Anyone Child Free By Choice?

tooldle

I don't think many can claim to have contributed enough to cover all their future calls on the system. None of us know what is around the corner. At the moment you may be a net contributor but as you age that may well change. Personnally I attend a respiratory clinic regularly, predominantly the patients are all current or ex smokers. Its all about choices

andrealm

Person_one wrote: »

How do you feel the system should be contributing to your choice? What need do you have that you can't fulfil yourself that is specific to being child free? You are getting healthcare, you will get a state pension (hopefully!) and if you were to become unemployed or disabled you would receive support. What specific needs arise from being child free that you feel aren't catered for?

I don't understand this either. Child benefit is paid to parents to help towards the cost of their children's basic needs, such as food, clothes and nappies. As a child free person you don't have these extra costs. Child benefit is for the children's needs, not the parent's. As a child your parents probably claimed CB on your behalf.

BubblyMumbles

Person_one wrote: »

How do you feel the system should be contributing to your choice? What need do you have that you can't fulfil yourself that is specific to being child free? You are getting healthcare, you will get a state pension (hopefully!) and if you were to become unemployed or disabled you would receive support. What specific needs arise from being child free that you feel aren't catered for?

The system could contribute to my choice not to have kids by giving me the equivalent of child benefit payments, same as people who do choose to have kids.

The needs that people who have kids have that are state relient are chosen needs, ie education for their kids - their kids wouldn't need educating if they hadn't chosen to have them.

Those kind of needs are not the same as someone who becomes ill and requires healthcare.

So my choice to be child free means that I have no specific chosen needs that are releint on state funding, however other people's choice to have kids means that they do have specific needs that require state funding, so it all comes down to the same thing time and time again, I'm paying for other people's choices when my choice not to have kids is ingored and in effect penalised.

ninky_2

revenue from tax on tobacco is about 10 billion a year. smoking costs the nhs 5 billion a year. of course, if you die early from lung cancer you also leave some state pension that doesn't need paying out.

of course, there's also passive smoking. i don't think other people's kids give you cancer......

ninky_2

BubblyMumbles wrote: »

So my choice to be child free means that I have no specific chosen needs that are releint on state funding, however other people's choice to have kids means that they do have specific needs that require state funding, so it all comes down to the same thing time and time again, I'm paying for other people's choices when my choice not to have kids is ingored and in effect penalised.

but people with children are no more responsible for the child benefit laws than people without children. whilst they might get a benefit payout, they have not directly asked you for it.

as a society we all pay for other people's choices. a massive percentage of a and e hospital admissions are alcohol related. should the teetotal ask for their taxes back?

as for what people with children end up paying more in taxes, i'd say a massive amount over the years in vat. the cost of raising the average child is pretty high and some of those extra expenses are going to involve vat.

Frugalista

Person_one wrote: »

if you were to become unemployed or disabled you would receive support.

Really??? Perhaps you could tell that to my OH who has been made redundant after working all his life, buying our own home and never having any kind of debt - and paying all his taxes. He gets £64 a week Jobseekers to live on. A single mum with a new baby get vastly more than that - Why??. They even told us at the benefits place that if we had children and rented our home we would be much better off :mad:.

So, yes - as a responsible childfree couple we are more than a little peeved that the taxes we have paid all our lives are not there to help us when we need it. Oh No! They are funding the !!!!less who keep popping sprogs without a thought of how they are going to rear them :mad:. Seems that you can never be totally Childfree - because, one way or another, you are going to be forced to pay for them!

SandC

andrealm wrote: »

Either way we all pay into a system which helps those who need it, whether as children, in old age or because of illness and disability. If you (as a childless person) live until 105 and need a lot of medical care should, you then be thanking other people's children, or grandchildren for paying their taxes?

I will be in a private nursing home, funded by the sale of my home and whatever other assets I have - because I won't have had to have helped any children get through uni, or buy their own first homes, or any of the other stuff that helps you get through all your dosh when you have kids.

Seriously though, I can see where bubblymumbles comes from. I don't begrudge paying my taxes, contributing towards education etc. seeing as I had a basic one myself. Many of us, with or without children, put more in than we get out - much of which is darned good luck. I wouldn't want to see anyone not get the healthcare they need or any child go without just because they hadn't put enough into the pot to cover it. That's not how our society works and I'm glad of it. But, it IS a choice to have multiple kids and it's even more prevalent now that tax credits are in existence that the child free get more just handed to them when a child free person does not.

We can get 25% of our council tax, how about a little bit of something in the form of a pension top up from NI contributions too? Refund of even potential SMP if you've never claimed it from an employer perhaps? Given from the pensions service at age 50 as a lump sum gift maybe?

Person_one

BubblyMumbles wrote: »

The system could contribute to my choice not to have kids by giving me the equivalent of child benefit payments, same as people who do choose to have kids.

The needs that people who have kids have that are state relient are chosen needs, ie education for their kids - their kids wouldn't need educating if they hadn't chosen to have them.

Those kind of needs are not the same as someone who becomes ill and requires healthcare.

So my choice to be child free means that I have no specific chosen needs that are releint on state funding, however other people's choice to have kids means that they do have specific needs that require state funding, so it all comes down to the same thing time and time again, I'm paying for other people's choices when my choice not to have kids is ingored and in effect penalised.

Honestly, you're coming across as a bit childish now, ironically! Your argument boils down to "She got a biscuit, I want one too, its not faaaiirr!!!"

Life isn't fair down to the penny I'm afraid. If you are much happier being child free then that's a massive benefit to you isn't it? Surely its worth more than £20 a week? I chose not to study medicine or law at uni, now I don't earn as much as a doctor or a lawyer. Should somebody (the law society, the gmc?) compensate me because I made a different choice that means I am now financially poorer?

BubblyMumbles

Person_one wrote: »

Honestly, you're coming across as a bit childish now, ironically! Your argument boils down to "She got a biscuit, I want one too, its not faaaiirr!!!"

Life isn't fair down to the penny I'm afraid. If you are much happier being child free then that's a massive benefit to you isn't it? Surely its worth more than £20 a week? I chose not to study medicine or law at uni, now I don't earn as much as a doctor or a lawyer. Should somebody (the law society, the gmc?) compensate me because I made a different choice that means I am now financially poorer?

That comment is about the most childish one that's been made, and it seems that you're unable to have an adult discussion without slinging childish comments like that in to the frame.

As I've tried to say, obviously not clearly enough, previously, your example above of chosing not to study law or medicine is not state relient, chosing to have a child is.

And thanks to the other posters who actually might see I have a point here.

I was made redundant a few years ago and guess what, after the inital 6 months payment I was entitled to nothing, not a penny. Why? Because I'm married and have no dependents therefore as long as my husband was working I was entitled to nothing.

So because I didn't have kids, I in effect cease to be a person, I'm not even worthy of state help that I'd contributed to for years and years, because I don't have kids. I was told the same thing as Frugalista's husband, I'd have been better off if I had children.

Now, where's the equity there?

And if you're handing out biscuits, make sure everyone gets one.

tooldle

I think you misunderstand, only those on low incomes get benefits, when one spouse works and the other does not, even with children. If I lost my job tomorrow I would be in the same boat as you, and I have a child.
You have already had the benefit of Child Benefit. Are you saying that you now want to benefit again (twice in effect), whilst every other person only benefits once?