Troubled families have too many children ?

[BridgetJonesPants]

AIBU to agree with this article written by Louise Casey, the Prime Minister's troubled families tsar?

uk.news.yahoo.com/troubled-families-too-many-children-022219547.html

Although I have no idea how you can get 'these mothers' who have probably had a chaotic upbringing themselves to take responsibility for not having any more children.

Xenia where is the money going to come from for these creches you speak of? the nurses to visit everyone? The insurance for all this workfare...., especially for those with a 'baby in a sling'. Who will pay for that lot?

"tittytittyhanghang
no out of work benefits for more than two kids?"

I was a SAHP and DH was in a well paid job when in 3rd trimester of pg when DH out of blue was made redundant. Took a few months - and for half of time DH wouldn't any claim benefits so we lived of savings - to find another job.

Shit happens can happen to anyone the though of penalizing DC for their parents bad luck or ill judgments is bizarre.

All bar one large family I know of has at least one usually two parents working - often in shifts round each other. I only know one large family where neither parent works but all the DC have the same two parents and while I don't agree that they should live of the state like that - all the DC do get to school on time and are well cared for. Only mother I know with large number of DC with multiple fathers - works.

Despite living in a social deprived borough I don't know any families described though I'm sure they exist.

Articles like this don't solve the few such families like this - they do however lead to general public making assumptions about large families or, however temporally, unemployed people.

The comment we got when DH was out of work and I was pg with third were unbelievable anything form thinking we should have had a crystal ball to we should be made to abort way past legal deadline.

The rampant cunt hatred in this country makes me absolutely despair. I never thought I would ever say this but I'm so fucking grateful I don't have daughters. Every possible social problem in this country is now the fault of women apparently.

Women having kids too young.
Women having kids too old.
Poor women, uneducated women, disabled women, women with mental health problems, women who get involved with abusive men, unemployed women.
Selfish women who don't want kids. Women who "breed" too many kids (yes, I've actually seen posters on MN use the word "breed").

All have caused the collapse of the global economy and Western civilization.

Makes me wonder why the first thing that happened when there was a change in government was to cut all preventative measures, including after school groups for the children of 'these families'.

The woman's projects were subject to budget cuts as well.

Children's Centre's have had to be fought for to stay open.

All of these worked.

Adult services need better investment, as do post maternity services.

Mum and Baby units are great, but they immediately isolate the mum from the dad and give the message that raising babies is Mums job.

Statutory services still disregard fathers as primary carers, although it is getting better.

Every possible social problem in this country is now the fault of women apparently

That started when Eve ate the apple and has just continued.

Lapsed Pacifist i totally agree.

Out of work benefits? That's only jobseekers allowance then

Nothing to do with how many dc you have, it's the same amount if you have none or nine!

Cutting benefits won't achieve anything, or save money.

Often, in the most chaotic families, there isn't a thought process around becoming pregnant.

Life runs like a roller coaster and spirals out of control.

It not about saving money really is it - its about punishing.

There was a lot of moral out rage about me being pg with third and DH being out of work. Fact we had no way to predict this and we were soon back on track didn't matter to these people.

sorry i wasn't clear, by out of work benefits i mean people who don't work at all, should get tax credits etc restricted to two children. People who work but need tax credits etc to take home a living wage for their family, i'd perhaps restrict it to 5 children. But on the provisio that should anything happen such as redundancy etc, then the state will only pay for 2 children.

People who repeatedly get pregnant with abusive men do so because they don't know how to have relationships with people who are not abusive. It isn't their fault.

They cannot just stop doing it - most people like this need extensive counselling to help them stop looking for the same patterns that they've probably seen in their own childhoods. Whos is going to pay for that? It certainly isn't something the NHS provide. I have had counselling that I paid for myself - it cost me about £2.5k!! I am better but the NHS doesn't provide anything like it.

If we had workfare for male and female benefits claimants with babies another claimant could look after the baby or the babies could be in the centre of the room whilst the parents did whatever the task was. Addison Lea in Londo has just changed its rules to allow parents even in the call centre to bringbabies into work. It's very popular. Life is hard for many of us in work. If I can work full time with 2 week old twins I don't see why single parents with a child cannot.

Yeah, great idea tittytitty - punish the chidren, leave people out in the cold who get made redundant through no fault of their own. How very civilised(!)

(did I just read that?)

Titty- what do parents then do with the children that they cannot afford to feed and clothe, do they leave them for wolves to raise?

It's still mixing up a whole host of issues (my 'troubled family' would have had 1 DC btw - nothing wrong with my ability to use contraception even though I cannot use hormones)

Large families, chaotic families, deprived families, families who have been denied services, addiction, absent fathers, generational cycles of dysfunction. They don't all coexist together, it's not simple and that's why multi-agancy teams were the main focus for chaotic families. Chaotic families are not the 120,000 though - they are deprived families - you need some actual research into what you want to tackle so you know how to tackle the problem before you start schemes and spending money.

The teams that were working with chaotic families have been suffering cuts while we have a new tzar who will focus not on their actual problems but on getting them back to work, I think that may be the least of the problems needed to be tackled for these people. I have a feeling self respect, emotional resiliance and self regulation springs to mind, it might sound airy fairy and a bit lefty but educated confident emotionally aware people don't tend to have addictions and chaotic lifestyles - they can still become poor or disabled but they are still more empowered to feel like they have options and choices rather than just reacting.

Fuck it, I'm orf to "Religion and Spirituality" to sign up for (or START) a matriarchal religion.

Since when did mothers become so hated and reviled? Even if they aren't in receipt of benefits and have nice homes and well paid DHs we're supposed to hate them if they're not THIN. And if they go out to work. And if they DON'T go out to work.

Lapsedpacifist, I couldn't agree more with your post of 16.45

well perhaps a little tweaking would be in order, say 6 months/ a year to find other employment with full benefits according to family size, but otherwise no, no more benefits for more than 2 kids in the longterm.

What on earth makes you think your 2-child benefit rule will change anything, titty? The only effect it will have is more children in full-time care.

I am from Native American background, in my GGM's tribe, mother's were celebrated.

It was a pretty equal society, in terms of status. Carrying out baby care was revered.

There aren't many jobs around at the moment - did you miss that?? Lots of people have been affected by what's going on, even those with good careers!

Exactly, garlicbutter

How do you think that would work, in times of redundancy in lower employment areas?

It would end up costing more by having more SS intervention and the NHS picking up the bill for poor health.

That with the increase in cost of the justice system.

I also despair at some of the utter garbage I've read by presumably educated women on this thread. I really wonder what planet some of them are living on.

It's a salutory lesson to us all to realise that a significant minority of the population have no direct or indirect experience of for example, single parenthood, long-unemployment or dependence on social housing. Or any comprehesion of the fact that we are all just one trip to the doctors or one life-changing accident away from disability and/or lifelong dependency on benefits, charity or the kindness of strangers.