When does a brainwave give you a pain in your bottom?

The other day I found myself yielding to an argument that withholding child benefit for any more than 2 children , in a family was a good idea. Sunday morning politic shows were discussing the brainwave of some well positioned MP, of how to reduce the benefit bill. The arguments included extolling the virtues of good parents, and that to be a parent you need to be responsible? “Of course”, I agree. Families should be planned?” Ideally, yes”. Furthermore if people can’t support their own children then they shouldn't have them, well I suppose so.

I must be honest initially, I almost swallowed it whole, images of enormous families gorging on the fated calf, plumped up by us hard working plebeians, filled my head.. The thought of rich family lives of leisure enabled by an outdated socialist phenomena, made me feel that this initiative was a responsible approach to encouraging moderation with regard to family planning.

Then I felt a sharp pain in my derriere, I felt well and truly shafted. The imagery was clear, the negative connotations of large families and the inference that you were either a good guy or a slimy parasite, made my skin crawl.

Life and our journey through it is not so simple or predictable, if only it was then we could all choose good parents to bring us up in appropriately sized families with supportive extended family members to guide and nurture both our parents and us. Our parents would be happily married, stay together work hard and get well paid, never get ill or die prematurely, from disease or accident. They would never leave us and never fail to cope with the array of demands on them. Our parents would never get made redundant, fail to make progress in their career and would never have anything but perfectly formed children, who would follow a prescribed path and not need any special care or attention, which would distract our parents from their main job to provide for us.

Family life is not simple and a civilized society is, surely one which acts as that extended family and looks out for the ones that fall by the wayside and need a leg up. We all have choices and yes we can say, your bed you lie in it, but what sort of world would that be and what sort of society, not one fit for any child, me thinks.

Alison x