Why is there a massive sudden increase in the amount of babies being born in the UK? Is it to get a free house and lots of money to raise the kids rather than have to go to work?
Ok, that’s a little bit provocative. But let’s revisit something I once wrote about a girl I had dealings with. I wrote about it here. I was left not knowing what could be done differently to stop people like her, without a care in the world, from just doing what feels natural (and fun), such as having sex and getting pregnant (five times), living in a free house, fully paid for by those of us who work, and also being paid by us to live the life of choice as a parent.
As time has gone since that encounter, I’ve hardened in my view of what needs to be done.
Firstly, I’ve no understanding as to why we pay people to have children in the first place. Isn’t that a bit out of date as a concept? It’s not as if we are a population recently wiped out by war or turning into zombies, in desperate need to reproduce to avoid becoming extinct. Yet, a person having a child gets paid just over £20 a week as an award for having had a child. Er, why? This is paid to everybody, regardless of their income.
Those on low or no income then get child tax credits of up to £63 a week, so that’s £83 a week, every week until the child is 16 (or 20 if they stay in education). Now, don’t get me wrong, a child is a very expensive luxury. But why does the Government give people with children so much money?
The young lady I wrote about in the article I linked to, had opted to have 5 children. That’s around £400 a week she’s getting as a reward for having children. Why?
Hell, that’s £20,000 a year, far more than somebody earns working on minimum wage.
Maybe it’s time for a re-think.
We need to pick a certain date. Maybe 5th April 2014. It should be that any child born after that date no longer attracts an automatic payment of any kind. There’s no reason to encourage people to reproduce. There’s no reason to subsidise it.
If the parent cannot afford to pay for the child themselves then, quite simply, they should put the child up for adoption. Harsh, but in these austere times, why should a person be paid to have children? Better to give that child to adopting parents who have a good income suitable to sustain the upbringing of children, rather than leave them with the irresponsible birth mother who shouldn’t have got pregnant in the first place if she didn’t have an income capable of sustaining the child. To have got pregnant (and in the case of the girl I referred to, that’ll be five times) without suitable provision should be looked at as a form of child abuse.
This is a child abuse we must stop.
England's England 