pays more tax, but the waitresses taxes pay the GP's wages. Maybe the waitress would like to pay the GP less so that the waitress can spend her wages on having a baby.

So it is silly to make out that the only way we are paying for each other is through our tax contributions.

in reply to tortoishells post of 11.30 ish.

i too have been in receipt of those benefits.

that's great and what the system is there for. thank goodness.

i never mentioned 'taking for granted' and i think that emotive term is being applied where i haven't said it.

my assertion is that is you have one child, you should look at your circumstances before having another. this will ofcourse include more than financial. I maintain that the govt subsidies are there as a safety net ( quite rightly) however there shouldn't be an automatic entitlement to a bigger house becuase you want more children and your circumstances don't currently allow for this. This is in context with the current situation regarding social housing in that there is a shortage and there are people who really need it. I don't believe that 'i want' another child is a good enough reason ( when you have one already) if your circumstances don't allow for this.

I also believe that most people regardless of income or status, do think these things through.

off to read rest of thread.

Is there evidence that those who have children before having a job, live in council housing on benefits spend fewer years of their lives paying taxes than those who have children mid career? I'm willing to bet there is. I'm sure that there is evidence that those who have many more children than they can afford certainly pay a lot less tax.

You seem to be arguing that anyone can do whatever they want and its s good thing that theres enough money to pay for it all?

For me its not about taxes anyway, or about who is paying. Its about all of us, rich or poor, young or old, housed or mortgaged, working or not, having the same level of personal responsibility and cop on not to purposefully and in some cases repeatedly not have children we don't even have the space to have a bed for! I can't believe that is contentious in anyway.

I have my a tiny and already overcrowded house. If I purposefull set out to have another baby knowing that I can't afford it and can't fit another bed in, you can be damned sure I'd be judged to be irresponsible. No-one is going to house me in a bigger house or give me anything (other than CB) for that baby. I would be irresponsible.
But if I'm on benefits and demanding a bigger council house its ok somehow? I don't get it.

Its nothing to do with "they" are getting something I don't get and I'm jealous. I don't want that life, I know it well and I'm happier with my own. Its just expecting the same minimum standards of human decency, and I think it insults us all if you don't expect the same.

It's a biological drive to have children that hs been a hiuge part of evolution and every societal norm and expectation is built around it.

Ok soem people choose not to have them, fine.

But saying its just a desire- no. It's the sort of thing that ruins lives if it cannot be fulfilled, it is significant drive.

I think there has to be a limit somewhere. The welfare state was set up to look after people in need, to fund everyone's lifestyle choices. It is completely unsustainable that generations should go cradle to grave without ever putting in. Where do you draw the line though?

Maybe every family should be provided (or helped with) the accommodation and finance to keep an average (2 dcs?) family to a reasonable standard. This should be the minimum available to all. This could be through a benefits/tax credits/decent minimum wage / housing benefit - whatever it takes to ensure every family is ensured a reasonable standard of living.

If your decision is that you want more dcs, well that is fine, but it should be very clear up front that you won't get any extra assistance from the State for this. You support them totally by yourself.

It just confuses me tbh.
Our government speaks about trying to reduce the amount of families living in 'relative poverty' and poverty is not just classed as the money you get but living conditions- having several children in one room for instance, yet some people seem hellbent on putting themselves in the situation in the first instance simply because they WANT another baby.. its one thing to be irresponsible about getting a car on hire purchase that you can't really afford to pay for but its okay because you WANT it but for gawd sakes we are talking about babies/children/PEOPLE here who have no say in what environment/lifestyle they are born into. It just seems selfish as much as irresponsible to be honest.

Also if people choose to live in a house/flat with several kids to a room then thats up to them I guess but to MOAN because the council wont give you a bigger place? WTF? We dont get what we want handed to us on a silver platter its about time people realised.

If personal responsibility is based on having children that you can afford to house/feed/support without assistance, then that is an unfair moral judgement because it is obviously far easier for rich people to fulfill those requirements than for poor people to. But almost everyone wants children, and I want everyone to be able to have children, even if there lifetime wages are likely to be low.

I am happy to pay for young families who are poorer than me to have social housing. I am not sure that I am happy to pay for better off families to have maternity pay - it should be means tested. Other people may have other ideas about who they do or do not want to pay for. I am happy to leave it up to the government to devise fair systems for sorting this out so that we can all afford to have children.

Portofino, I think your solution is the most sensible.

NOT to fund I meant of course

as someone said further down the thread - if you have two children in a 2 bed house and you want a third and are prepared to put a sofa settee in the living room - great.

finances/housing/support and the level needed is a subjective view.

ive only read the first page. god everyone has gone hysterical again 'YOU HATE THE POOR ETC STERILISE THEM AGHHH'
oh ffffffffffffffffs.

i want a child, but i dont have the room/money for it. oh well, il have one anyway then complain its underfed/cramped.

well, i want a double decker bus, but i dont have the money/room for it. oh well, i'll buy it anyway and make the council give me a new house.

So porto- as a family who lost their income after having a well paid job and making sensible decisions, should we only be able to feed two of our children now? becuase that would penalise a lot of children and famillies lilke us who ahve balanced all their decisions but encounter bad luck, would it not?

(Britfish teh sterilise them bit referred to a thread running concurrenlty where someone actually advocated that I think rather than being a random leap)

It's all about personal responsibility. Simple as that really. I cannot understand why this is beyond peoples comprehension.

I about as left as they come, an old SWP member, but nothing could make think differently on this issue.

Preachy, well yes, I guess so, but you would be in the same position as everyone else when planning your family. You would have to make provision for such eventualities when making these decisions.

Obviously I would never suggest this should take effect retrospectively.

I agree with custardo, and like her, I'm a proud lentil muncher and raging liberal.

Since when is it ok to have kids you can't afford? I had it drummed into me endlessly as a kid 'study first, get a job, sort yourself out and then have kids'.

It doesn't always work like that - it didn't for my sister - but I have limited sympathy for people who can't afford a decent lifestyle for the family they have, then they decide to make the family bigger.

Discussion of rich and poor is as always on here, irrelevant. Most of us are neither. But I believe that people on low incomes have as much innate intelligence as anybody else, and so should be able to work out that if life is a struggle with two kids, it's going to get exponentially harder with more.

Verity you said "but she probably didnt want to go into private because lots of them are on six month short term tenancy and the landlord can give you a couple of months notice to sell/move back in"

Quite true, I have been through that myself. However with a lot of councils now going to bidding and points systems if this happened she would be more likely to get rehoused than she is currently.

For instance here, if you are in a 1 bed and need a 2 bed you get 10 points. 20 if you're in a 1 and need a 3. If you are unintentionally homeless (i.e. private tenant given notice as landlord selling) you get 35 points. 98% of the houses go to people with 35 points+. Currently if you are in a 1 bed needing a 3 you have very little chance of getting rehoused because of demand.

The big issue I have with anything placing a set limit on help (above ande beyong SSD intervention where it may well be right to say 'look you can't cope, if you ahve any more we will be looking at care proceedings') is that I can never envisage it being OK to palce someoone who may well be there through no choice or fault of her own in the position between having to choose to abort an unplanned baby or make her existing children suffer financially.

I don't have issues with otehr people (ie not me) seeking terminations if they choose but never effectively forcing that.

It's not as if would necessarily be an unwanted baby after all- it could be desperately wanted but suddenly Dh came home with a redundancy notice or fell off a cliff.

I couldn't justify that.

Clearly your own circs is a factor when making decisions, but we thought dh's job was well safe- they'd just been given the top award for thir field- but they were bought by asset strippers and the rest is history.

Luckily we are slowly but surely on the up again and dh's business has just made enough to be able to buy the most essential piece of kit for the next stage (something called WYSIWYG and the laptop (2nd hand) to run it on), but a lot of that is through luck and the fact it's something we had been planning to do had I no0t been unable tyo work so removal od dh's job made it a goer iyswim. But when it first happened I was very negative and may have elt pushed into the abort route and TBh it woiuld have killed me, absolutely. I just wouldn't have coped.

Only sterilistion is a failsafe troute after all: all ohter contraceptive methods come with a failure rate even if used carefully.