Teenage mothers aren’t stigmatised for purely political purposes. There is plenty of research that suggests that kids born to teenage mothers start with a significant disadvantage in life.

That some breeders use the money irresponsibly is a problem, but I’m not sure attaching too many strings to it will actually prove productive.

Could someone get it through some peoples’ heads that having children is part of the real world?

And as someone who has enormous hope for ZPG (a somewhat antiquated term, I’m old-ish), Could I remind some of you that “having children” does not equate with increasing the population? If a couple has 2 children that is still below replacement level. Just a basic fact that’s being forgotten in this discussion. Thanks.

Wow! That’s a new one. The “you-must-be-childfree-coz-you-cannot-get-a-husband/boyfriend/laid” retort. Geewhiz, can’t say that I have heard that one before, Pat. You musta spent hours comming up with that.

I must confess that there was a time that I could not get a husband or partner. I was just too busy being expensively wined and dined by the mothers’ negelcted husbands/partners who would then whirl me away to sumptious suites and, between hours of passionate love-making, would excitedly comment (yet reflect wistfully) how my firm and younthful body and passion reminded them of how their wife once was until The Baby took her attention away.

BG: “It seems to me that you are the one with an apparently deep-seated revulsion for people who have made a different decision to you.”

No, I just have a distict dislike of the smug self-important child-burdened who, while reaching into my pockets, claiming some kind of moral high ground that justifies that their lifestyle choice is so vastly superior that it ought to be subsidised by those that have not made the same lifestyle choice.

I do not object to anyone taking time off work to look after their kids — so long as you do not mind I head off to the pub while you do it.

And, do you know, I really don’t have any opinion about you based on whether you have chosen to have children or not. It seems to me that you are the one with an apparently deep-seated revulsion for people who have made a different decision to you.

However, I did think it was worth pointing out that no-one is accusing the childless of being materialistic. The ‘accusation’ you are referring to is pointing out that the decision to have a child is neither a purely economic nor a purely self-indulgent one.

You were born, literally, to have children. No wonder you are so angst-filled!

” If I have to read one more time about how having a child is equivalent to buying a new car or going to Germany for Oktoberfest (though I must admit that is a new one), I think I will just scream. Im just grateful if people who think that way decide not to have children, really. What it would be like to be their child doesnt bear thinking about.”

*rolls eyes*

When in doubt, employ the ad hom.

Pay attention to the child abuse stats “backroom girl” — the offenders are not the childfree.

Attention virulent breeders: I did not choose not to have children with the sole intent of pi$$ing you off, so get over it! I choose to be childfree not because I wanted a better career or, indeed, to trek through the Himilayas. I simply do not want children.

It is curious that the childfree are stereotyped as materialistic by the same voices that have their hands held out for middle-class welfare. The same voices that chant the tiresome predictable refrain that usually goes along the lines “you childfree [jezebels] will never know how you are missing out on a richly rewarding experience [by not having children]” If it is so rewarding then there is no need to pay you to do it then I suppose.

Sure, I can sleep in on a weekend, can maintain a great sex life with my partner, I do not have to change nappies at 3am and I still have a tiny waist. However, that does not justify making my discretionary income and spare time expendable. Currenty it is highjacked – redistributed to breeders who seem to assert the rights to a zero sum impact from their ill-conceived (no pun intended) fecundity. I should not be expected to work the unsociable hours so that breeders “have the right” to flexible arrangements.

Yobbo is right: it is wrong to expect the rest of the country or their employer to pay for that choice.

Our nation and indeed, this globe is not facing human extinction any time soon. Peak oil, global warming and water shortages are not fantasy. If anything, the breeders should be thankful that the childfree are not burdening this planet.

Further, those that bang the “making of the taxpayers of the fyoooocha ™” gong may wish to revise the stats on childhood overweight and obesity and alchohol abuse. Chances are this cohort of over-subisidised kiddies will need the drool wiped off their own chin before they elect to be that fabled nurse and doctor in my future nursing home.

BTW — Hi Tom! *waves*

Happily, one need not say that never shall the ‘twain meet, since time is on the first group’s side :)

Conrad, whilst I think most of us agree that teenage mothers are not necessarily a disaster, I don’t think it takes too much imagination to see how the demands of caring for a child can make it much harder for someone still in school to effectively continue that schooling; the resulting financial pressures make further study with its attendant benefits, already further out of reach because of impaired school performance, so much less likely; and there is a certain maturity that anyone, low-income earner or not, might reasonably be expected to have at say 22 but not at 16.

All that said, I absolutely agree that ‘teenage’ is not necessarily a relevant discrimen. I for one would think that ‘committed long term couple’ should be the most relevant discrimen – but how in hell do you target benefits on that basis??

Sorry to bothersome, but if I include all the indirect subsidies (including schooling, child-care which teenage mother won’t need, etc.), are we really talking about a whole of difference in government subsidies between teenage mother A, and, say, bottom 30% of the income distribution non-teenage mother B? If we arn’t, then this is clearly a case of picking on teenage mother A, for no real reason.

Thats a serious question incidentally — I think people dichotomize good-and-bad at far too early a point in terms of childhood outcomes and government dependence. Maybe teenage mother A isn’t the best example of someone likely to have great outcomes, but I doubt the next 20% of the distribution is really much better.

ie kid=BMW not kid=human being

nuff said – you and I aren’t ever going to meet in the same philosophical universe

I’m not trying to “Bait” anyone here, but simply trying to reiterate my original point.

People have different priorities and goals in life. Some people would like to become parents, and others would prefer to climb a mountain or paint landscapes.

Some people value a well-paid, challenging job above all else. Others, who have come to be called things like “downshifters”, “seachangers” or what have you, forgo that particular goal in favour of things that are more important to them. One of those things might be travel, sporting pursuits, or a quieter life away from the city.

“Parents”, in my opinion, are just a specific (albeit much more common) category of “Downshifters”. They (traditionally) have voluntary sacrificed one goal (a challenging career) in favour of another (raising a child).

There’s nothing wrong with making that choice, of course. But it is wrong to expect the rest of the country or their employer to pay for that choice. Just as it would be to expect for us to pay for you to trek through the Himalayas or supplement your wage if you left Sydney to go and live in Byron Bay.

The desire to have kids is obviously very strong for a lot of people. Why do we need to subsidise people to do it?

Conrad – I’m not suggesting that anyone should positively discriminate against teenagers. What I am saying is that you would only expect certain groups (by definition people without too much of a long-term perspective) to respond to what is for most people a fairly piddling financial incentive. I wouldn’t expect the baby bonus to have an impact on the rate of teenage pregnancy, for example, but it might have an effect on low-SES teenagers’ decisions about whether to continue with a pregnancy.

In any case, most Australian teenage mothers are single parents – they already get access to the best (adult) income support that we have on offer here. The baby bonus is just icing on that cake.

In the end, paid maternity leave (however you go about doing it) is about enabling women to be mothers as well as workers, rather than having to choose one or the other.

And paid surfing leave would be about enabling blokes to be surfers as well as workers, rather than having to choose one or the other.

See what I did there?

I’ll rise to the bait anyway, because I don’t see what he did there.

a) Surfing can be done part-time – kids are a little more demanding
b) There is no evidence, speaking as someone with a lot of surfer friends, that surfing adds anything to society. In fact, it seems to encourage otherwise sane young men to become eco-hippies, and thus, increases the possibility of human self-extinction.
c) People who are very strongly inclined to become surfers are probably not giving up much of a career anyway and are more likely to harm their workplace and business than improve it on their return from a surfing holiday. OTOH, many people who have kids are indeed sacrificing high-value careers and do indeed contribute a lot to improving their workplace and business on their return.

See what I did there?

Look, I agree that being a mother and a worker are not mutually exclusive. Indeed apart from my periods of maternity leave, I have always worked full-time. While paid maternity leave and child care helped me to make the choices I did, as a relatively high income earner, I probably could have afforded it one way or another. Over my almost 30 years as a mother, the amount of direct subsidy I have received from other taxpayers has been very small, but I don’t have a problem with acknowledging that other people in a less privileged financial position than me might need a bit more assistance along the way.

In the end, publicly-funded maternity leave wouldn’t cost all that much in the scheme of things. And while it could make quite a bit of difference to families in the short term, over the lifetime of a working mother it would be small bikkies. While Tom N seems to think that parents are always putting out their hands to him rather than shouldering their proper responsibilities themselves, I think it is fair to say that the majority of parents in Australia do take on the bulk of the financial responsibility for their children. Encouraging mothers to work actually increases the capacity of parents to support their children, after all.

And paid surfing leave would be about enabling blokes to be surfers as well as workers, rather than having to choose one or the other.

See what I did there?