I do not begrudge my daughter-in-law being paid to stay at home after my grandson was born. I think it is wonderful that her teaching career does not have to go to waste simply because they choose to "breed". They have a mortgage - not a HUGE home - they do not spend willy nilly. The baby bonus and payments go on necessities.

I do agree there are those that "breed" simply to "have money", but these are the ones that usually dont work or contribute to society.

So, what can we give up to provide for the breeders?

Perhaps Govt grants for the arty farty types - those such as the artist that was given $75000 to put a hole in a well known art centre, in which he placed a camera - then he did the same thing on the Isle of Guernsay (I think it was) so people to look at each other on the other side of the world....I thought thats what we had cheap web cams for on our computers.

Or as my partner likes to put it "grants for research into left footed, one armed female surfers"!!

Antiseptic:
"Part time parent, the "middle class" is by definition the average. If average people cannot afford to have children without subsidies, then we have a major problem in our society."

Yes we DO HAVE A MAJOR PROBLEM... Every 2 adults are only producing 1.8 children... we are dying out!

Now please note carefully... the next thing I am going to say is ON AVERAGE, ACROSS THE POPULATION, TYPICALLY... THere are many exceptions, but in general...

The worst aspect is that the higher your IQ, the higher your income, the more affluent postcode you live in, the higher your education, the more professsional your career... the fewer children you have. We are breeding a shrinking society of imbeciles!

At the end of the day, tall parents have tall kids, olive-skinned parents have olive skinned children and smart parents have smart kids. Sorry if the truth hurts, but it's genetic. Not only that, but
they tend to bring them up better too.

Without enough high IQ people (or highly educated, high earning, professioanls etc etc) the social contract breaks down. the rich get richer and rarer and the poor get porrer and more numerous. More cops, more survelance, bigger prisons, less welfare safety net. Initially more like USA, and then more like some third-world strife-riven country.

We need the smart to have kids. We need to make kids reduce tax. We need to stop bribing the stupid to become baby-factories - which damns them to live of strugglre with too many kids

Re Anitceptic...
And we all know that in sociology, "middle-class" means "Professional". In their view (since they are all marxists) there is a working class, a middle class and an aristocracy.

Since the 'aristocracy' is pretty-much defunct these days, the term "middle Class" means anybody higher than "working class". Or in general terms "Professional"

"Having breeders around you is about survival."
-CHERFUL

Right up until the planet chokes on it's own population, of course. Look, the maths is simple: the planet is finite. It has finite resources. Infinite growth vs. finite resources simply does not work, unless you've found a clever way to circumvent physics and logic. Something has to give. I'm hoping and praying that it's the growth before it's the resources.

"I do not begrudge my daughter-in-law being paid to stay at home after my grandson was born."
-searching

Presumably 'coz it isn't at your expense. How much tax do you pay?

"I think it is wonderful that her teaching career does not have to go to waste simply because they choose to "breed"."
-searching

I hate to rain on your parade, but breeding will not necessarily cause a teaching career to 'go to waste', maternity leave or no maternity leave. Her teaching career was never, is not, and never will be under any threat from going to waste through breeding. Just who are you trying to fool here?

"They have a mortgage - not a HUGE home - they do not spend willy nilly. The baby bonus and payments go on necessities."
-searching

Yeah, I bet they're doing it heaps tough (sarcasm). Mum has a well-paying job (and don't try that old line about teachers being underpaid - many of my friends are teachers, and I know that they're paid quite well); your son presumably has some sort of paying job. Between one and two decent incomes - possibly more - for the one household. Yeah, my heart bleeds for the poor poverty-stricken wretches (sarcasm).

"So, what can we give up to provide for the breeders?"
-searching

How about nothing? How about the breeders learn to carry their own sorry arses through this life, without expecting a handout from other people? How about the breeders provide for themselves, as the rest of are expected to do betwixt childhood and senility?

Part-time parent, I'm afraid you have a poor grasp of genetics. Moreover, I'm in favour of a reduced birth rate - the planet demands it and this nation doesn't need a population any bigger than it already has. It most certainly doesn;t need to be paying people to have children who are already highly paid through their employment.

Just to make it clear, I have 2 children. I have never received a cent from the Government to support those kids, in fact I've been pursued to pay for my ex-wife's lifestyle decisions while she was supported to go to Court to seek to get even more. My taxable income was about $35000 last year and the gross turnover of my business was about $120000. It's not a company, I'm a sole trader, so I can't redistribute through a company or trust, although I'd quite like to.

For some considerable time I have lived in accommodation I improvised at my business premises to save money. I choose to do this in order to have more money to do other things, including to spend on the children. This is known as taking personal responsibility and I have nothing but contempt for those on incomes double or triple mine who demand that my taxes should be used to make them more comfortable in their over-priced Mcmansion whether they're professionally qualified or not.

Their Mcmansions would all be much more reasonably priced if they'd had to actually save to be able to buy them instead of using free "first home owners grant" money paid for by my tax. Apart from anything else, they might actually have valued the effort it took to save the deposit and so have been much less willing to pay over the odds.

Searching, if middle-class, professional people like your son and daughter-in-law cannot manage their own finances to allow them to afford children they should not have them.

The classic Marxist expression of the socialist ideal is "from each according to ability, to each according to need". You'll note the use of the word "need", not "want".

Oh poor poor Riz... jealousy is a curse isnt it?

Ok, so you dont want your taxes to go to people who breed.

I dont believe in war, so why should my hard earned taxes go to the army?

I dont drink and drive, so why should my taxes go to pay for hospital care for those who have accidents and end up a burdon on society because of their injuries? Surely they should have had x amount of insurances - just in case.

For those who dont own cars, why should their taxes pay for the roads? They dont drive on them?

Why should my taxes pay for essential services who have to look for lost bush walkers?

Why should my taxes have to pay for those who cant (or dont want to) work....after all, I work even tho I would much prefer not to.

I could go on and on......

We pay for a lot of things in life which may not necessarily appear "fair and right"..... get over it....thats life....thats called living in a mutualistic symbiotic society.