Email #27

Dear Harriet

This morning I had to pay for my youngest sons registration for the coming football season.  Next week I need to pay his monthly fees for his academy sessions and his gymnastics.  I also need to put some money aside for his summer holiday academy sessions.  I love that my children are so into their chosen sports, especially since this has lead to me getting more and more involved.  I now manage his under 7s team as well as working for my club in my sports therapist role, and from time to time I also work for my county FA.  In September I will be starting an afterschool club at my sons primary school.  We are truly a football family and its one of the many reasons I enjoy my job-because it means even when I am working I get to spend time with my children.

But sport all adds up.  And added to the annual school uniform shopping trip, some time away in the Peak district, new sports kits and back to school equipment, the next couple of months are going to hit my bank account hard.  And all of this is on top of what they need on a day to day basis. Basically: children are expensive.

The classic argument from the right is that I shouldnt have children if I cannot afford them.  Well thats all very good before the event but not very good after.  Neither of my children were planned, the pill doesnt seem to do to well with me.  As a Catholic I dont accept termination as an option but I certainly dont based on the fact that I may not be able to afford them because "afford" is a very relative term.

Yes, I am reliant on state support.  No I dont lose any sleep over this or feel any guilt (I have enough to lose sleep over and feel guilty about-and even Catholics only go in for so much guilt!)

Because I give back in so many ways.  I give back fiscally by contributing to the economy, and by paying taxes (both on my income-which right wingers like to forget it taxed at source and my carers allowance I pay tax on and on my purchases), I give back to my community by volunteering and helping out at my sons schools, I give back professionally by volunteering my skills at sporting events and I give back by raising my children.

Children are our future.  In an ageing population, where £57.2 billion of the welfare spending bill goes on pensioners versus the £16.4 billion spent on families and children I think raising children is a fair long term investment.

But even with state support, I struggle.  And so do many other parents in our country.  Tonight, as I type, hundreds of parents will be coming home from their second job and still having to work out how many meals they can make out of the contents of their freezer or cupboards if they forgo a meal for themselves.

Many children go without extra curricular activities because their parents are just unable to make the payments and not every academy (like my sons) is registered with ofsted as childcare.

Many children go without an annual school new school uniform, with parents having second hand items from schools. hand-me-downs from other siblings or relatives or from nearly new sales.

Many children are not able to have a trip to another part of the country to add to their learning and understanding of their cultural heritage.

Many children, simply go without even the basics.

That is why I am opposed to welfare cuts in general but certainly from the £16.4 billion spent on families and children.  Children should not be seen as a drain on our economy, but as a long term investment in our future.  The children today are the adults of tomorrow, and the decisions we adults make today affect them more than us.

Labour pledged to eradicate childhood poverty by 2020 when it introduced Tax Credits.  Now it sits idly by as 3.5 million children - that's 1 in 4- children sit in poverty, and David Cameron plans to make welfare spending cuts that will plunge an additional 250, 000 people into poverty.  To put that into a visual perspective, remember all those protesters in London last weekend? Now imagine they were all children.  Thats how many children we are talking.  Enough to fill Parliament Square, and then some.  This disgusts me as a socialist but as a compassionate human.  To think that so many children will go without is a painful image for me and for many people.

Labour MUST remember its pledge and protect its legacy but above all it MUST speak up and speak out for each of those children.  The 3.75 million children who would be suffering if this comes to fruition.

Do NOT sit idly by.

Stand up to this bulling, oppressive regime.

For the sake of each of those 3.75 MILLION children.

Constituent, Labour Party member, Union member, sleep deprived carer, concerned citizen, self employed mother, mother of a teenager with ASD, socialist, environmentalist, Disabled Rights supporter, Jeremy Corbyn supporter, mother feeding her children with nectar points, defender of the vulnerable, advocate, logistics savant, concerned niece, grassroots activist, anti austerity campaigner, RNLI supporter, unashamed welfare state service user & social housing tenant, protester, fire brigade supporter, carers allowance claimant, less than perfect parent, socialist agitator, worrier, mental health service user, football mum