What a discussion is this turning out to be. What is evident is that prevailing opinion is that children are the sole responsibility of parents. This is expressed here as much as in other mediums and saying ‘someone should not have children if they can’t afford them’ summaries the views quite clearly.

Now, I never imagined that the thread question would give me sleepless nights. After all I waited for 10 years being married before we started our family. We waited because we wanted to be able to be in good financial situation and provide secure home to our offspring and all the opportunities we had as children. As a professional I always thought that staying at home wouldn’t use my capabilities to its best advantage. I also see little wrong in working, as my own mother had full time job while I grew up. In other words I wanted to work once back from maternity leaves.

This is a question? How many children should an average couple be in position to afford?

I look at us and without children we were rather well off. We were also prudent and paid off huge chunks of our mortgage, whilst we had 2 holidays per year. No credit card debt as we always paid off our bills in full by direct debit. All this was managed on two just above average salaries. Two children later meant two years of maternity pay which was supplemented by our savings. Or salaries have increased and we are now 3.5 years into our tightening of belts. Toys / clothes are bought second hand, no holidays or unnecessary purchases; spare room in the house was rented at times. All this effort and we had to twice raise our mortgage to have spare funds for just most basic living. The house we live in is now not affordable to us. We need more than one salary to pay all the bills and the other one is almost all taken by the childcare costs. My fault entirely. All the childcare costs I was expecting were underestimated by power of 2.

Effectively now I am being told that I should have never had my second child as I can’t afford her. I am also advised that I should manage on one salary and should not complain about it as others did manage on less. I am told that I am not that good at budgeting even though I was rather good at it before I had children.

This is my average family having average earnings in average part of London having close to average number of children. Should only rich be allowed to procreate or have more than one child? Do people having twins deserve our sympathy and support?

BTW I found the following quote on moneywise.co.uk
A report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIECR) has found the next generation will pay £70,000 more in taxes over their lifetime than they will receive in services and benefits. On the other hand, those people who are over 65 now have received £220,000 more in benefits and services than they have paid in taxes.

My guess is that falling birth rate is making the above statement worse. But the situation will not get better if there is prevailing hostile attitude towards families.