My Maternity Pay Rant

Maternity pay has had a lot of press recently and most of it has been with regards to cutting back on it.
Everytime anybody at all benefits from our comparatively incredibly generous society there are arguments for and against the issue.

In the case of maternity pay there seems to a increasingly common opinion that women who 'choose' to have children are a burden to society if they take anything out the public tax purse. The word 'choose' is always said with something of sneer, in the same way that people who 'choose' to smoke or who 'choose' to be obese are a drain on the NHS. Such individuals  have such a downer on those with kids that they feel society owes them nothing.

Well how about this, critics? With women who 'choose' to have children- you wouldn't be alive. Yes indeed, your own mother actually gave birth to you and raised you because you used to be a child. She probably claimed child benefit and, depending on your age, working tax credit.

Chances are, that if you're reading this you're mother probably inconvenienced some small business by balancing work with childcare- as in 1975 around half of married mothers with children under 18 also worked and the figure has increased swiftly to 70% from there. You can call this selfish if you like, but if you are in a position of power or a running a small business it's highly likely that this selfishness paid for your university education, or helped you gain the business accumen you value so highly.

I am being slightly flippant, but critics of the system really undervalue the role of mothers in society. Having kids may be becoming more and more of a lifestyle choice- rather than something you just do (which is how our grandmothers saw it) or a duty (which is how our great-grandmothers saw it) but if women didn't have children society wouldn't just grind to a halt- it wouldn't exist at all after a while.

Women who claim maternity leave and pay aren't the ones who have 25 kids, who'll all go on to claim the dole. They are career minded ladies who want to raise valuable members of society. If we were more encouraging when this sort of woman goes off to have kids, we might find ourselves issuing fewer ASBOs in the long run.

Parents who raise their kids properly might need an extra bit of help from society- but a society full of people who's parents were professionals with work ethics has far more long term value than the critics realise.