Babies, babies, babies

2008-02-26T19:35:38+01:00

With the cost of a child survey (produced annually by the Liverpool Victoria friendly society) telling us that it costs £186,000 to raise a child to age 21, people can be forgiven for having fewer children than in the past. A recent study calculated the total to be an astonishing £300, 000 in parts of London. You might ask though, is this based on middle and upper class parents? Those figures have included luxuries such as private education, university, and annual holidays. Clearly, not all families enjoy these, so working class family costs would be much lower. The government give around £16,000 in child benefits providing slight financial relief to all parents, but this is still only 12% of the total needed (by the survey’s standards anyway).
You may have heard that a 16 year old in Argentina has given birth to her second set of triplets. This brings her total baby count to 7 (she had her first baby at age 14). If she lived in the UK (and were middle class) raising all 7 children to 21 would set her back £1.3 million. No doubt this young girl will be helped financially by the government to help raise her children. Without that help her and her children would be in desperate poverty. Contraception has never been so important. It prevents parents having children that they cannot afford, and prevents transmission of disease. Africa is in the middle of an AIDS epidemic, and contraception would help protect those who have not got the disease from contracting it.
In the 1980s cases were brought to the courts if an abortion had failed and the child was born. The parents wanted compensation from the government to cover the costs of raising their unwanted children. At first the parents were compensated due to gross negligence by doctors failing to induce a termination. In recent years though, these cases have been thrown out of court. Doctors cannot 100% guarantee termination and to say they can is ridiculous. I also think that the idea of compensating a parent for having an unwanted child is unethical. A healthy child is a blessing, and a reward in itself.
By the time I come to have children, it will be so expensive to raise them only the super-rich will be able to do so. I wonder if in 50 years time only Hollywood will be having children, creating a super-race of gorgeous, talented people, whilst the rest of the western world reads about it in hello! Magazine. The fact that raising a child costs the same as a detached house in Lancashire scares the hell out of me. In a few years I will be expected to start popping little ones out, but in doing so what will I be missing out on? A house?

Comments

Yet another Blogger

2008-02-21T17:31:04+01:00

Having never blogged (or even kept a diary) I am completely new to this. It is something I have thought about for a while, but never got round to it. Perhaps it was the alcohol making my decisions for me(I am slightly hungover from a night out)but this morning I thought what the hell.
Being the typical student that I am, I have spent the day recovering in bed in order to go the pub tonight and giving myself motivational speeches to do some work. Regardless to say-the latter failed. Luckily for my education, there is always tomorrow!

Comments

Live well, love much, laugh often

Babies, babies, babies

Yet another Blogger