More Awesome Than You!

I was lying in bed last night*, and it occured to me that the sims have no financial gain for having children, and I was wondering if it would be possible to have a hack to pay sims say-§10-§15 per day, per child for example. It would make having sim little'uns around much easier, and also help to pay for childcare! I don't know if this could be done though. It would really help with family sims who want tons of kids. Maybe the payments will stop when the kid reaches teen years (they can get a job then!)

*Yeah, I have fun in bed...if I am not playing on the sims, I am thinking about them! Obsessed? Me? ::)

No. I consider the very idea to be abominable. Mention this again and I'll marry you to Goopy.

*giggles* :P

Emma, do you live in the UK?  Or France?  No point mentioning Family allowance to Americans, they just wouldn't understand!

Keep in mind why it is we wouldn't understand. Sure, some of us are "lone wolf, only the strong survive!" people like Pescado, but others of us don't understand because the gubbermint isn't much interested in us once we're out of the womb until we're old enough to work and pay taxes. It then becomes a weird thing to try to wrap the mind around -  "Wait, the goverment actually CARES about me having enough money to feed and clothe my kid, and send it to a decent school and such? No way! Goverments don't do that..."

(I love my country, even though I don't live there anymore... but the policies of the goverment make me want to cry sometimes.)

Yeah, I live in the UK Zeph ;D We get child benefit for our kids-why do you think I keep popping them out? *giggles*

Oh, I realise why the US government isn't interested - and since any child allowance comes out of other people's taxes, a lot of non-parents would agree!

In the UK it started when the birth rate dropped after the war, and the same in France - there it's much higher than ours in the UK, because the birth rate dropped very drastically.  Trouble is, of course, it makes no difference to the child-rearing plans of well-paid professionals, so eventually even if you raise the birth-rate slightly, you tend to get a drop in average IQ!  So maybe the US have it right!

And Emma, I don't put you in the category of those who lower the average IQ - you wouldn't be playing the sims if you were!  (Probably wouldn't even be able to read the instruction booklet!)

However, it would be nice if CAS created elders could have just a small state pension since they haven't had the opportunity to be like Mortimer and reach the top of any career!

I dunno, ZZ. I grew up very poor, and a little bit of a benefit would have helped alleviate a lot of problems, and I'm sure it would for many even poorer children. But then, I'm no economist or any such thing, so I can't say with any sort of authority or knowledge of what will or will not work... :\

I use a simple custom career, wellfare. It only makes them go to "work" for one hour per week, to cash their cheque. I have not implemented chance cards or promotions (at least not yet).

I usually give this one to the non-working parent (via the newspaper testing cheats), as it ensures an income and prevents them from spinning the job wants.

Where did you get this Jordi? It sounds awesome...*sticks tongue out at Pescado*


Instruction booklet? Duh...wassat?  ;D

We do so have "child benefits."  They're called tax deductions.  For every dependent child, you can take a certain amount off of the bottom line that's used to calculate how much income tax you pay.  Of course you have to make a decent living to make this economically worthwhile.  Definitely not sufficient incentive all by itself to have children. For that, you have to be deluded. ;D*

*I love my children.  But they NEVER WASH UP AFTER THEMSELVES.

Tax deductions... *slaps forehead* Forgot entirely about them. I don't have children, so it's not something I've had to deal with personally. Not sure they did much for my mother, because as I said, poor. It also works rather differently (afaik) than child benefit systems like here in Finland.

I would love the idea of a child benefit hack. Plus, in the sim world, it's not your neighbors who pay for it  :D.

I do not have children and neither am I ever planning on having any, but I do like the idea of the child support system we have here in Finland. I don't mind some of my tax money going for that. I do mind co-workers who assume they have the right to take important holidays off because they have small children, and make the child-free ones work instead, because we supposedly have no life. But that's a whole another issue.

 ;D lol Many of you made so many funny comments.

Although I don't agree with that IQ thing. Poor people don't necessarly have low IQ and for one childcare could help those who cannot afford proper education to get one so that would have a good impact on the average "intelligence" of the country.
Not that IQ means much. People who have IQ but no interest at all to put it to good use won't come far not as far even then someone with a lower IQ who is determind to study hard and gain as much knowledge as possible.

To stay a little bit on topic... ;) That is an awesome idea for that hack, although I think that the game is already easy enough so we wouldn't really need that hack. It would be great for storytelling tho.

Greets to all,
virgali

I live in Belgium so I get a lot more child benefit than you people in the UK.  I look at it as getting back all the money I paid out in contributions when I was working.  But looking at it another way...  If nobody has kids, where is our future?and... Do you want children living in poverty?  The UK gave up on tax credit for children about 20/30 years ago because the money wasn't getting to the women who needed it.  I remember two arguments. One was that tax credits are a perk for the rich and the poor who need them most, don't get any benefit.  The second was that the tax credit went to the husband and the wife never saw it.  The labour government wanted to put cash in the mother's hand.

Why not call it unemployment money?

Why not call it compensation for all the dirty nappies and sleepness nights? ;D

IQ thing? I take it that you're talking about an outside argument, virgali? I don't agree that being poor = low IQ either, since, well, I was poor but I tested pretty darn high, but extra money is nice when one has to, say, take their kid to the doctor and get proper treatment for things. I was born with hip dysplasia, but I guess since my mom was poor they didn't think it was a big deal not to put me in a brace to correct it. As a result I have a good few problems from it that only get worse as I get older, even though I'm under 30 - and I'm far past the age where it could have been corrected.

Er, not seeking sympathy, there, just giving an example. I'm bitter but I've dealt with it. :)

As for an in-game way to do this - well, it's a somewhat awkward solution, but you could set up a sim that is a bank or govermental agency unto themselves and motherlode them a bunch of money. Every so often in gameplay, you could go to their lot and have them send money to lots with kids via JM's money order mod. Save and exit and load up a lot with kids, and the payment is sitting in their account!

[edit: Apparently a decent IQ doesn't mean one doesn't make silly grammar mistakes when one is hungry. :D]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the majority of ordinary people having familes will have low IQ children.  What I meant to say was that people with high IQ's and a good education who are in top careers are unlikely to be influenced by child benefit etc. as to whether or not they have a family, or how large it will be.  And if those people (who often started life poor, don't forget) have fewer children, the national gene-pool is diminished.

As to Income Tax relief for children, it was, to my mind, a far better system than child benefit.  Child benefit is the same whether your child is 3 months or 15.  Tax Relief used to continue until your child was independent or over 21.  So a child at University was still regarded (in those days when the State recognised that graduates were something necessary to the state and thus grants were paid to poorer students) as a dependent, and the parents got tax relief on the money they paid for the child's upkeep at Uni.

As cwykes points out, though, the problem with tax relief was that mostly it went to the father, not the mother, and therefore the children frequently did not benefit - it just added a bit more drinking money to father's wallet (and believe you me there were plenty of men like that around when I was growing up, who didn't believe in marriage being an equal partnership and therefore gave their wives a pitiful amount in housekeeping!)

We have a system now of tax credits for poorer people with children but no government can ever ensure that the money is used as intended, there will always be people who claim the money and still keep their kids short of essentials while they fund their drink/drug habit.

Yup, and having worked in the legal field for a good number of years, I often muse about our requirement that people must obtain licenses to get married and to drive (as well as take classes regarding those issue), but not to have children.

We also have "child benefits" here through welfare, which is an abomination in my opinion. I say if you can't afford them without my help then don't have them! I am sure there are people out there that actually need welfare temporarily, but there are too many uneducated women popping out babies by several different men so they sit on their fat ass and collect welfare for each of their kids, who meanwhile are maniacal little heathens...

I simply hate this sense of entitlement so many people seem to have in this day and age. You are "entitled" to NOTHING.


very sore topic...

Low education doesn't always correlate with low IQ, and a low IQ or low education doesn't necessarily make a person a bad member of the society. I hate high how "highly educated" is often implied to mean the same thing as "good person", and "less educated" implies that you're a part of some mass of undefined stupidity. I know so many smart people who, for one reason or another, have very little formal education. I also come from a family and a small town where traditionally practical skills were valued (and needed), and getting high education a few decades ago was both difficult and unnecessary. My parents never even graduated high school. I still don't consider my parents to be some stereotypical low class people breeding stupid offspring. Rather, they have worked hard to provide sufficient income for the family and made us understand that there are other things more important in life than a fancy education or loads of money, which have nothing to do with being a good person. That I then decided to get a higher education (made possible by the free university education in Finland) was fine, too, but it has, again, nothing to do with how good a person I am. I have so many collagues whose behaviour doesn't match their outer, prestigious status, and I know many less educated people who have a lot more integrity. People seem to keep living under this false impression about the doctors and lawyers with their smart and well-behaved children and perfect lives. But anybody who treats me differently after they find out about my profession is not going to get my respect. If you don't like me or care to serve me as I am, then don't pretend to just because of my title. If it's not genuine, I don't want it.

Over the past few budgets the Australian Govt has been setting aside more money and new incentives to encourage more people to have children.

There are two main reasons for this.  One reason is to try to counter the recent trend of educated couples to have only one child or no children.  But I don't think this will work, as educated couples know they are much better off financially by not having children both because of the cost of children and because of the impact on the parents' careers.  Financial incentives aren't going to induce them to change their minds.

The second social trend that causes the government a great deal of concern is the aging population.  The baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age - and there's not only a rising pressure regarding retirement payments, there's also going to be an evergrowing need for age related services - from hearing aids and medicines to retirement villages and nursing homes.  The government have two options, and they'll eventually resort to both no doubt - either to cut funding for aged services and pensions (which will become increasingly electorally dangerous as time passes and the population ages) or to try to encourage an increasing population now, to provide future staff for those services and future taxpayers to foot the bill.  I think it's a case of too little assistance that is coming too late - but at least the government has flagged that they now see a need to increase the birth rate.

Australia isn't the only nation facing this kind of problem.  It may be less of an issue in countries where social welfare is not given a high priority, but it's still an issue to some degree for every country that has a baby boomer generation.

Some people who have chosen not to have children may think it's unfair that services and money are provided to parents.  They have a right to their opinion, I won't dispute that.  But I wonder whose taxes they think will fund the hospitals they'll increasingly need, not to mention the pensions and the govenrnment subsidies that senior citizens receive, and who do they think will staff the pharmacies, the hearing aid clinics, the nursing homes, etc - it will be the responsibility of the children of those who were 'selfish' enough to become parents.

Back on topic: As for the game - personally I think money is too easy to come by in the game as it is, even without the three Maxis-provided money cheats.  First generations can be tough, but after that it's a piece of cake - 2nd generation and onwards have the double advantage of a degree and being highly skilled so computers can get them high paying jobs immediately, the house is furnished comfortably, and once the elders die of old age there's a nice inheritance.  This is probably why I like playing first generation sims - the game is more interesting for me when the money pressure is added.

And what is Canada?  chopped liver?

No don't answer that .... :)

I never meant to imply that hard-working parents were the problem - they are the majority and provide the basis of our society.  Where would we be with a generation of lawyers and no building tradesmen/women?  But on each end of the social scale you have (a) the affluent, highly educated, who have no need of financial inducements to have children, and will only ever have the number they want and (b) the hangers on, who don't contribute anything, but have far more kids than they are able or willing to look after, and will therefore lower the average IQ.  Maybe for these people we need to adopt the chinese approach and pay them NOT to have children!  Or penalise them if they do.  Having said that, many of their children will genetically have the potential to reach average or plus average IQ, but if their early years are spent watching endless TV, they only learn to speak one word demands, are still in diapers when they start school at 5, they start life with a big handicap and often they don't ever catch up.  IQ is not fixed unti puberty, so it can drop as well as rise, maybe only a few points, but those few points at the lower end of the scale make more difference than a few points at the top.

When I first started reading this thread, I thought Emma meant the tax deductable, also.

The poor also get something called "Earned Income Credit" here in the States.  Which means, pretty much, that if they work but do not make enough to get above the poverty level, the government rewards them with this credit that they can claim either on their paycheck as an advance or when they file their income tax returns.  These are the people that these tax preparation "chains" like H&R Block are courting with their "Cash Return Loans".  You've seen the comercials?  "Come in to H&R Block with your last paycheck stub for the year, let us do your taxes, and walk out with a check."  What the comercial doesn't tell you is that a large portion of your tax refund will go to their fees.  But, if you're getting two or three thousand dollars, what's a couple hundred to get it back quicker, I guess.   ::)

It is because of the Earned Income Credit that our Congress (Or at least, certian conservative members of it) decided it was okay to raise the child deduction for everyone but the poor.  I believe that the low-income families get $600 per child, while the middle class and wealthy get $800 per child. 

Something that UK, France, and other countries do that I wish terribly that the US would do is provide free high quality child care to EVERYONE.  Here where I live, there is a major shortage of child care providers.  If you have an infant and do not have a relative or trusted friend to watch the baby, you are practically out of luck when it comes to child care.  Most providers do not accept children until the age of 2, because the state has such strict standards for the teacher:child ratio.  The teachers are paid just above minimum wage and no benifits.  They are still required by the state to get their Early Childhood Credentials, so they are supposed to be educated.  But, babies are usually kept with an in-home provider who is not required to have an Education.  Last Week in Raleigh, a 21 year old woman killed a toddler in her care, the daughter of her best friend.  I have seen mother after mother in my area choose to stay on welfare, or choose a life of crime and poverty and squallor, rather than entrust their infant to poor child care and pay $90 a week for it! 

I might be crazy, but I thought that in Sims 1, having children lowered your bills by a certain amount. May be wholesale fabrication, but I don't think I'm senile yet. I'm only in my 20's.
Since bills seem to be a simple blanket way of covering everything from basic upkeep and maintenance to taxes, then lowering bills would be the easiest way to replicate the American method -- one generally pays significantly less in taxes with children, although probably not nearly as much as the children cost. As mentioned above, the other methods are welfare related, and I don't see The Sims replicating that particular aspect of life any time soon, since the game practically crams money down your throat. Sim money, that is -- they have 'holiday packs' to get some real money back from us.

*No, really, I love little children! I just couldn't possibly eat a whole one!

A mod like this never occurred to me, which it should have done as I live in the UK and take Child Benefit as a given.  I could certainly have used it in my re-started Pleasantview, where I am determined not to use any money cheats (because, as has been said before, it makes the game too easy).  Due of this, the Brokes were unable to pay the nanny and she stole Brandi's bedside table and candle (good riddance), then refused to come back the next day.  The annoying thing is that they had enough before Brandi got a bad chance card and lost a day's pay, thus lowering the balance.  Quite why it's done that way I don't know, because they come home and are paid again, putting them back where they were before the shift started, so why doesn't the game just send them home without any pay?  That's another issue, of course.

Interesting topic...

here in Australia they introduced a baby bonus - started paying $3000 at the birth of a child - sadly this caused a lot of teenagers to go out and get pregnant because they were getting (as they saw it) a huge amount of cash, not realising that the baby would cost them so much more.  Unfortunately the government hands out so many different welfare payments that it can actually be quite lucrative to be a single mother, unemployed and pushing out babies - certainly pays more than any job an uneducated, inexperienced person could actually obtain.

The government is slowly increasing the baby bonus - going up to $4000 some time this year, and $5000 at some stage next year - once again I can only see this payment encouraging the very young uneducated to go out and have children...  heck, I'm 30, have a a degree and post-graduate qualification behind me, and have a secure job as a teacher (with 17 weeks of paid maternity leave) and all these payments and such aren't making me want to run out and have babies...  can you tell I'm getting a lot of pressure to do this, though?

I know people of low IQ who would be tempted to make use of all these bonuses and payments won't necessarily produce children of correspondingly low IQ, but children brought up in this kind of system are at a significant disadvantage to those born to educated, intelligent parents - and will often not have the desire or drive to achieve anything else for themselves.

My parents were rather poor, but did everything they could te educate my sister and myself - sure, the local state high school had to do for us, but so many of our peers were from the background mentioned above...  the attitude of a lot of their parents was "the dole/working at the local chicken factory was good enough for me so it's good enough for my child" - many parents wanted their children to leave school ASAP without going on to complete their final 2 years of schooling, let alone do any further study after that.  Even children whose parents wanted them to continue had so much peer pressure to drop out that many girls in my year opted to get pregnant just so that their parents would allow them to leave school.

Anyway, forgetting all discussions of welfare and other systems - the sims really is too easy - you end up with so much money floating around that it gets embarrassing - adding another way to get even more money isn't actually necessary.

Emma: I just made it with the career editor in SimPE. Fairly easy to do (if tedious).

OK Jordi! I don't have SimPE, maybe I should get it :)

I don't know how I ever managed to play my game without it!

What about a mod that would force divorced or absent parents (i.e. not living on the same lot as their child) to pay child support?

Well, they can always send money with JM's money order!

AMEN!!!!

I am disgusted at the idea that someone would "keep popping out kids because the government pays them for it."

People who can't afford kids shouldn't have them because they need to be able to take care of themselves first.  Birth control is much cheaper than pregnancy and parenthood.   No one is "entitled" to reproduce if they are incapable of caring for said offspring, IMO having a kid you can't afford to feed and clothe is tantamount to child abuse.  I could care less what their education level is, but the fact of the matter is if a person can't take care of themselves without government assistance they have no business reproducing.

I know I kicked myself when the child cash bonus went up substantially just after I had my daugher - I only got $500; if I had waited a couple of months it would have been some outrageous amount like 2,000.  :D

I couldn't agree more, anyeone, and in the UK birth control for women is free if you are on Income Support.

Personally, I think child Benefit should only be paid once the child has grown up and is a responsible and productive member of society!  A reward for a job well done!

I would like to point out that I was kidding when I said this  ;)

Emma, I don't think anyone was getting at you!  Maybe this discussion is getting a little to heated and we should all take a step back and remember what happens when we get too het up!

LOL I know, I just thought I should make it clear though  ;D

What was their catchphrase? "One for the mother, one for the father, and one for the Prime Minister"? - that turned me right off.  :D


I know quite a few people who've taken advantage of the system in this way. They see it as being "set for life" - or at least sixteen years, depending on how many children they have - because they get plenty of money from Centrelink, plus child endowment, commission housing (where if your bathroom/kitchen/roof needs renovating, they come and do it free and quickly - wish they'd do that for my house!). As a student, stuck on $100 a week from the government and whatever else I can earn before they cut me off, it makes me angry... I just see it as an example of the government wanting people to choose this lifestyle and making it extremely difficult for other people from poorer backgrounds to get the education they need for whatever career they've chosen. A disturbing trend in Australian society, that's my opinion.  :(

The same kind of thing happened here in the UK when they stopped student grants and replaced them with loans.  Rich kids didn't get grants, they got parental contributions, now they don't need loans, they get parental help!  Poor kids if they do make it through college, graduate under a mountain of debt which eventually has to be repaid!  I appreciate that in the US there isn't a grants system, but what there is is a well developed system of scholarships, plus a lot of on-campus part-time employment, neither of which apply here in the UK.
It just seems wrong that those kids who want to make a future for themselves are often stopped because they really cannot afford it!

(ZZ this is not all pointed at you or anyone in particular)





and thats unfair? yet some here have said that is someone couldn't afford a kid then they shouldn't have one... not the same? but yet it is, no one is entitled to anything (also said here) 


I'm disabled and I'm not able to work at all which means I'm poor and although I get goverment help (SSI) I also need help from welfare for my daughter (The one I should not have had according to some people here) Should my daughter and I just drop dead since we can't afford to live without help?


Not all women or men on welfare are fat, lazy and stupid, not all women are popping out kids to stay on welfare.  Welfare has changed, atleast around here, moms have to work in order to keep getting any help from welfare and if your getting welfare and working, if you make just a couple dollars more "then allowed" then your welfare gets cut (by more then the few dollars)

Actually, birth control in the uk is free to all women, and for men too in certain health centres.
And sleepycat, comments arent aimed at people like you, who have a child because they want one and are going to love it and take care of it. They are aimed at people who have children for the sole aim of getting cash benefits from the government, then leave their children to run wild, doing whatever they want, even if that means skipping school and attacking old ladies in the street.

Sleepycat, I don't think we any of us meant to imply that people who are disabled should not have children, or receive help.  There is a big difference between needing help and simply expecting it, which I think is what some people were referring to.  And I don't think the help should stop for your kids because they reach the age of 18, if they have good enough grades to go to University, then they should NOT have to mortgage the rest of their lives to pay for it!  In the UK we have a so-called Labour government who have done nothing at all to help underprivileged young people get an education beyond 18 (they'll pay them (not the parents who support them) 30 quid a week to stay on at school, then if they want to go to college they're on their own!  And quite a few of those who now serve in the present government probably received grants in order to get their degrees!

The labour government is a joke (sorry to anyone who supports them), as of next year, its 3000 pounds (sorry, no pound sign on my german keyboard) fees per year of your course. For someone on a language course, like me, thats 12000 just from fees, and at the end of my course i will owe over 16000 from my loan. Add 2 grand in your overdraft (maximum after a 4 year course), and you owe nearly 30000 pounds just from trying to improve your career prospects.

You can still get flats and small houses for that much in some parts of the uk. Its totally ridiculous.

*sigh*

There are people on welfare who actually need it temporarily o9r even long term due to some accident or something.

However - there are a LOT of women on welfare simply for the sake of cashing in on the baby business our government has set up. Last time I checked you were allowed to sit on your ass until the kid was the age of three or soemthing close to that. Which is why in my neighborhood I often see women with several children under the age of five. These young women who could have a lovely future instead are strapped down with 3 or 4 kids by the time they are 21.

The future really doenst look all that bright when you consider what we as a society are supporting for our future. We will end up with a bunch of able bodied yet weak minded people who cant fend for themselves.

Planning for the future is important and I see too many people not doing it, only planning for the here and now. The government shouldnt be a safety net for people who keep falling, there has to be some personal accountability.

Not everyone considers being trapped with 3 kids at a young age a bad thing. Some people choose to do it, and for some that is the "lovely future". Now, that's not for me, and I don't understand why anyone would want to have 3 small children, but some just do, regardless of the social benefits. I know someone of my age (29) who went to medical school with me, graduated, and now has 4 kids. A close friend of mine is very financially secure without any benefits, but yet has chosen to have 3 small children, none of them accidents. Not everyone who's having kids is doing it for the financial benefits, for heaven's sake. Most of the highly educated co-workers I work with have at least 2 kids, many 3 or 4. I'm sure there is a small number of people who do it for the financial reasons, but most people have kids for other reasons, mainly for the biological need a lot of people seem to get to have offspring.

In the UK, single mums used to get high priority on the local authority housing list.  DK how true it is now, but it certainly led to a lot of young girls getting pregnant so they could leave home and have a place of their own paid for by the taxpayers.  That changed the way a generation thought - getting pregnant became a smart move instead of stupid.  It shifted the moral climate a bit as well about unmarried mums. 

Tax credits only work if you pay tax.  a lot of low income people don't pay tax at all in the UK, so they get zero benefit from tax credits. they don't get cash off the tax authority when they aren't on the tax rolls.

Children should be made illegal and anyone who has one should be fined for it. Not the other way around.

Not that I disagree, JM, I absolutely do. 

But where are you now?  And no one has been stupid in like 2 days, except briefly Twain.  :P

I'm with you, Nectere.  Every year when we have our taxes done (US), they try to convince us to have children as to drastically lower the amount.  Nah, I'd rather just pay up, be rich and go on vacation in Hawaii.  And when I'm old and cranky, well old, then I'll use my very own saved up money for false teeth and hearing aids.  Right, Pescado?  You buy your own false teeth?

Would anyone happen to have any links to any studies showing that considerable amounts of young women are having more babies as a result of the child benefit monies being raised, or perhaps some direct anecdotal evidence ("I know someone that...", not "A friend of my cousin's husband said...")? I'm skeptical that these abuses are happening otherwise, when the reasoning looks to be that just because a system could be abused, it is being abused by many.

Of course the US has credits for kids!  I have three and one this year turned too old to deduct on our income taxes.

During my 21 years of marriage I think I've only actually paid federal taxes something like 5 or 6 years because generally speaking the Earned Income Credit refunds more than we paid in the first place--and you only get EIC for dependent children.

Naturally this all depends on your level of income and there's a very bizarre thing in those tax tables.  There's a really fine line between paying virtually no taxes or paying a ton.  If my husband gets a raise at work it bumps us up to the next level where we'd end up paying more than his raise would bring in.  If we stay below that point we pay no or very little federal taxes.  So, this brings about another problem:  either you stay in a 'low income' tax bracket or you need to earn twice as much to actually benefit from the increased income.

What I said about young girls having kids just to get the baby bonus in Australia came from a very close friend of mine who is an obstertrics registrar...

she's in the public hospital system so doesn't really see anyone who can afford private health cover.

In the months leading up to the baby bonus being introduced she started to see a lot more young women in the pre-natal clinics, at the time the baby bonus was introduced - there was a brief lull in her work in the days leading up to it, and then it got insanely busy as soon as the date rolled around to when the baby bonus would be paid - she said it was amazing what the brain could do in regards to a woman going into labour - the numbers of young, single women having babies did increase dramatically at that time - I do not know if that increase has been sustained since, but I will check with her again when the next increase in the baby bonus is due - I'm not entirely sure when it is, but I think it is some time this year.

My  coworker is currently in this type of pickle.  His wife just got a better job that pays about 800$ more a month.  They are currently receiving subsidized day care and pays about $300 a month.  Well they just had their annual review with the day care agency program and because of the new job, they were told their daycare would go from $300 a month to $1200 a month!. 

His wife is in tears.  She will have to quit a better paying job that offers her more prospect for the future because they simply can't afford it.  How mad is that?

I spent 10 years working for Centrelink, from 1994 to 2004.  The last few years of that was in the family payments area, which handles payments for children and payments for single parents.  I think I may be qualified to give my professional opinion on this.

The statistics demonstrate that the majority of single parents in Australia are not teens - the average single parent is most likely to be in her late-20s to mid-30s, who has come out of a bad relationship.  The statistics also demonstrate that most single parents stay on the full payment for around 18 months or so while they get their lives back together, then they start part-time or full-time work.  It doesn't take long before a sole parent realises that the pension isn't going to cover the cost of giving the kids a reasonable upbringing.  When my marriage broke up I took leave without pay while I dealt with some of the issues arising from the break up, and I spent some time on the opposite side of the counter on the sole parent pension.

It is a myth that the majority of single parents are teens who get pregnant so they don't have to look for work, don't have to worry about housing, etc.  It is also a myth that a lot of welfare recipients keep having kids because of the welfare payments available.  I live in a welfare area now, I lived in a welfare area before I worked for Centrelink.  In my personal life I have only ever met one woman who was planning on having a lot of kids because of the payments.  She was in her late 20s at the time, and had several children already.  All the other mothers (sole parents or not) at the local school thought she was insane - knowing the responsibility that children entail, it was not an option they would ever consider.

Australia sounds like a lovely place to live.

I moved to Canada. Everyone says "but, but... the climate..."

I second that. 

I work very closely with my county's department of social services and court system because I teach parenting classes.  I live in rural North Carolina.  The vast majority of parents that I see in the "system" are young, single parents with a brood of children.  Many of them are fathered by older men who do not work, who have criminal recrods, who make a living preying on these young girls.  They find a girl, tell them they love them, they're going to take care of them, etc.  Help her get an apartment, etc.  After baby is born, they show up around the time the monthly check comes in, brngs in a $10 bag of diapers and some McDonald's for Mom, make a big talk about being the man, woo hoo with mom,  take a little of her check, and then go off to the next girl.  The single mothers have it hard, and most of them have very low self esteem here.  They turn to substance abuse to deaden the pain.  Pretty soon, they are neglecting their children.  Neglect is much more prevelant that abuse.  Next thing you know, they are in the court system, kids are in foster care, and they're in my parenting classes crying because they love their kids but they can't get it together.  And where is Daddy?  Out on the street corner with his buddies, maybe selling drugs, maybe checking out the next 16-17 year old girl that walks along and seeing his next "conquest." 

I think that the men who do this should be locked up for life or nutered!!!  They are criminals, plain and simple.  They do not pay a penny of child support, they do not provide any real emotional support to the mothers, they just use them.  They benefit from government programs that are designed to help poor parents get "on their feet", but they do not have to submit to any of the regulations such as the mandatory job training or the alotted time limits to be on the programs. They talk the mothers into leaving their names off the birth certificates and not cooperating with Child Support Enforcement.  They officially live with there elderly Grandparents, but they jump around from girlfriend to girlfriend.  Ultimately, one will get fed up, march herself into the Child Support Enforcement office, and say, "Joe Schmo is the father of my three kids.  I want you to go after him!"  But, Joe's never worked a day in his life, so there's no paycheck to garnish.  They attempt to bring Joe to court to answer charges for being a deadbeat dad, and he hides behind his remaining girlfriends.  He tells them, "ah, that B-word is trying to pin me down as being her baby's father, but I'm not.  She's a ho.  I only love you, honey!"  And pretty soon, the mothers are all at war with each other, and he can sit back and enjoy the "good life." 

I think that men like that are a big part of our social problems in our local society.   :(  Sorry for the rant.

Australia, to me, is losing what it once had - I blame the government, because it seems these days that more people are focussed on their money and their mortgages and their brand new cars and themselves when people used to actually care about strangers and their feelings. And since our government wins elections based on interest rates, the economy, and how much of our tax they're piling away in the vaults (while hospitals, schools, transport, public works, etc. are suffering) for some "rainy day" - I'm very disappointed in what my country has become.

Kristalrose, your post made me so sad and angry - I wish it was fiction, but then the truth is generally worse than fiction. The worst part is that there is so little you can do, even if you act with all of your power and ability, in those situations.  :(

Kyna, I understand where you're coming from, and its good to hear from the other side of the Centrelink divide - when my parents divorced my Mum went on the single parent pension as well since she was unemployed at the time, and although we weren't able to remove ourselves entirely from the welfare (due to her working part-time to look after me) it did reduce after the initial money problems. Most people on Centrelink benefits are well-deserving; there are a lot of young people on the NewStart and Youth Allowances that I know, mainly due to lack of any work in the area I live in. But I have encountered quite a few women who do exploit the system in this way - they are not the majority, but most I have met come either from bad family situations or their mothers did a similar thing with their children.


Ha! I'd rather have been in Canada this New Year's, with the 45 degree temperatures... sure, the winters are mild but summer is getting horrendous.

Well, shucks, JM, that could have some serious consequences down the line.  How about a global license to procreate?  You could offer to administrate the program.   ;D

I think he wants to see how long it takes him to send us to a BFBVFS

I didn't intend to give the impression that there are no drug addicts, alcoholics, etc on welfare.  There certainly are, as I know from my professional and personal life.  They tend to be more visible & more vocal, giving the impression they are the majority.  Yet they are the minority.

I mostly worked at two very different offices during my time in Centrelink.  The first office was in a country town, population around 12000, where most of the major industries had closed - except one remaining major employer which had cut its staffing from 2000 employees to 500 over the previous few years.  So there wasn't a lot of work about.  As it was a country town there was a strong emphasis in the community on 'old-fashioned values' and the work ethic with the consequent pressure on people to find work, but most of the community knew there wasn't much work about - everyone knew someone who had personally experienced the devastation of unemployment.  It gives you a different perspective when you work in a small town office where just about every customer is a friend, relative or long-term acquaintance of somebody in the office.  You know that the majority of your customers are looking for jobs that just aren't there.

When I transferred back to the city I landed in an office servicing an urban welfare area with a significant substance abuse problem.  We  had our 'regulars' - the addicts looking for some cash to score (which they weren't likely to get).  They tended to come in more frequently and were our more vocal and aggressive customers, and often potentially dangerous to deal with.  However the majority of our customers were just ordinary, everyday people.  Some were battling incredible odds, yet refused to give up.  Many of these ordinary people had never had any opportunities, or maybe their opportunities had been taken away when their employers 'downsized', or maybe they'd lost their opportunities through mistakes of their own (and we all make mistakes).  They still deserved a fair go, to be treated with the dignity and respect that is every human being's right, and not to be stereotyped because of the behaviour of a visible, vocal minority.

Getting off my soapbox now.  I tend to become rather passionate when defending welfare recipients.

My sister has a 7 mo old baby. When she got pregnant she had a good job but not good enough to cover child care for two kids while she worked. She applied for a child care program offered by the welfare office. Turned out she would have to wait 6 months to have any assistance since she already had a job but if she was unemployed she would get the assistance imediately.
She quit her job.

That's the real trouble with all welfare programs, they only help those who don't try to help themselves!  I worked as a teacher and have a (small, since I only did 20 years before having to retire due to ill-health) but because of this I get no extra help beyond the Old Age Pension.  If I had NO personal pension, I would be entitle to so many things, probably wouldn't own my own house (since I'm single and when I took out my mortgage, it was only because I was a "professional woman" that i was able to get it at all!), and would not only get my rent and council Tax paid, but I'd have Pension Credit to claim, all my house maintenance would be someone else's responsibilty - need I go on?.......

ZZ, you can go on all you like, but without statistics to back up your claims you are blowing hot air.

The information I have found applies to the USA. Some of it is rather old, but things have not changed significantly enough since the research was done to make it invalid, as the changes that have resulted are not substantial enough to subsume the costs of a baby.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfaremothers.htm
http://www.voice.neu.edu/960215/welfare.html
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1302

I'm going to have to be done with this thread. It's making me very upset that there is a lot of finger-pointing at these assumed hordes of young women and not at all at the men who get them pregnant. I'm also feeling insulted on behalf of my mother, who has been on welfare twice in her adult life, and yes, she WAS a poor, unmarried, young woman with a history of drug addiction - and she is the hardest working person I have EVER met and did her damnedest to do right by me despite her problems, and she worked DAMN hard to get those problems fixed - and she would have been able to do a hell of a lot better if she hadn't had to spend most of her life working her fingers to the bone and gaining herself a permanent disability in her shoulders in the process to scrape by.

So kindly chew on that the next time you want to trash on these imagined hordes of leeches.

I live in the U.S. and I used to work in a homeless shelter for women and children.   The financial help available in the U.S. for these women is dismal at best....  Most of the women I worked with had one or two children, with educations ranging from a couple of years of high school to college coursework, and I never encountered any that thought that having another baby would somehow help their financial situation.  The myth of welfare mother's living the high life with government handouts is a complete joke! Most of the women I worked with were trying to finish their high school educations so that they could get jobs that would actually allow them to pay the cost of child care and earn a decent living wage to house and feed their family.  In the area I live in $250/week for one child is the average cost of child care.  I have a college degree, a decent job and a partner with a somewhat stable job situation and the thought of us managing a baby financially keeps me tossing and turning at night. 

Renatus, I hope your mother's life has gotten easier in her later years.  I'm very familiar with the disease of drug addiction and I have loads of respect for her and her accomplishments in raising a woman like you. 

Years and years ago, like back in the 1960s, I can remember quite a few people on welfare who weren't necessarily living the high life but still drove around in Cadillacs.  That's no myth--that was fact.  I also personally knew single mothers who could have worked but instead were on welfare.  By some bizarre notion, though, I felt that was their choice--they were trying to stay home and take care of their kids and be good moms.  Over the years I've also known quite a few people who're drug addicts and the like and some came around and took up clean lives while others will die never having made a positive contribution to society--in fact, their contributions have been to try to get their own children addicted.  I think no matter where a person is, there are going to be both sides of the coin presented.  Some people will work their tails off to straighten their lives and others will just keep wallowing in the gutter.

A few years back our state did a complete welfare reform, which in a way has been good, but on the other hand I think went too far.  Any person's time is limited to something like 18 months out of their entire lifetime they can actually depend on financial support.  When my sister's husband walked out on her to go after another woman, my sister didn't have the time or emotional and financial support she and her then 6-year-old daughter needed to get through the divorce.  Instead, she was told she needed to get a job immediately (which she did).  Truthfully, those first few months after the divorce were basically enough so that her life's pretty much been rocked ever since.  I couldn't help but think if she'd had a little bit of time there their lives would've been much more settled.  As it is, she basically just makes it from day to day and is going nuts in the process.  I know there's two sides to every story but her ex has turned into a first-class jerk and has done nothing but cause problems since he left.  He's now trying to get custody of their daughter--and this is one of those really lame things, because he seems to thinks it's going to be cheaper for him to raise their 13-year-old than to pay the $260 a month child support he currently pays.

At any rate, life is very bizarre. 

I guess what stirs my passion on this topic is when people present anecdotal evidence of welfare cheats - and we all have such anecdotes, myself included - and then try to say that 'every single parent' or 'every unemployed person' is cut from the same cloth.  In my experience, most aren't.

It's easy to target welfare recipients - they're impoverished, relatively powerless members of our communities.  I know, why don't we start a topic on ... say ... tax cheats.  I wonder if it would be an impassioned thread blaming and stereotyping the people and companies who rort the tax system - after all in dollar terms (or whatever your currency is) they cost the community a lot more than welfare cheats.  (NB I'm not serious about a thread on tax cheats, I'm just making the point that it's easier to target people who are at the lower end of the economic scale).

No doubt!  LOL  I think the folks who cheat on income taxes in this country could probably support most of the third-world countries out there!

Oh, I thought of something earlier, too, that could make quite a few welfare/disability recipients look like they're living high on the hog when they're not.

I have two sisters on disability--one is extreme bipolar, has diabetes, horrid back problems and just a myriad of ailments.  About a year ago our dad passed away, which means when the probate closes she'll be getting a little chunk of money, so this is why we had to check this out.  When she gets this money she isn't allowed to put even one dime of it into a savings account to keep for an emergency like a car breaking down or even something like buying a pair of glasses (her medical coverage doesn't cover her glasses).  Instead, every dime has to be spent within 30 days of receiving the money.  No one item she owns (with the exception of a home) can be valued at more than somewhere around $2,000 (I don't recall the exact amount) and that includes a vehicle.  She can check blue book prices and buy anything that books at under that price and spend $25,000 fixing it up if she wanted to (not like she'll have that much money, just an example) and as long as the car still books at $2,000 it's okay.  She can buy big-screen TVs, video game consoles, computers, what have you, as long as no one item is worth more than the set amount and as long as all the money is spent within the 30-day period.

So in a case like this, it might look like someone who's on disability is living high on the hog, when in reality they may've come into a few thousand dollars and their only option is to spend that money as quickly as possible.  It would seem to me that with vehicle prices what they are the limit on that should be higher, like say around $5,000 or $6,000.  In that price range a person can actually buy a decent used car.

The entire everything's set up on such a wonky system.  While I completely understand the reasoning behind the limits above (like keeping these people from driving brand new Cadillacs), it's totally skewed.

I don't think my sister is a welfare cheat. I think she was in a bad situation and was forced to make a bad decision. She couldn't afford food, rent etc. and childcare as well. She only pays 250 a month in rent for a tiny basement apt. but in a good neighborhood. She's lucky she's not stuck in crack town where her rent would probably be higher anyway.
I guess I just think it's stupid that they claim they want to put welfare moms to work but they won't even help them keep the jobs they already have.

I apologise if I've upset people, I never meant to criticise people who are trying to do their best to make a life for themselves and their children.  And yes, the men who renege on their reponsibilities do seem to get away scot free in many cases.  And I would add that the kind of mothers you are all referring to don't, when they're already in a difficult situation with a couple of kids, go out and get themselves pregnant again!  And I agree, if single mothers of young, pre-school children were given help with childcare costs it would be easier for them to find work, but I also think that no-one with children of that age should be forced to do so because of financial constraints - there should be no pressure put on a woman with children so young to leave them in someone else's care!

For anyone interested, here's a link to a recent BBC article on attitudes to parenthood:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4600455.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4600455.stm).   

Child benefit is to help children, not the parents.  Children don't choose to be born to parents who can't support them, so they can't be undeserving of help.