Because I Am Not Rich!

The past couple of days my wife and I have travelled to the Highlands to look at some small holdings.  We think we have found the right one and hopefully, pending the sale of our own home, we will be in a position to make an offer and relocate from Aberdeenshire.  Our three children fell in love with this prospective house, which means a lot to us as it’s their home as much as it’s ours and the whole move would be bringing them to new surrounds and far from their grandparents and friends, so it’s reassuring to see them potentially excited.

Since Sunday, I have not been on Twitter much, the break has been good, but as I write this, on the eve before I go to back to work after a couple of days off I am filled with anger and extreme sadness.

I could blog for pages and pages, but I’m going to limit myself to one particular issue that has arisen these past few days that I am only now catching up on but hits home.  The issue I want to write about is Michelle Ballantynes statement that poor people should stop having children.

I am a father of 3.  My wife and I both come from very humble beginnings, me far more than her.  I grew up in a broken family in one of the poorest areas in Scotland, was put into foster care aged 8 and torn away from my siblings.  I suffered from severe abuse (in all its forms) as a child and the person responsible was jailed when I was 16 when I opened up to Police about it.

My childhood as a poor, abused child, torn away from my siblings has made me the man I am today.

Those beginnings have enabled me to discover a love for my children and wife that I could never have imagined could exist.

When Michelle makes reference to being proud to support the Rape Clause and the limiting of poor people having children because rich people have to budget for their children, and then I see people respond in agreement, I lose faith.

I seriously lose faith in humanity, and in Scotland for the attitude being allowed any space to be discussed.

Some of you may have been in a similar position to me as a child, many of you may not.  The point is though that posturing the prevention of life of a child based on whether you have money or not is absurd.

My wife and I collectively earn around £55,000 per year.  We have been given nothing from anyone and when we started our family we earned around £35,000 per year.

We bought our own home in 2010 when we had one child.  Our mortgage came in at £350 a month, which was £300 less than the private rent we were paying.  We had very little to our name and no debt but that didn’t stop us having a child and wanting more children.  When we bought the house we knew it would be difficult for the first couple of months as we had nothing.  We furnished it with second hand furniture and cooked on a camping stove until we could afford a built in cooker.

We drove a used car that cost £1,000 but we loved our child unconditionally and he was happy.  His bedroom was the first room we decorated and put furniture in.  He had his space, a safe and warm space that was secure.

Over time, I happened across a better paying job that involves travelling around the world, my wife has remained a nurse working nightshift.

Over the past 8 years since we bought our house, we have saved what we could, furnished our house with everything we need, bought a new caravan for holidays, our kids are doing amazingly well in school and last year we had our third child.  We did this because we want more for them, with what we have.  We are not wealthy, but we understand that money doesn’t make a child happy.  Love does!

I am not rich.  I don’t need to be rich to love my children and provide for them.

At Christmas time, my wife and I budget what we spend on our kids.  Each child gets £250 spent on them.  They tell us what they would like and we get it if we can.  They are under no illusions that money is not endless.  They know and they appreciate what they get.

We have no finance on cars, because we’d rather spend money on our family time and birthday parties for our children, or letting them join clubs, or buying an extra gift now and again for them.

We save every month for our children.  The £190 we get in child benefit, that everyone gets, is saved for them.  It is split 3 ways and goes into a Stocks and Shares ISA so that when they are 18 they have some money.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I am not rich.

I could lose my job tomorrow.  I could be very poor.  I am not very comfortable, we live on a budget but have some savings to fall back on for a few months.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because I am poor compared to the rich.

If I lose my job, would that justify my third child being denied the benefits my wife and I have contributed too as full time employees for the last 18 years?

People that don’t have children will struggle to relate to what I say. People that are wealthy will struggle to relate to what I say, people that are Conservative will struggle to relate to what I say and people that are right wing will struggle to relate to what I say…

People do not need to be rich to make sound financial judgements or plan for the future, but quite often they need to have grown up poor to understand the value in the life of a child.

Michelle makes more than my wife and I combined.  Does she get to set the limit of what is poor and what is rich.  Is £55,000 a year combined rich?  Is it poor? Surely the problem is not the money coming in but the money going out?  I know people who spend upwards of £1000 a month on car finances and credit cards…i would never do that, i’d rather have a child and pay for them and their future.

The choice to bear children isn’t purely financial and its dangerously incompetent to say it is.

People like Michelle are disgustingly naive and anyone who aligns with her mind-set is, in my opinion, disgustingly naive too.

The way these views by the very people who are our law makers is being normalised concerns me greatly.

My kids in an independent Scotland, away from this disgusting and vile rhetoric that is a pre-cursor to fascism is very much worth taking a stand against, and I for one will not promote the future unborn children of Scotland, some of which will be my grandchildren, to be stripped away based on the income of the people who bear them when a childs existance relies on so many other factors and wealth is generally transient over time.

Their lives are worth more than the all the paper money used to line the wallets of the rich.  Those unborn children, from any background deserve the chance of life without prejudice and installed hatred due to temporary elected officials.

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