so if your not rich earning 60k a year?

Button broken 😡

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but isn’t 60k a year about what an MP earns? Coincidence? Or am I being too much of a cynic to think that the MPs are looking after themselves?

@MSP – pensions aren’t the only cost for coffin dodgers are they?

for the record, child benefit and childcare £15bn – not quite £60, eh?

So you’re saying that people choose not to have children so they can underpay immigrants?

You could call it redistribution of wealth (but only a very small amount and in exchange for long hours, job insecurity, menial repetitive tasks and no hope of citizenship – you know, the whole Conservative dream).

I can’t see there being a state pension by the time I reach retirement age, or at least only a very limited one.

I’m not disputing that raising children is important. I love how some parents get all uppity when you don’t kiss their butts for reproducing. I am, simply, stating that whether or not to be a parent is a lifestyle choice. You either want that lifestyle or you don’t. And I doubt that for most people, they take the decision whether to have kids or not based around their duty to raise future taxpayers to pay for everyone else’s elderly care. The decision is made, usually, because its something that a person, or couple, want for themselves – a personal choice based on whether having children and parenting is a lifestyle you want, can afford, and will derive some benefit from. The choice not to have kids is equally a lifestyle choice. We are lucky, in fact, in the first world, because we have access to reproductive choices that make it possible for it to be a lifestyle choice. It’s not a negative thing. I’m pretty darned happy I was born here and not somewhere that I am not allowed to control my own fertility or family size.

Anyway….digression from the original point of the thread.

I love how some parents get all uppity when you don’t kiss their butts for reproducing.

Perhaps they’re just getting uppity with you because you use hostile terms such as butt kissing ?

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And I doubt that for most people, they take the decision whether to have kids or not based around their duty to raise future taxpayers to pay for everyone else’s elderly care.

The end result is that they are doing exactly that – raising future taxpayers, so perhaps you should be grateful that they are and stop whingeing ?

I’m pretty darned happy I was born here and not somewhere that I am not allowed to control my own fertility or family size.

Indeed! You may not have been born at all had your parents made a different lifestyle choice 🙂

The end result is that they are doing exactly that – raising future taxpayers, so perhaps you should be grateful that they are and stop whingeing ?

Maybe they are or maybe they are raising a future net drain on society’s resources. We don’t know what the future will hold and whether having a large future population is a good idea or not will only become clear when it actually happens, many think its quite a bad idea.

And just in case you haven’t read the whole thread, it is parents that are whining that 60k a doesn’t make them wealthy because they made the choice to have 4 kids and live in the SE.

A couple of us have dared to point out that no one forced them to and they actually choose to do so.

Hmmmm, lifestyle choice or maybe just too many glasses of red one night and a shock a month later….. 😉

Personally, I enjoyed being a child so immensely that I wouldn’t want to put anyone else through it. But fortunately my taxes pay for both my parents and my sister’s brood.

The end result is that they are doing exactly that – raising future taxpayers, so perhaps you should be grateful that they are and stop whingeing ?

Or raising welfare spongers who draw from the teat of humanity and throughout their idle lives cost the taxpayer while giving nothing in return.

LOL, I rather suspect that my nieces aren’t going to be net contributors

Or raising welfare spongers who draw from the teat of humanity and throughout their idle lives cost the taxpayer while giving nothing in return.

The law of averages tells us they probably won’t.

Wise comments from Littlemisspanda and aP.

Indeed. I will pay Littlemissp’s comments the attention they deserve on threads in future – as above, wise words.

….I’m sure its been said, but I assumed that the median salary on STW must be sky high. With 2 kids and 1.5 salaries in the family, one of which pretty good (based on my view from when I started out working) I just can’t work out how folk can afford bikes these days. as someone with a first generation (2nd hand) orange 5, I dream of the day I can afford a new bike without having funds diverted to DIY, new stoves, decorating, holidays, childcare. How do people do it??!

I dream of the day I can afford a new bike without having funds diverted to DIY, new stoves, decorating, holidays, childcare. How do people do it??!

I guess it comes down to priorities. I have a new bike, but not had a foreign holiday with family for years. I’d like a stove, but bought a bike. Wife would say house needs decorated too….

it is parents that are whining that 60k a doesn’t make them wealthy because they made the choice to have 4 kids and live in the SE.

No, it’s not – they’re not whining, they are disputing that £60k constitutes being rich. And I’d agree that it is relative. What makes you rich (in money terms) is buying power, and that is income vs cost of basic living. You can be rich on £30k/year in some parts of the world.

I rather suspect that my nieces aren’t going to be net contributors

I believe that you have to be earning rather a lot to be a net contributor. (A lot being a relative term, of course.)

I was sure it was £47k, but I also have a nagging feeling that I was proven wrong on that on here before… 🙂

No, it’s not – they’re not whining, they are disputing that £60k constitutes being rich. And I’d agree that it is relative. What makes you rich (in money terms) is buying power, and that is income vs cost of basic living. You can be rich on £30k/year in some parts of the world.

And 60k gives you some pretty decent buying power, spending it on raising 4 kids is their choice 🙄

I guess it comes down to priorities.

…and who wins in that debate! I was thinking my only foreign holidays have been quick trips to Finale Ligure…on the bike, in the sun…and I then I thought, maybe I don’t have it so tough!

I dream of the day I can afford a new bike without having funds diverted to DIY, new stoves, decorating, holidays, childcare. How do people do it??!

scarily familiar – house buying to accommodate family, DIY to make it habitable etc. 1st new bike in 9 years came when elder kid went to school and childcare costs dropped. I suspect the new one will have to outlast the last one.

Saying have kids is a lifestyle choice is all well and good; but its not in the same league as choosing a Porsche over a Mondeo or even Smoking or not.

For one thing we have plenty of publicity in the press about various studies that put the emphasis on starting a family when you are young as you are healthier, more fertile and can avoid costing the NHS heaps in after care or treatment of complex disorders.

The we have the MissPanda’s who effectively put the emphasis on you should really only start a family when you can afford it (even if that’s not what she actually said).

I don’t think you can argue that either point is incorrect and I can therefore understand why some people choose to start in their twenties and some in their late 30’s.

But it does get annoying to hear mothers (and its usually the mums that catch the flak) getting criticised for doing either.

Anyhow in my case this applied (twice):

Hmmmm, lifestyle choice or maybe just too many glasses of red one night and a shock a month later…..

So actually the lifestyle choice was alcohol and hot rampant sex, and not family – but we’ve learned our lesson as we now can’t afford to buy alcohol and the wife will no longer come near me 😕

1st new bike in 9 years came when elder kid went to school and childcare costs dropped. I suspect the new one will have to outlast the last one.

Beats me why people buy new bikes – mine are all second hand, and it saves a fortune. My best bargain was a Thorn Audax frame (one of the original hand made ones) for £75 off ebay.

Ditto all our baby stuff – we recently picked up a Phil & Teds buggy for £150, which would cost £700 new.

And 60k gives you some pretty decent buying power, spending it on raising 4 kids is their choice

Quite. The debate isn’t whether or not it’s enough, or if you are poor, it’s if you are rich.

IMO being ‘rich’ means you can have 4 kids and still do all the rest of it. Having to choose kids or holidays or cars or whatever means you’re not really rich.

income vs cost of basic living. You can be rich on £30k/year in some parts of the world.

Spot on.

And the reason I put that figure in by the way was that when I started earning more than that I thought I was absolutely sodding loaded.

Single, sharing a house, etc.

Well I never. It would appear some people think that raising children isn’t an important and vital task which childless couples should be grateful that others, despite the huge financial costs, engage in.

Presumably these ungrateful childless individuals would be perfectly happy to live in a society in which everyone is over the age of 65 ? So that would be a society where the postman, the nurse, the bricklayer, the bus driver, and the teacher, were all over 65. Until everyone died off of old age of course.

There’s some right resentful miserable gits in this world 🙂

It would appear that some people can’t read and would rather just make stuff up instead.

B.E.B – LOL that’s how most families start. and carry on..

Ahh ernie. I can see we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.

I’m not whinging. Actually, quite the opposite. As I said I am very happy with a society that allows people to make their own reproductive choices. I’m quite happy for others to do the same. I don’t wish for an ageing population, I don’t hate kids, or parents. I’ve been a nanny and a youth worker, and enjoyed both.

Yes, my parents had me, but if they hadn’t then I wouldn’t be here to lament the fact that I’m not here, so that’s kind of a moot point.

I admire people who are good parents; I’m sure there are plenty of good ones here on STW. I think it’s hard work, bringing up kids. But it’s more than just sperm meets egg, so no, I do not feel grateful by default to anyone that has given birth to a child – sorry. And it’s kind of a lottery what kind of person your child turns out to be. A lot of parents think they know exactly what their child will turn out like, but you don’t know. My parents are academics. They wanted a future PhD. I turned out not that way inclined, and it took them some time to adjust to me not being what they had assumed (because of the genetics and environment I grew up in) I would be. That’s a fairly innocuous example, but I’m pretty sure that most parents whose kids end up in jail, addicted to something, or pregnant at 13 don’t think that their kids will turn out like that either. And there are people who had perfectly good upbringings who go off the rails too, so even being an awesome parent is no guarantee that your child will be a future productive member of the economy, and won’t actually end up being a drain on resources.

In the first comment I posted on this thread I said that while my partner and I don’t have a lot of spare cash we don’t want for anything essential and are quite grateful we don’t have hard choices to make about whether to pay the bills or buy food, for example. So nope, I don’t buy that I’m a whinger.

Yes BEB, I did suggest that it would be more sensible/responsible to start a family when you are not wholly reliant on welfare benefits to support your family, so in a roundabout way….I would prefer to see less kids growing up in poverty and surrounded by a benefits culture, because I have seen the results of that in my professional life, and it’s not particularly good for “raising the next generation of taxpayers”. Not saying benefit claimants are automatically bad parents, but in terms of a socially responsible action, nope, I don’t think having kids when you can’t afford them unless the state pays for you entirely is socially responsible.

Panda you cite many atypical examples to illuminate your point- yes it happens but it is rare.

You are also correct that sometimes parents want to vicariously live through their kids but most of us just want them to be happy and healthy.

Overall though the point is that, as a collective, children will be a positive on the economy

whether or not to be a parent is a lifestyle choice.

I get your point but its not really a “lifestyle choice” but a biological imperative or our species would die out.
I was always going to have children I merely chose when not if

Overall though the point is that, as a collective, children will be a positive on the economy

Not in many scenarios. Overpopulation is already creating too much demand for resources that is creating damaging impacts on worldwide economies. Just look how energy and fuel prices spiral and impact business costs and personal finances. Look how a shortage of homes in the SE of the UK can trap many into the life of a wage slave.

It is far to whimsical to only see the possible narrow band of good that can come from even maintaining current population numbers, never mind expanding the population in some hope it will give a boost to the economy.

LittleMissP,

I think that for most people if they decided to wait until they thought they could afford children they never would. Even when I and my partner earned in excess of £60k combined did we feel that we could afford them. Even when earnings were even higher we never did, but somehow we could afford copious amounts of wine and holidays to romantic locations – our children are not called Paris and Cavehouse- in-Granada, but they could be…

Once you actually think you can afford them then in this day and age the chances are you are almost retired. I miss holidays abroad (and being able to enter the Mega on a whim most of all) I’ve not had a new bike since just before Paris arrived and Cavehouse-in-Granada has forced us to move house which completely wiped out all savings and forced the sale of the ‘nice’ cars. Sob.

Do I regret having them though? Well the Mrs sometimes does (her feet swelled and she can’t wear those lovely but expensive shoes anymore or afford to replace them) but I wouldn’t want to be without the little sods now, especially Cavehouse, he is hilarious trying to copy Paris.

Again, point missed.

I didn’t say wait until you can afford them. I said its desirable to have children when you are not wholly dependent on welfare/benefits. I don’t think that it’s a responsible choice to have kids if you cannot support yourself, basically.

If you are working/self supporting, then it’s your own decision what you feel is affordable, as many here have discussed the concept of wealth is relative depending on your circumstances.

Junkyard, you say “atypical”. I guess you’re right, in my previous line of work though it had begun to seem very typical to come across addicts/drug abusers, young adults with fairly extensive criminal records and young adults who had never had a job and hadnt a clue how to get one. It probably feels more typical to me because of that. Because I have worked with some young people who were possibly never going to be productive members of society, I know it’s a reality, but it’s perhaps not as widespread as it feels when you’ve done inner city yoof work/probation work and had the hapless task of trying to find some of these kids gainful employment!

Are you saying that you should be able to afford them without including the available benefits? Can’t blame people for taking what the state will give them can you?

10 pages … anyone care to provide an executive summary ?

BigEaredBiker
Saying have kids is a lifestyle choice is all well and good; but its not in the same league as choosing a Porsche over a Mondeo or even Smoking or not.

Having kids is much more expensive than owning a Porsche or smoking. Just saying.

peterfile
ndeed. I’m reading this thread after coming out of a meeting with 3 people, all of whom will earn a good 7 digits in salary alone,

£1m+ base salary ? I’m used to working in/around high earners in finance and law but very few of them make more than £500k base and the majority much lower even if their total compensation is above £1m