BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids An interesting read - Childlessness Transformed:

I found this and thought I would share. I think we childfree by choice in the 21st Century have had it rather easier than our ancestors.

http://www.eheart.com/childless/history.html

Yes- I really found this interesting. I face a lot of unspoken disapproval for my choice, particularly from my mother who is like one of those 1950's moms. Of course, she would never actually come out and SAY that she doesn't approve, but it is always in her tone and in her subtle comments. I agree that we do have it easier now...at least we are called witches!!! Thanks for the article!

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Yeah, I heard about those $3000 "rewards" people get for crapping out a child. What is that? There are so many things wrong with that, I don't know where to begin.

It is actually going up to 5k in july....It is for anyone who has a child - It is not even income tested so everyone gets it.Its no coincedence that ever since it was introduced the birth rate has skyrocketed here...Awful dont you think?

Our budget was released today and holly [censored] suprise suprise - familys get another 30 dollar a week bonus on top of all the other monies they get.As a childfree woman it really pisses me off that we are left out in the cold.

there will be no tax relief for us....they are even introducing extra funds for people to encourage them to have large families...

This just encourages the "wrong" people to have kids.God knows there are to many breeders on this planet already.

Talk about having the wrong reasons to have a kid. Not to mention the fact that if you're going to have kids, you had better damn well have the financial and emotional means to do so.

Plus, from what I hear, they don't keep tabs on how that money is spent. I'm sure Australia isn't exempt from having those who feel it's more important to get their drugs rather than diapers. Or people that think the money should go to a 60-inch plasma screen TV.

If your government insists on throwing money to people for performing a biological function that has gone on for millions of years, then put the money in form of vouchers for purely baby stuff.

All I can see now is Australia having a rather large child welfare problem.

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I hate these initiatives (translation: bribes) to raise the birth rate. Yeah, it accomplishes the main goal of raising the number, but what good is that number going to do when they finally realize that they now have a bunch of children stuck with abusive and/or neglectful parents?

Now they have a higher number of child welfare cases and I can bet that their respective Child Protective Services don't have the resources to take on a load of new cases.

And Italy is really sucking with their "Raise the Birth Rate" initiative. They handed out money to all the families that had children in 2005, but realized that a lot of them were immigrants. Now they're demanding that the immigrants pay the money back that they gave out as a reward for procrating because they're not full-blooded Italian. That just smacks of something that leaves a nasty aftertaste.

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At least Australia's not trying to outlaw birth control now...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/7/84048/22949 (warning: takes a long time to load)