To think you and your partner ar unemployed you shouldnt really be trying for another child...

[Nointhemood]

probably be flamed for this. But I know a couple who have two small young children under 3 and are trying for another even though neither have managed to find employment in the last few years. I would love to have another child but even with a dh in a job we couldnt afford it just doesnt seem fair.Im not saying that people on benefits shouldnt have children as each cicircumstance is different etc.But surely with a couple who can both work and aren't exactly childless there should be mor responsible. I feel really angry tbh that we can'y afford to have a child and wouldn't dream of it in their situation

Before I add anything, does anyone know how much extra a 3rd child would bring into the household in the way of benefits? Obviously there will be child benefit but that's not enough to make anyone decide that they could afford another child - I know that you get more tax credits for the first year of a child's life, but how does it work after that - is it an amount per number of children or per family?

Just thinking that because they are on benefit there is the assumption that they are not having to work out how to scrimp and save like those in work, but if the actual financial benefit of child 3 is not significant enough to "pay for" the child, then presumably they have worked out that they can afford a child and possibly, as someone said above, they are working on the basis of let's complete our family now, it'll be tough but hopefully one of us will get a job soon then the other when youngest goes to school.

Housemum's post makes perfect sense - well said.

seashore: "To hold a belief that another woman should not procreate (whatever the circumstances may be) is inherently misogynistic."

I would tell a man exactly the same thing.

Fine to have as many children as you want. Just not on state benefits.

It's £2300 max per child. But in the first year you get an extra £600. So someone who is eligible with 3 children is getting £9k just in child tax credits.

I think that's an incentive if you are also in receipt of HB, JSA etc.

It's not misogynistic not to want to prop up parts of society who don't want to work and expect tax payers to support them. And I think it must be particularly galling for low earners who plan their families carefully

'Go to any city centre on a week day and there are clearly young couples there who are not in work but clearly not well off either.'

How do you know they are not in work.

My husband and I are often out in the day with our children.

He works shifts in a hotel (no nights, but often a split shift, morning and then evening).

We don't look very well-off, either, because we are not.

Bet people go around tutting about how 'lazy' he is.

if they ahven't managed to find employment theya re looking right?

And a pregnancy not yet conceived is a minimum of nine months until a baby?

ANd most people can find a job even now within nine months?

Chances are this is a non concern; Dad will be in work when baby makes an entrance. I expect he expects to be rather than relying on state. over optimistic at worse; hardly the crime of the century though (and no I have never conceived without employment before anyone assumes!)

Oh and yes XP

DH and BIL were both accused a few times of being wasters when working nights.

Even now we probably look as if DH doesn't work but s he is self employed he chooses his own hours, usually early morning and evening.

nd yes the TCs may be an incentive to ahve another child but they also enable a great many - I would think more- people to work at all.

They helped DH set up his business post redundancy.

Blueshoes I'm sorry but I think we will just have to accept that you and I have entirely different opinions probably about most things. Twice on the thread the other day you hijacked my post and twisted it for your own ends, I was polite and completely ignored it but I don't want to get into this with you because it will be a dead end. I wish you the best, there's just no point.

YY, Sancty. In the tourism industry, too, often enough, your days off are during the week. Extra points for the two of us today being out at a shopping centre at 2PM with the children. We don't have a dog, though.

I have just gone on entitled to and worked it out. 3 children born 07,09 and 10, neither parent entitled to JSA, rent £200 a week.

Total award - £42k a year. That's more than my take home as a higher rate tax payer

Oh dear, seahorse, don't take it personally. I don't remember you from Adam. Happy to leave it, as there really is no point in you dragging your grudges around threads.

Nobody is stopping anyone from having children. But I do not want to pay for someone else's children.

Well nobody does but isn't it the price we pay for having a society where no child starves? Personally I would rather pay than have the consequences of not.

I'm a bit at that £42k and entitled to is a bit notorious form getting it wrong when it comes to TC's. We get far less with 4 kids, even with 2 disabled and me on carers (at least we did for the few short months post redundancy when dh wasn't employed or studying). I'd take that with a pinch of salt tbh. And depending ona rea you won't get £200 per week rent: different LA's set it at different amounts- here it is capped at £485 per month.

If tehse people wre appearing to be beer swilling nver-inteeding-to-work preofessional layabouts then my heart would say irresponsible even if my ehad refused to allow me to condemn them without full facts (toolong working in field to think people don't often have compelling back stories). However as I said before they ahven't managed to find work and tehy are still trying for a baby- nothing to see here really, certainly not for another nine months at least.

As an aside I always wonder about the incomes of people who can't afford a second baby: maybe it's becuase I am old and started my family before tax credits and help with childcare, but back then both working FT with a joint income of £22k and two small boys we were happy. Not rich, or without money worries, but happy nonetheless. By the time we had ds4 it was closer to £45k between us but whilst it was easier we weren't happier. Just- better off. Of course some areas are expensive (although we were in Somerset so property not that cheap when a very low average wage taken into account) and some people prioritise mortgages etc, but surely that's a choice issue in itself?

YANBU

I find it odd that benefits go up as the number of children goes up.

Those in work don't get paid more by their employer when they have another child. They have to decide whether they can afford to make their income stretch to cover another child or not.

If the unemployed couple are happy to make their existing level of benefits stretch across 3 kids rather than 2 ... fine, that's their choice. But the decision shouldn't be skewed by the prospect of extra money for the 3rd child.

Isn't it designed to help those in work who lose their jobs? Those that have paid in over years?

Which really is most claimants and will soon be an even higher %.

Funny Blueshoes cause it was only Sunday and you clearly had a very bad time over there! That's why I didn't respond to you I felt sorry for you. But don't worry, got other things to do now . . .

YANBU

around the time i became pregnant with dd, i knew two other girls my age who also had babies. they both went on to have more, by choice, staying at home.

both are now still unemployed and single (seven years later). they are nice girls, but i cannot relate to why they have made these choices for themselves and their dcs. do they not want more? or at least feel that there's something wrong in their choices?

when i meet one or the other from time to time they express bemused surprise that i haven't wanted another. don't i love being a mother they ask? . don't i want a brother or sister for my dd? strange attitude methinks.

Expat mum like someone said earlier you know who we mean. Young lads baseball cap tracksuit dogs chains often on their own with kids. Who is not to say that they are not loving dads. But I have worked with some of these young lads in the schools - they are lazy they don't want to work in the way I was brought up. If noone in your household gets up at 6 am to put in a shift you don't all of asuddendecide to do it in the majority of cases because you hit 16. There are heaps of opportunities in SOME areas for training, to go back to education, do voluntary work to be involved with their kids at surestart. Fab . However some choose to hang around shopping centres with their kids as they did previously as kids themselves. Or they sit in the pub all afternoon and the kids run riot in the beergarden. A colleague ofime once had to do a exclusion readmission meeting in a beergarden because the parent refused to come into a school and the kid was pleading with my colleague to come back to school. I tut and know some of the unemployed parents were lazy feckers because I met them and worked with their kids. Just as I worked with some unemployed parents who were not.

IMHO the majority of people on benefits are trying to look for work, get what they are entitled to and should be able to have as many DC as they want to complete their family.

There are just the minority who give the rest a bad name, and these are the ones who make the headlines.

There is a poverty gap in the low-middle wage earners where additional children is a struggle but if you are a SAHM or SAHD does another child really cost that much?

I find the assertion that we are put on here to procreate by whatever means necessary well quite pathetic and sad really.

I would feel totally ashamed to indulge the desire to breed RIGHT NOW, with no means to put food on the table, toys, clothes a roof over your head. Just pitiful really that they can't wait until one of them is employed so are happy to collect welfare to drag themselves by. Poor children.

I'm with puffin.

it is absolutely no-ones right to say how/when/how many children anyone else should have. yuck, what a horrible thought.

We need to look at WHY having children in this way is (apparently, though i certainly don't see it) allegedly so desirable.- Giving a feeling of worth, of being needed, important, when other ways of feeling that (work, relationships etc etc) may not be available to them. The scenario describes (and again I think it is no where near as common as supposed here) is merely a symptom of other gaps.

Cutting welfare is a piss poor response. If we want to stop it (multiple procreation), increase self worth in other ways-carrot not stick.

Bleugh "Scenario described"

YABU. I didn't go back to work until my youngest was 8. Perhaps she wants to stay at home while the kids are youn and then go back to work,so it's better for her to have them close together.