Guest post by Linda Jones, campaigning for fairer benefits for parents of twins and triplets.
I am a twin myself and so delighted to give a guest spot to Linda Jones who writes a site dedicated to multiple births called appropriately You’ve Got Your Hands Full. Her twin daughters, Emily and Melissa, look like cherubs, I’m sure they are lots of fun too, as well as keeping Linda on her toes. This is her story:
What’s the point of raising awareness about the “issues� faced by multiple births families? I was asked last week.
That was after I’d written this post for Guardian Unlimited about how the fame-hungry sisters on Big Brother had re-ignited a debate over how twins can be seen, highlighting the moves over the last 30 years or so to strive for seeing all children as individuals.
You’d think that was a ‘given’ wouldn’t you? But there are twins, as Sam and Amanda show who do relish their ‘togetherness’ so very much, they’re willing to milk it for all its worth on the nation’s most loved and hated reality show.
But there are many more considerations for families with twins or more, that we would respectfully suggest are worthy of special consideration.
(For example, I personally would have liked some guidance last night when two eight-year-old girls both suddenly decided they should be allowed to watch The Bill for heaven’s sake…Short of making sure the telly stayed off and insisting they went to bed, what else could I do? But that’s beside the point!)
Most urgent for many families of course, are the financial pressures of having more than one baby at once.
That’s why a campaign is under way to press for equal payments for the younger and older children in the family.
The Child Poverty Action Group is spearheading a campaign for all families on this issue and is enthusiastically supported by Tamba, along with coalition of around 50 other organisations as well as more than 3,300 individuals.
It calls for an increase to child benefit to ensure that younger children get the same rate as the oldest child. Currently £17.45 is received for the oldest child, compared to £11.40 for younger children.
As you may be able to imagine, when there are but minutes or even seconds between the children, the fact that they don’t get the same amount, seems at its most ridiculous.
There are no hand-me downs, no stuff thoughtfully put up in the loft, when twins or more arrive, and expensive specialist equipment may also be needed.
CPAG’s Kate Green explains: “Child benefit has a much better take up rate than tax credits, reaching more children in poverty without causing overpayments or uncertainty over entitlement.
“But younger children lose out on the full level of support. That is why thousands of parents have joined us in calling for the Chancellor to increase child benefit and ensure that younger children get the same rate as the oldest child.
“Giving younger children the same amount of child benefit as the oldest child in a family would lift 250,000 children out of poverty. With the Government set to miss their target of halving child poverty by 2010 this would help get them back on track.�
Tamba director Helen Forbes says: “For families with twins and triplets or more, increasing the rate of child benefit for younger children is extremely important. Each child in a multiple birth costs as much to feed, clothe and care for and you can’t pass down clothes, toys and equipment for children born minutes apart.�
This is a campaign that has won the support of a small number of MPs, most notably the former Guildford Lib Dem MP Sue Doughty who tabled an Early Day Motion some years ago, and around the same time, Lembit Opik also spoke up in support of a constituent’s plight.
These days of course, that particular MP has a more high profile connection with twins.
Perhaps the less said about that, the better…especially when I reckon if you look closer at the twins in question, they may just have helped influence the ‘identikit’ antics of those two young girls currently gracing Big Brother with their presence!
Ending child-poverty is supposed to be one of NuLabour’s priorities.Yet after 10 years in office, more than one in four children lives in poverty. In certain regions, child poverty is even higher: rising to 54% in inner London.
But the starkest deprivation is often hidden away: there are some wards in the UK where over 90% of children live in poverty.If you want the facts about child poverty in the UK and not NuLab. spin, go here:
http://www.barnardos.org.uk/what_we_do/work_with_the_community/child_poverty/child_poverty_facts.htm
Elle, if you have twins you get benefits for two children, or are you suggesting that twins are more expensive than two children. I guess they are more of a handfull if they both want breast feeding at the same time – lol!
And yeah I suppose you can’t get the second twin to wear hand me downs from the first twin, but hey in the throw away society how many kids of any age wear hand me downs.
I know, I know – in the REAL World there are people on tight budgets and frugal people who save the baby clothes for the next child. But in the consumer society we are still struggling to get mums to use re-usable nappies
Catch twenty two: Use disposable nappies and landfills overflow, or use re-usable nappies and contribute to global warming with the washing machine going ten to the dozen, especially if you got twins.
Alas, the dilemmas of living in a modern society.I think its funny when I go to remote places and see children running around semi-naked (with no nappies or pants) and free to do their business wherever the urge takes them. Well you still have to house train them like puppies and kittens, but at least you don’t have to potty train them.
Just don’t go potty on anyone’s doorstep, so to speak
Ah yes, the joys of breastfeeding twins! I didn’t manage it for long (about a day and a half if I remember right!)
And yes I am saying having twins is more expensive than having two children months or years apart – because you have to buy two lots of everything – rather than hold on to stuff – cot, moses basket, you name it – not to mention some of the more specialist equipment.
Anyway big big thanks to Ellee for letting me blather on. There are some tough parts of having twins or more, and yes there are tough parts of having any number of children at any time. More mums with twins will suffer PND and relationships can be put under strain.
But a parent of twins is very lucky to get twice the good stuff too.
Thanks Ellee for your kind words re Emily and Melissa – I’m not at all sure they were being cherubs last night, but they remain the loves of my life! x
There is also a considerable extra cost if you have different sex twins, as in my case, because you can’t share clothes and toys. My mother didn’t know she was expecting twins at the time so had only bought a pram and cot for one baby. Imagine what a shock it must have been when I came along half an hour after my brother. They had to go out and double up on everything.
Ellee, I’m sure that twins do present their own special challenges (and joys!) but I’d be loathe to join forces with the Child Poverty Action Group on anything. They are just a marxist front organisation which seeks to promote policies which will entail confiscatory taxation and massive wealth redistribution. Their definition of ‘child poverty’ is entirely bogus and so-defined purely to promote higher taxes, benefits and more state intervention. Specifically on this issue of ‘the same child benefit for younger children’: this is becuase they know that underclass and ethnic minority families are far more likely to have larger families and these are the people they wish to help _ literally at the expense of those who are working and/ or wealthy and/ or white.
This measure of poverty they use is nonsense, pure nonsense. Not having designer trainers and the latest games console is not poverty. In a free country, where the freedom to breed is enshrined in law, I’m damned if I want to pay even more for the feckless and irresponsible to breed. They just breed even more feckless and irresponsible people.
We need social reforms to sort out the mess we’re in, painful social reforms that reinstate the virtues of marriage and employment. More policies that are in effect more handouts to anyone who decides to start breeding will just make the problem of people having children, expecting the ‘cooncil’ to house and pay for them (in other word expecting everyone else to pay more tax to hand over to them) worse.
If people breed in ‘poverty’ it’s their own stupid fault.
Quoting:
Specifically on this issue of ‘the same child benefit for younger children’: this is becuase they know that underclass and ethnic minority families are far more likely to have larger families and these are the people they wish to help _ literally at the expense of those who are working and/ or wealthy and/ or white.
And..
If people breed in ‘poverty’ it’s their own stupid fault…
I’m sorry but really? What prejudiced nonsense.
Come on Linda, if you want to argue, fair enough, but at least justify why I’m ‘prejudice’.
I’m 27, have a job that pays £14.5k basic plus a bonus which is being eroded due to interest rate rises. Last month I effectively had a pay cut. So you want me to pay more tax because I don’t have kids to fund your breeding? Believe me, as a working class South-East Northumbrian I could have bred as much have I wanted to by now. But I haven’y because I have a sense of responsibility, shame and self respect. I’ve always used contrasecption. If you didn’t tough, I don’t want to pay yet more tax to hand over to you and your brood. I want to save my spare cash until the day I have a family.
Get lost you socialist!
Steven L, I must say that your term “breeding” for having a family sounds so cold, we are not talking about animals here. What will you say to your wife/partner when you want to start a family, “shall we start breeding darling?” I think I know what her reply will be.
And Linda is my guest blogger here, so it is not for you to tell her to get lost because of your own strong opposing views. Everyone is entitled to their views and they should be discussed in a civilised way. It is interesting to hear your side as a “responsible” single man, but the fact remains there are more children living in poverty today, and I’m sure they do not have designer trainers. Linda is talking about having a level playing field and giving equal benefits to children, that makes sense to me, but I’m not sure if the Child Poverty Action Group is the right partner for them, to me this is more about fairness.
Nice.
You are prejudiced because you are making assumptions about me and assumptions about families you have never met.
Please don’t refer to my two compassionate, much-loved as a “brood.”
I’m not a member of any political party.
I’m a company director of a firm held up as an example of best practice in a report on flexible working launched by someone called George Osbourne, which was said by the CIPD to have also given someone called David Cameron “food for thought.”
I’m not particularly interested in arguing – debating would be fine and yes I agree with you tough questions need to be asked.
But if I was to get involved in a debate about how families can get out of poverty, I wouldn’t begin by characterising them in such a way. And to put it bluntly, it’s not the children’s fault is it?
Our current PM said he supported moves to help aid abroad because “every child is special.”
Call me old fashioned, but I’m inclined to agree with him.
She called me ‘prejudice’, I’m not prejudice, I like in South East Northumberland, I know why young girls want babies – so they can get a council house and lots of money!
These children that are classes as living in ‘poverty’ do have deisgner trainers ellee. The governments measur eof poverty is 60% of median income. Guess what – most people in the North East have 60% or less of the median income of you lot in the South East! We’re not living in poverty, you’re all buying into propaganda!
Linda, it’s not the childrens ‘fault’, it’s the parents fault! It’s not my fault either, yes it’s a bit right wing of me, but guess what, the facts of life are right wing. If they can’t afford to buy their children lots of nice things it’s tough luck, go to America if you want to see some proper Western child poverty, it doesn’t exist here. People like you just want to take more of my money and give it to single mothers. I think they get too much anyway I want tax credits abolished – yes they’ll whinge that they are starving but it will be bollocks, those that whinge like this are just feckless members of the criminal classes, benefit cheats and thieves most of them.
You are signing up to this statist attitude that the government should bring up all of our children and interfere more in family life. The easier you make it for feckless and irresponsible teenage girls to breed, the more they will breed. They will just breed more feckless and irresponsible people too.
The simple answer is to deduct chils support from feckless fathers directly through PAYE, they are managing to do this at the moment with the tax credits, but they are deducting the child support from me! Guess what, I don’t want to pay it!
Basically, unless you want to end up living in a low-paid, high taxed wasteland of scum and villany, we need to go back to the good old days of family values, shame and self-inflicted poverty.
Now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I’ll say this again with a little less venom.
The areas of the country where they go on about there being lots of poverty have lower wages and lower costs of living. For example where I live, or in most of Scotland.
These are Labour voting areas, they are not living in poverty, they all have designer clothes, get drunk on a Saturday night, have the latest games consoles etc. There are a few less Mercedes and Jaguars up here than down there on the commuter belt, but that’s not poverty.
We don’t live in poverty, however we have a huge number of feckless, irresponsible people that think you guys down there owe them a living on a sliver platter.
Please stop encourgaing them – if anything cut their benefits!
Here’s some examples of what I’m talking about. Some houses on the market in Northumberland:
Balfour Street, Blyth
£65,000 – £85,000
End Terrace House
Two Bedrooms
Gas Central Heating
Lounge & Kitchen
Ideal Investment Opportunity
Vacant Possession
Richard Street, Blyth
£70,000
THREE BEDROOM
TERRACE HOME
CENTRAL LOCATION
NO UPPER CHAIN
REAR YARD
POSSIBLE BUY TO LET
£74,5000, 2 Bedroom Apartment
We offer for sale this Two Bedroom Lower Flat situated on Delaval Court on the popular Bower Grange Estate in Bedlington Station.
The property briefly comprises Entrance Hallway, Lounge, Kitchen, Two Bedrooms and a Bathroom. Externally the property has a Garden to the front with a Garage in a block to the rear.
Edward Road, bedlington
offers around £75,000
Three Bedroom
Semi Detached House
Gas Central Heating
Front and Rear Gardens
Paved Driveway
Ideal Investment
Yes, they earn 60% or less of the national average, but look at the difference in the cost of living. A few years ago these houses were selling for £20-30k.
What people need is not more state handouts, funded by taxing people like me, it is better schooling and tougher policing.
Oh dear.
You go for a drink in these ‘deprived’ areas and see for yourself the attitude of a lot of these parents, married or otherwise.
Many think nothing of buying stolen goods, imported fags, cheating the benefits office, think that a good old fashioned fist fight is the best way to solve problems, look up to local drug dealers as God-like mafia-type figures worthy of respect, and refuse to cooperate with the police with regards to the local criminals that blight their lives.
They use crude racist language in front of their children and teach them to look up to criminals and hate the authorities.
Giving them more money will not change a thing, in an ideal word they would all be sterilised!
Ah, how I laughed at Steven L’s red faced tirade, I could imagine him sitting alone in his bedroom thinking what (almost) Star Wars quote to throw into his argument-wasteland of scum and villainy for those interested- until I realised that he was, in fact, being serious. Nice to see our ‘young people’ are still capable of self important ill-informed rants in this day and age….I’m assuming that his mum and dad not buying him a scaletrix when he was a child (or the fact that he couldn’t get jackboots to fit him)is still upsetting him. poor fella. If it’s any help, I’d like to invite him to join me at work a few days if he’d like (I work freelance in some of these ‘so-called’ deprived areas as part of my job, along with young carers groups etc.-you know, the ones you want sterilised- so he can see the fake poverty and blatant mis-use of all his tax money first hand.
Oh and by the way Steven, villainy has an ‘i’ in it. If you’re going to put yourself across as an ill informed member of the junior Nazi’s, at least try to spell check your rant so you don’t just come across as an ill informed, uneducated one.
Be seeing you.
Oh come off it. I’m sure you’re taking home a nice fat slice of either our taxes or some charities coffers in whatever ‘consultancy’ work you do. I never said anything about ‘young carers’. I don’t have a problem with carers allowance, incapacity benefit, child benefit or income support.
It’s tax credits I object to. All this ‘child poverty’ nonsense is used as fuel to keep fiscal drag acting upon me, whilst keeping doling money out to liars and cheats.
Many of the claimants are just that, liars, cheats and thieves. I’ve heard it many a time, in just about every job I’ve worked in – young women claiming as a single Mother announcing to a friend, or to the whole table even in the staff canteen, that they don’t decalre the fact that their boyfriend (often the childs Father) lives with them. It’s rife and it’s theft! I do strongly resent the fact these people get tax credits, it does make me mad! The whole idea behind it makes me mad, paying more and more of our earnings into a big pot for Gordon Brown to redistribute, I don’t like it one little bit and make no secret of it.
I don’t seriously advocate sterilisation, but in a society where people are free to have as many children as they want it’s a sheer fallacy to make it a profitable enterprise. If Gordon Brown can deduct money from my paycheque through PAYE, and even my student loan repayments, how come he can’t deduct child support from absent Father’s in the same way?
People like Brown feed off ‘child poverty’, if you keep raising what the people under 60% of average earn you keep raising the ‘average’ goalpost and so on. It’s idiotic. Tax credits put more money in people’s pockets to pay mortgages contributing to house price hyperinflation also.
As for ‘outreach’ work, been there, done that. In a Citizen’s Advice Bureau in fact for consumer advice. Most of the people that came to see me just didn’t want to/couldn’t pay their phone or credit card bills and wanted someone to hide behind. It wasn’t ‘poverty’ that used to force these single young men to get £5k in the red, it was fecklessness on their part and fecklessness of the lender. What a waste of my time and taxpayers money when just giving them a leaflet to read would have sufficed.
As for ill-informed, OK I’m stero-typing a bit, but only based on all thew single Mothers I went to school with, who I regularly see out on a Saturday night drinking Smirnoff Ice, who earn as much I do by putting in a 16 hour week in a minimum wage job. It should be the Father’s paying the extra, not tax money. If you can’t name the Father for manditory DNA testing the policy should be ‘tough luck’.
It might sound harsh but it’s exactly what society needs. All you Southern Tories sing the benefits of Thatcher’s economic reforms, and I agree they were good for the nation, but you don’t have the live alongside all the scum they created. There’s enough jobs for them now, they need social reforms to change their attitudes!
Hmmmm…..I must be the only ‘Southern Tory’ living in ‘sunny’ Glasgow. And as for the ‘nice fat slice of either our taxes or some charities coffers in whatever ‘consultancy’ work you do’….I’m assuming my taxes don’t go towards it? Add to that my ‘nice fat slice’ is quite possibly less than you earn, I do my job because I enjoy it (yes, some of us do)and yes, we get working tax credit (because we and others like us) deserve it. I don’t know what’s scarier tho’ the fact that you rant on about Thatcherism when you’re far too young to remember it or the fact that the CAB let you work there! God help us if you ever volunteer for the Samaritans!
As they say up here: “Just sit yersel’ doon son, get back to yer wee space film and leave this to the growd-ups!”
The way you’re going you’re gonna have a heart attack by 30.
Heart attack by thirty? You almost say it as if you’re wishing it.
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