If you cant afford it, have a small family

[reggie]

Its a Daily Mail Moment for me on this one.

http://www.thesuburbanpirate.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/DAILYMAILMO_AW-e1286313745943.jpg

[KalamityKel]

I dont get it...

[????]

er, A Daily Mail moment is when you find yourself agreeing with the DM rather than the Guardian...and on only having a big family if you can afford it, Reggie's with them....call me if you get stuck again Kel

[SeanMacGabhann]

You know those signs that the weekend is coming? I'm loving this latest - Thu night, quids gets back and we're up an running properly again for a few days. Marvellous

[womanofdulwich]

my boss earns ?150k plus, his wife works part time and maybe earns ?5k, he has an 8 year old daughter and says he could not afford another child. ( because of school fees). Everyone has different values.Using his values we would die out pretty quickly.

[RosieH]

Or using his values, the world would have a chance to recover slightly from the strains of the excesses we demand from it.

I'm with you on this one Reggie. And yesterday I found myself agreeing with Loose Women.

Oh crap.

[Bellenden Belle]

I have spent all week feeling like a Tory and finding it most uncomfortable.

From conversations with friends bleating about how the loss of child support will affect them, to wondering why families have children without any planning, and how somehow that is a universal "right" whilst the rest of us drive ourselves crazy doing calculations in our head of how we might afford a family.

I don't think it is too much to ask people to take responsibility for the children they bring into the world.

Damn.

[Emerson Crane]

The number of childeren you have is a lifestyle choice. Why should the tax payer support someone who doesn't know the meaning of contraception and has no way of supporting their offspring.

[reggie]

Ah Dulwich Dulwich...and parts of Peckham... I salute you.

I feel it is my duty to turn ambivalence into an

artform

[Ridgley]

It?s a difficult one, I do agree with the Tories if you do have children then it is up to you to raise them and not expect the tax payer to do so and on the other hand you can never save enough to have children I only have the one child, because of this.

[*Bob*]

To a certain extent children are as expensive as you choose to make them - and 'having more' or not is about weighing-up your priorities - honestly - and being happy about what you decide to do.

Many people would easily be able to 'afford' more if they decided to forgo the luxuries of that swish newer car, brand-new baby paraphernalia, giant television with permanent Sky subscription, private education, holidays, one magically themed bedroom per child, piano and flute lessons - or swallowed their pride and moving somewhere cheaper with more space.

[PeckhamRose]

And the poor, in the ever decreasing availability of council flats with more than two bedrooms, are stuffed.

They're on benefits, they need more space because their one of their two different gender children are already sleeping in the lounge, and maybe they always wanted a third child.

But the main problem is the housing costs which prohibit people moving out of the poverty (even if they do have a job) with however any children they wish or feel the need to have.

Children are a natural biological thing, in that humans need to reproduce.

Having children is not a lifestyle choice.

They are our future, and all that.

(The biology bit meant that I never wanted any, but I still care about those that do and can't afford it (and don't have Sky, a car, a holiday..)

[*Bob*]

But a good portion of 'the poor' (as you put it) don't spend years hand-wringing about whether they can afford more or not.

They just have 'em anyway.

[reggie]

I think having lots of kids is a choice. Having one might be a 'right' but having loads is ....ummm yeah a choice.

Calling that choice a 'lifestyle choice' gives it an edge but it's still a choice to have a big family.

[Emerson Crane]

I stand by what I said having children maybe a biological and natural function, but the NUMBER you have is a lifestyle choice.

[david_carnell]

Quick, Sean, post the opening intro to Idiocracy.....the poor.....they're breeding....AND FAST!

[Bellenden Belle]

We have to get past this sense of entitlement which runs through every strata and every social class of this country. From the bankers who think they deserve huge bonuses; from the middle classes who think they deserve a nice house with a nice car and two long-haul holidays each year through to those who think they are entitled to be supported when they have children they can?t provide for. A reality check is needed throughout society ? not just with ?the poor? ? but they shouldn?t be excluded.

It's ridiculous to put it down to a biological need to reproduce. We combine such impulses with rational thought - just check out how many people wait til their 30s to have children, ignoring all other "instincts" in favour of security and the right circumstances.

[Brendan]

It's a sad society we have built if a woman has to work until she's well into her 30s to achieve the security needed to have a family.

[????]

BB is the old man happy with your Cameronistic lines ;-)

[david_carnell]

[Bellenden Belle]

Brendan - I absolutely agree that it's a very sad society indeed where we have to wait until we're in our 30s. And that's an extreme statement, probably based more on the demands of living in London than elsewhere.

But no quids - I don't consider myself to be speaking on Cameronistic lines. I think their solutions are short term and they are tackling easy targets. I think our society is in a mess and that the level of inequality in our society has led to a status anxiety and rampant materialism that leaves every one unhappy and every one feeling hard done by.

How we change the values we live by is a very hard question. At the moment all the news is about individual cuts. What worries me are the cuts to our public services - education, social services, etc - I work in the voluntary sector and the amount of public funding cuts on the horizon is frightening. And yet that's where I want to see investment - in supporting people to make their lives better. I'd like us to be a society that invests in people whilst at the same time people see they need to invest a little in themselves.

[????]

Are you a fan of Social Enterprise? I can't quite get my head round it but I think it looks a decent potential solution to expensive "Statism" or "Privatisation"...I'd like to see investment in this type of thing and,in theory it should get it from the tories as it kind of goes with the Big Society thing but...I'm not holding my breathe.

[louisiana]

womanofdulwich Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> my boss earns ?150k plus, his wife works part time

> and maybe earns ?5k, he has an 8 year old daughter

> and says he could not afford another child. (

> because of school fees). Everyone has different

> values.Using his values we would die out pretty

> quickly.

Is there any way we can precipitate this? B)

[DJKillaQueen]

The prpoblem with any measures designed to disincentivise those from having children who can't afford it, is that we also as a society have a moral obligation on children and poverty, because we know from statistics that children who grow up in poor and overcrowded conditions do not do as well as children of opposite circumstances.

And where do we draw the line? Most people or couples on minimum wage in the capital technically can't afford to have children...because they need top up benefits to pay their rent and so on. At what point does a child become affordable? And what right do we have to tell anyone they can't have a child? That is the point of life isnt it? Surely we don't exist to work only with children being some kind of reward if we can manage to earn enough?

In China where legislations does exist it has led to thousands of abandon babies, usually girls that the state is left to look after (and often not very well).

There is a discussion to be had abouut those families that have 4 or more kids whilst having never worked and so on, but again it is a discussion that comes up against the issues of child poverty when looking at measures.

[????]

A libeterian would say you don't have a line to draw. Scrap child benefit and people make their own choice and take their own responsibility on what THEY can and can't afford........