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Give birth to earn money: why am I against child benefits
Our columnist Lyubov Vysotskaya is confident that financial assistance from the state is needed, but not in the current format.
In Alena Vodonaeva, who said that now “all cattle” will give birth for the promised million, only the lazy did not spit. And I remembered how once, 15 years ago, I worked in a social camp for children from disadvantaged families.
I had six children from the same family in my detachment. Weather. All – with a diagnosis. The village doctors practically did not look at the certificate that the kids had mental retardation. Parents happily made out the next allowance and just as happily let it go, understandably for what. It seemed to me that children did not have any oligophrenia. They just grow like grass in a field. They ate so poorly that instead of hair, they had some kind of mouse fur on their heads. Two girls wore one wig in turn for two. Boys did not bother with questions of beauty.
At the slightest opportunity, these children tried to take the hand, lean against it, just rubbed closer. They lacked everything – not only food, not only attention, in general, even a hint of the feeling that at least someone did not care about them. It is scary to imagine what would have happened if the million promised now loomed in front of these parents. Yes, plus benefits for large families, and for each child – for disability …
There is a fog in my head
But marginalized parents are only one side of the coin. There is another. I am sure with all my heart that it is necessary to go to the hospital for the desired baby, and not for mortgage payments. And I’m not exaggerating now: one of my acquaintances is now actively planning a third baby precisely in order to get these unfortunate 450 thousand rubles for a mortgage. How they will continue to live with three children in a two-room apartment, she does not think. To which – too. Like, the state will help.
Another family plans a second one so that there is money for the education of the older one. He just grew up, ten years old boy, you can start a younger one.
I am beginning to guess where in schools and kindergartens parents come from who piously believe: they did the state a favor, that they gave birth, now teach, provide, educate.
It seems that the promised amount with six zeros is clouding the mind and people no longer really understand that the lump sum payments and benefits will end, and the child will remain. At the same time, family income will decrease for some time, and expenses will increase, and not for a year or two.
In a hurry, you won’t get money
“Why are we worse? – my friend Natalya asks over and over again. – By becoming parents six months earlier?
Natasha has been in frustrated feelings for the second week – exactly after the president’s “childish” message. Her daughter (first child, yeah) was born last summer. And in mid-January, the head of state spoke about 460 thousand for the first child born after or directly on January 1, 2020.
Tens of thousands of parents are now experiencing similar emotions. In Novosibirsk, mothers even sign a petition in which they ask to extend capital payments at least to the first-borns who were born last fall.
You can say as much as you like that envy is a bad feeling. Only she has nothing to do with it, however, like the moral ugliness, which is now accused of those who refuse to rejoice in the new rules. Children born in 2019, 2018, 2017 and earlier are no different from babies born in the early 20s. They need to get an education in the same way, their parents need to improve their living conditions, and so on, according to the list of things that can be spent on maternity capital. But now the only opportunity for them to receive significant help from the state is to give birth to a second, or even a third.
System error
So yes, I am against benefits as they are now. The state should help, no one argues with this – it’s not in vain that we pay taxes all our lives. But in my opinion, the situation cannot be remedied with one-time payments. Okay, 450 thousand rubles, weighty. However, in the first year of a child’s life, you will spend at least 200 thousand on it. And then? Then the young mother cannot always return to work: after the decree, no one favors the employees, or even the enterprise will go bankrupt by that time, there is always a risk of being unemployed due to instability in the economy. Housing costs exorbitant money, even a tiny one. But you still need to heal, dress, educate in some way.
The family will be confident that in the near future everything will be in order, that there will be enough money to feed, dress and shoe the children, send them to school, kindergarten and receive medical care without hassle – then the birth rate will really increase. Without any capital.