This is quite frightening, especially if you have more children than you had anticipated (and budgeted for) by having multiples.
Having multiples is quite cost effective for the employer and government as despite the mother having 2 (or more) children, they only need to pay standard maternity pay that you would receive twice if you had 2 children through separate pregnancies and cover 1 period of maternity leave. When I was pregnant with my twins I did try and negotiate double the maternity pay and leave with my employer but this seemed to cause mirth rather than action and I wasn't successful!
I am also not sure why my second child (born 8 minutes after my first born) is cheaper to keep than his sister. But this would appear to be the case in the eyes of the child benefit office. My oldest daughter benefits from £20.30 per month while her brother apparently costs £13.40.
With my youngest daughter I could see some rationale to this in the sense that she was able to benefit from equipment, clothes etc handed down from her siblings. With twins (or more) there is not that opportunity and you are faced with buying 2 cots/cot beds, cot bedding, vests and clothes, high chairs, 1st stage car seats, bouncy chairs, child reins, potties etc!
One further aspect that doesn't immediately spring to mind is the financial strain that is placed on the tooth fairy from a multiples household. I think she/he may move in soon as the journeys have been very frequent recently (see photo for evidence!) and my youngest (age 3) watching all of this activity is wiggling her teeth in desperation to cash in as well!
LOL at the toothy grins! I teach 5 and 6 year olds and they love losing teeth..the price for each varies..but I'm sure the mum who paid £5 for the first one her son lost soon regretted it!
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£5 - wow! It's £1 in our house (my hubbies choice as I would have given them 50p!)and it goes straight in the money boxes for spending money on all our trips away!
ReplyDeleteHi from Canada! See, you do have readers! I started blogging right about the same time as you. I have 13 month old twins (and a 3 year old) and we have the same problem in Canada with being paid EI for the pregnancy and not the number of babies produced during that pregnancy. It's too bad the governments can't be fair with this. Had you and I had 3 separate pregnancies, we would have been paid for each pregnancy/mat leave. Instead, nature took its course and I wound up with 3 babies, but only 2 pregnancies. What is unfair is we continue to pay into our employment insurance plans equal amounts, if not more than others, but do not benefit the same way as other mothers with singleton pregnancies. We have no choice but to pay double the costs when having twins and twins also often come with complications and extra money out of pocket. Government understanding would be great!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more - do you have horrendous childcare costs in Canada like we do in the Uk as well?
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