A policy not practiced by at least two members of the government, one who has six children, another an unacknowledged number that is more.
Of course it has. The myth that people were having kids for extra benefits was largely just that… A myth. However it worked, because the UK as a whole are a resentful bunch and they wiuld rather see the most vulnerable suffer as long as the made up scenario in their head doesn’t come about.
[removed]
It’s one of thier few policies I agree with. 2 children is enough, especially if you’re on benefits.
Is it really that controversial to say that if you want more than two children then pay for it yourself rather than relying on benefits?
If you can’t afford to have a child then you shouldn’t be having one.
Edit: my inbox has told be that yes…yes it is very controversial.
Edit 2: a few quick points, I have read every comment, although I can’t reply to the onslaught.
1) this policy isn’t a “benefit cut”, it’s a “benefit addition” that only lasts for two kids. You don’t lose benefit for the third, you just don’t gain any more.
2) I have not mentioned families having children *for* the benefit money, I was referencing people that can’t afford a third child and have one anyway. Obviously in the rarest occasions someone may do that, but the amount that do is negligible.
3) People that have mentioned eugenics have completely misinterpreted my comment. I am purely suggesting people live within their means at the point of having the child. If circumstances change there should be other support available.
4) I am not against people receiving support (I think the value given should be more) just about what should qualify for that support. Obviously children shouldn’t go hungry.
5) thank you for the award.
It’s interesting the article says the policy has had little impact on large families, but then also goes on to say the policy has been a ‘key factor in many women’s decisions for an abortion’
Surely its one or the other. (not that you can’t have some women affected by the abortion decision and some not. But that the effect cant be to cause a lot of abortions whilst at the same time having little impact on family size)
Child benefit is a joke anyway. My son used to drink his way through it in formula. I tried to breastfeed but couldn’t get my kids to latch right. So many women have to give formula through no fault of their own and it’s bloody expensive, especially if the cheap ones upset your baby’s tummy.
It’s never been a policy that bothered me. I’m against people having more than 2 kids because the rising population has a massive impact on the planet. Furthermore people shouldn’t be having children they cannot support properly in a day an age where contraception is cheap and obtainable.
Once you have 2 kids stop fucking then, use protection or get tied. It’s as simple as that.
Population needs to get smaller it’s as simple as that.
Why is everyone talking about not having kids they can’t afford?
There are circumstances where they could accord the kid when they had them, but no longer can
It is high time people think carefully about having multiple kids.Surely,you cannot have 4 kids expecting the tax payer to work for you.The long term benefit which I believe will be visible 10 -20 years since the law was implemented.
I have a lot of personal exposure to this.
Close family member of mine is horrific at making decisions. She’s had children she cannot afford but couldn’t go through with an abortion or adoption. Social services won’t get involved as she’s a good parent – just poor.
The largest issue is we’re all up in arms at the parents. The reality is it’s the kids that suffer. Unless we’ll have mandated abortion like China then we need to invest in those kids (our future workforce and neighbors!) or face the consequences.
Besides, while the costs of supporting these families may appear high, the costs of wasted investment into human capital are higher.
As someone who works with a lot of these large families living in poverty I don’t know any that did it for the benefits. A lot of parents I know with lots of children, who are living in poverty, are incredibly vulnerable. Levels of education are low and opportunities for support are few and far between. Many of the families I know have several special needs children but the parents both went to special school or to a specialist unit themselves. These women continue having babies even though they already can’t cope because they think it will make them happy. Several have said that themselves. Money and ability to care for them sadly doesn’t factor into the equation. They aren’t to blame. The system is failing them. They leave school, with people knowing they are vulnerable, and are just left to get on with it.
Loving all the eugenicist comments. People in this country are so bitter and putting the blame for the country’s problems in all the wrong places
This thread really brought the eugenicists out huh?
Lmao, this subreddits obsessive anti-natalism and anti-British sentiment comes to head, arguing for eugenic practices on working-class British mums to “cull the herd”.
Behind the liberal, lies a psychopath.
And it’s got nothing to do with people becoming poorer in general thanks to a shit government rule for 12 years?
Only 6 years after China realised that trying to limit the number of children families could have didn’t work, we have managed to come to the same conclusion! Well done us.
You can’t reduce families child numbers through cutting funding, it needs to be a longer project that includes better education etc.
I have some sympathy for the argument that “you shouldn’t have more kids than you can afford”. But you have to legislate for the world in front of you, not the one you would prefer to live in.
My wife and I put off having a child until we were sure of our financial position, and we are planning to stop at one partly to ensure that we can maintain that position. Yet all we heard for *years*, from people both richer and poorer than us, was “when are you having kids?”. Whenever we would mention affordability the response was invariably “oh you can’t think like that”. And now we’re getting an awful lot of “when’s the next one?”. The very concept of “children you can afford” does not really exist in this country.
If the goal were truly to save the taxpayer a few bob then the policies would be aimed at promoting that concept. Teaching family planning and financial literacy in school, making condoms essentially free, de-stigmatising abortion, addressing stagnant wages and spiralling cost of living, etc.
But, eventually, try as you might, someone somewhere is going to make a decision you aren’t happy with. Punishing a child to spite its parents is not a good way to respond by any metric.
Two child policy hasn’t “made families poorer”, irresponsible adults having children they can’t afford has.
I am sick of this short sighted and idiotic thinking of this government, even on a cold and purely economic level.
If you create a system of support where the poorest in society have a little bit of disposable income, they go off and spend it. Their spending supports businesses, who pay their staff, who’s spending them supports other businesses. That money you give people via child benefit does not suddenly disappear, it goes round and round and eventually comes back to the government via multiple layers of taxation. Nobody loses out, least of all the taxpayer. Don’t think of your tax money as going into the pockets of the irresponsible, think of it as an investment into the local economies of some of the poorest areas in the country.
Money that does become dead to the economy though is that which is saved or squirrelled away by the rich when you cut their taxes!
21 comments
A policy not practiced by at least two members of the government, one who has six children, another an unacknowledged number that is more.
Of course it has. The myth that people were having kids for extra benefits was largely just that… A myth. However it worked, because the UK as a whole are a resentful bunch and they wiuld rather see the most vulnerable suffer as long as the made up scenario in their head doesn’t come about.
[removed]
It’s one of thier few policies I agree with. 2 children is enough, especially if you’re on benefits.
Is it really that controversial to say that if you want more than two children then pay for it yourself rather than relying on benefits?
If you can’t afford to have a child then you shouldn’t be having one.
Edit: my inbox has told be that yes…yes it is very controversial.
Edit 2: a few quick points, I have read every comment, although I can’t reply to the onslaught.
1) this policy isn’t a “benefit cut”, it’s a “benefit addition” that only lasts for two kids. You don’t lose benefit for the third, you just don’t gain any more.
2) I have not mentioned families having children *for* the benefit money, I was referencing people that can’t afford a third child and have one anyway. Obviously in the rarest occasions someone may do that, but the amount that do is negligible.
3) People that have mentioned eugenics have completely misinterpreted my comment. I am purely suggesting people live within their means at the point of having the child. If circumstances change there should be other support available.
4) I am not against people receiving support (I think the value given should be more) just about what should qualify for that support. Obviously children shouldn’t go hungry.
5) thank you for the award.
It’s interesting the article says the policy has had little impact on large families, but then also goes on to say the policy has been a ‘key factor in many women’s decisions for an abortion’
Surely its one or the other. (not that you can’t have some women affected by the abortion decision and some not. But that the effect cant be to cause a lot of abortions whilst at the same time having little impact on family size)
Child benefit is a joke anyway. My son used to drink his way through it in formula. I tried to breastfeed but couldn’t get my kids to latch right. So many women have to give formula through no fault of their own and it’s bloody expensive, especially if the cheap ones upset your baby’s tummy.
It’s never been a policy that bothered me. I’m against people having more than 2 kids because the rising population has a massive impact on the planet. Furthermore people shouldn’t be having children they cannot support properly in a day an age where contraception is cheap and obtainable.
Once you have 2 kids stop fucking then, use protection or get tied. It’s as simple as that.
Population needs to get smaller it’s as simple as that.
Why is everyone talking about not having kids they can’t afford?
There are circumstances where they could accord the kid when they had them, but no longer can
It is high time people think carefully about having multiple kids.Surely,you cannot have 4 kids expecting the tax payer to work for you.The long term benefit which I believe will be visible 10 -20 years since the law was implemented.
I have a lot of personal exposure to this.
Close family member of mine is horrific at making decisions. She’s had children she cannot afford but couldn’t go through with an abortion or adoption. Social services won’t get involved as she’s a good parent – just poor.
The largest issue is we’re all up in arms at the parents. The reality is it’s the kids that suffer. Unless we’ll have mandated abortion like China then we need to invest in those kids (our future workforce and neighbors!) or face the consequences.
Besides, while the costs of supporting these families may appear high, the costs of wasted investment into human capital are higher.
As someone who works with a lot of these large families living in poverty I don’t know any that did it for the benefits. A lot of parents I know with lots of children, who are living in poverty, are incredibly vulnerable. Levels of education are low and opportunities for support are few and far between. Many of the families I know have several special needs children but the parents both went to special school or to a specialist unit themselves. These women continue having babies even though they already can’t cope because they think it will make them happy. Several have said that themselves. Money and ability to care for them sadly doesn’t factor into the equation. They aren’t to blame. The system is failing them. They leave school, with people knowing they are vulnerable, and are just left to get on with it.
Loving all the eugenicist comments. People in this country are so bitter and putting the blame for the country’s problems in all the wrong places
This thread really brought the eugenicists out huh?
Lmao, this subreddits obsessive anti-natalism and anti-British sentiment comes to head, arguing for eugenic practices on working-class British mums to “cull the herd”.
Behind the liberal, lies a psychopath.
And it’s got nothing to do with people becoming poorer in general thanks to a shit government rule for 12 years?
Only 6 years after China realised that trying to limit the number of children families could have didn’t work, we have managed to come to the same conclusion! Well done us.
You can’t reduce families child numbers through cutting funding, it needs to be a longer project that includes better education etc.
I have some sympathy for the argument that “you shouldn’t have more kids than you can afford”. But you have to legislate for the world in front of you, not the one you would prefer to live in.
My wife and I put off having a child until we were sure of our financial position, and we are planning to stop at one partly to ensure that we can maintain that position. Yet all we heard for *years*, from people both richer and poorer than us, was “when are you having kids?”. Whenever we would mention affordability the response was invariably “oh you can’t think like that”. And now we’re getting an awful lot of “when’s the next one?”. The very concept of “children you can afford” does not really exist in this country.
If the goal were truly to save the taxpayer a few bob then the policies would be aimed at promoting that concept. Teaching family planning and financial literacy in school, making condoms essentially free, de-stigmatising abortion, addressing stagnant wages and spiralling cost of living, etc.
But, eventually, try as you might, someone somewhere is going to make a decision you aren’t happy with. Punishing a child to spite its parents is not a good way to respond by any metric.
Two child policy hasn’t “made families poorer”, irresponsible adults having children they can’t afford has.
I am sick of this short sighted and idiotic thinking of this government, even on a cold and purely economic level.
If you create a system of support where the poorest in society have a little bit of disposable income, they go off and spend it. Their spending supports businesses, who pay their staff, who’s spending them supports other businesses. That money you give people via child benefit does not suddenly disappear, it goes round and round and eventually comes back to the government via multiple layers of taxation. Nobody loses out, least of all the taxpayer. Don’t think of your tax money as going into the pockets of the irresponsible, think of it as an investment into the local economies of some of the poorest areas in the country.
Money that does become dead to the economy though is that which is saved or squirrelled away by the rich when you cut their taxes!