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

Yellowvan, I had to work in a menial job for two or three years. Sometimes I loved it sometimes I hated it. I always was proud that I could do it and felt sorry for my mum friends at school who couldn't lower themselves off benefits into menial work.

Menial shitty work is better than no work, for pride and the pleasure of spending the money that you have earned.

I have no sympathy for people who refuse to do shitty menial work, and for me it helped me to have a proper career.

My husband works 50 hours a week, i work 23 hours a week. We have 2 dc, i am very broody and would love to have another dc, however we know we can not afford another dc so we are not ttc . My dsil has 4 dc, is a sahm and her dh works 40 a week. They have 4 dh and are ttc 5dc in the knowledge that they will get pay rise ie more benefits. Very annoying so no uanbu!!!!!!!!!!!

really couldn't give a fuck if taxes are funding other people's families in part or in full

I mean we all benefit from public funds one way or another, even if just nhs or bit of child benefit or those tax credits

who's to say their offspring won't go on to make the most fantastic contribution to society when they grow up - or lead happy productive lives in their own quiet way?

• have not READ thread, just responding to first post

Im hoping all my dc and dns will go on to make fantastic contribution to society when they grow up. Im sure they will as they are all fab! However still annoying when
id love to have more dc and really cant afford it but dsil tells me she will be better off after bith of dc number 5

Mitchy - fair enough that YOU don't mind, but the current set up is unsustainable. The Welfare State was set up to help people who couldn't help themselves for whatever reason. It was not intended to fund people's lifestyle choices. If there were less people taking the piss, there would be more for families who genuinely need the help.

LB I'm from SW now, DH travels out to Taf vallley daily

We moved here for similar reasons that your Grandad moved to London

But doing it once at the end of an industry and every 3 years with various job collapses is another thing.

Now nobody in this shouse is unemployed as such; am a carer. Low income working DH.
We don't have the cash to move, can't risk pulling the boys from their special needs aplcements as theya re not freely available if you just up, and its hard enough being 60 miles from family- further would be even worse.

I'd ratehr brave it out here wheere we know people's naes and have a roof tbh

Oh and the otehr issue

we have a dropping birthrate and without immigration and births we can't sustain elderly care for the future.

The optimum solution isn't to limit state aid to children but to find a way to get them working after school so they can pay taxes to enable older people to be cared for.

I am expecting elderlyc are for those with kids to depend on income status of their adult children: if you don't work you can't ask the Government to provide end of life care. A bit like the thirrd world only more official, really.

who's to say their offspring won't go on to make the most fantastic contribution to society when they grow up - or lead happy productive lives in their own quiet way?

And equally they could murder you in your bed, no way of knowing unfortunately.

"who's to say their offspring won't go on to make the most fantastic contribution to society when they grow up - or lead happy productive lives in their own quiet way?"

Who's to say they will though. Children raised on benefits with no working role model often go on to claim themselves as they see it as a way of life. Thats why the system needs to change, we need to stop generation after generation claiming as a lifestyle choice.

blueshoes- I wish i knew . I find it so sad that in this country we are so so individualistic, that the 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps' response is the only valid one and takes on such a moral tone, whereas I think the morality should be collective. everyone should have decent work, home, opportunities and be supported in raising the families they want to raise. I can't see why that is so 'out there' as an aspiration (Oh yes i can, thatcherite policies and the legacy thereof)

We do Happy but we also need to maintain a high tax income in order to keep a growing older population.

Cutting teh birth rate won't do that, but would ahve the effect of plunging 'extra' children born into poverty. Some people can;t face termination (I simply coul;d not), or genuinely don't expect redfundancy or unemployment- why, with DH in a good job and approachging gradutaion myself with our last chiold, woudl I have expected to end up a carer with a redundant DH having to start from scartch? Are those 'extra' children worth sacrificing? not in my opinion, and if theya re then theya re far more likely to end up being a drain rather than contributing.

the only way forward is to get people into work, whilst maintaining a steady birthrate and probably supportingc arers (so that people can afford to care for aprents etc, rather than asking for far more costly satte care)

What's happening atm wrt to knocking carer insomes hard is very short sighted indeed.

But there hasn't been full employment in the UK since WW2 and I doubt very much there was full employment before that, I don't believe it's achievable.
Therefore Labours idea of everyone working 16 hours was not a bad one, where it went wrong was topping up the salary with tax credits, they should have stopped house price inflation/rents etc getting out of control and then it might have worked beautifully.

Tax credits were also about getting p[eople to take the very worst jobs I think. And in fairness dh's business, which is just approaching liveable income and should start to take us off benefits ( not IS etc, the working ones)in teh next year, woudlnt' ahve been doable without TC's, yet it's better than sitting about wishing for a job that won't come up surely?

But yes wrt to house rpices / rents etc. Decent planning would include repalcing all sold hosing stock but it's boith currently unaffordable and against new right politics as it's better under their mindset to encourage unregulated private landlords.

lucky us with good private landlords but pity those who have the slum ones.

Better for them to have children when they have time to look after them than some city banker commuting type having children he only sees on weekends, or army workers having children that they only see when on leave. Also looking after children is work, so they are working- it's just that 'the taxpayer' resents paying them to do this whereas 'the taxpayer' is all for paying people to shoot Iraqi children...

HMM, not sure I agree with much in your post Wibbly tbh.

But Government is about boosting economy as much as anything: 2 parents work plus need a childcarer = growing tax bank.

Now, from what I can see of policy atm there seems a growing support for 1 working aprent familles (no emphasis on whom that aprent should be so not quite a tep back) with teh idea that each family have ojne employed member rather than many 2 and many none. I am not saying I support that, or that I don't either. In oder for it tow rok though rents and hosuing etc would need to srop so dramtically that lvies will be devastated in the process.

(An exmaple of that is the TC limit being reduced to £24k; some aprents will undoubtedly wonder why they both work and pay childcare, arrnage for one to elave and then free up a job vanacency..... if it weren't for housing etdc it would almost be logical, even if not desirable)

Wibblybible

yellowvan - I think a life on benefits is the ultimate individualistic life. That's not being part of a community or sharing, that's asking the rest of society to support you at the expense of other services. I want everyone to have access to decent education and opportunities. But even with that, not everyone wants to join in.

There are thousands of immigrants who have arrived in the UK with nothing and worked their arses off to get a better life for their children. On the other hand there are people who have had every opportunity to make things better for their kids and haven't bothered.

Not always true LadyB: for s atrt you are completely failing to acknowewledge those for whom it's not a choice, or whom are doing it for other people- carers, for example. Then there's a whole bank of people on benefits contributing in other ways: if all teh benefit claiming charity workers pulled out the state would struggle and fail to meet the gap for a start- as a former charity volunteer recruitment manager I realise the impact that could have.

Now, if you said the choice to elad a life on benefits was a selfish act I would agree, absolutely, but even then there are ways it can be mitigated- so a single mmum who for whatever reaosn has chosen not to work but maybe takes calls at the CXAB or Samaritans whilst her childfren are at school and nursery is still contribuitng in an important way.

As a career I don't feel I am selfish at all; quite the opposite, my giving up an awful lot (and don't think it's an easy thing: I hate what I have had to give up and resent it wholeheartedly, have become quite bitter) has saved the state ££££££ in care costs and saved therapy provision (the little tehre is) a lot as I have been able to deliver at home. Should we lose DLA at treh review (all people with autism are at high risk judging by the examples that have emerged from EMA / IS assessment) then I will have to work, the state will have to provide care for my boys (the only alternative would be total state dependance as we would lose the house), and it will cost them far more than the DLA and Carer's I have had so far.

It's not fair for that couple to procreate, when we have to pay for it. If I were you, go for it and somehow it will work out, things always do.

I'll put my oar in ... I don't think you can plan what happens as much as you might try with when you conceive your children. But, I also think some people in the UK are starting to feel other people in UK are taking advantage of the benefit security net that is here for all of us. And given the state of the welfare bill that is probably true. It feels a bit like eating more than your share of the pie.
These benefits are for occasions when you are in need, but I think planning to run your life for several years on them seems a bit selfish. Every circumstance is different, but old fashioned common sense does seem to indicate raising children in an environment where you have things together is probably better for them in the long run.
BTW, I don't buy the argument that people in the 3rd world have any many kids as they want, etc etc. Most people who care about improving the lives of women and children in the third world suggest smaller families as a starting point ...

Sorry I meant a choice - apologies for not being clearer. I know a lot of people who do huge amounts for charity and I have friends who are either carers or unable to work through disability. I am talking about those who choose not to work although they are able to.

The point that everyone always makes to you and Riven, Sanctimoanyarse is if there were less of these ejits there would be more in the pot for the likes of you.

Mama we know that

We really do

But whilst most people thinknlike that there are people on her who do not

Who ahve suggested I should be in a workhouse

ANd besides I also made points about other ways people can be of value to society.

Also- a lot of teh changes to budget etc will directly hit people like us; that's not just my opinion, the national autistic society is very concerned. Stuff about enhancing claim security paints us as a bunch of liars even if technically DLA has possibly the lowesat fraud ratings: emphasise the fraud and the rest get tarnished.

anyone else with not-even-slightly-poor parents, expensive educations, but very austere lifestyle? hand me down KNICKERS and wandering around like the bloody vonTrapps in clothes made from the same fabric?

being youngest of 6 or 7 children for example and wearing clothes that have served hundreds of cousins and even aunts and uncles since time immemorial?