The birthrate in many Western countries is apparently decreasing and is only being made up by the increase in immigration – criticised by many.
The reason? An increasing number of younger couples are preferring to have pets instead of having children.
The cost of raising children is onerous, and career-minded people realise that one or the other must put those careers on hold to raise children.
Throughout the past several decades, the number of married couples in the United States and UK without children has increased. In 1970, 40% of married couples had kids, while just 20% did in 2012, and that trend has continued since.
Another trend is that married couples who did not have children living at home spent more money on their pets than any other type of family unit.
Mrs M and I recently returned from Spain to the UK and spent four tortuous hours along with scores of other passengers having to put up with out-of-control children on board a ferry.
I had hoped to catch up on some sleep on board, as I had done in the past, but this was impossible.
Twins little older than aged two, ran around the seating areas allocated to resting, shouting and screaming wherever they went, and parents did little if anything to stop them. Ferry staff did nothing either.
A little later a group of adults decided to play cards and made even more noise than the children.
Animals must be kept in cars below decks during the crossing. What a shame the same doesn’t apply to unruly children and totally selfish adults.
It seems that today many people care absolutely nothing for anyone else and it’s getting worse.
It seems unruly children are not confined to ferries – we visited a charity shop last week where the manageress was fuming having just banned a mother and her child from ever entering the shop again!
Apparently, the pair visited on several occasions and each time the child ran riot, running around and at risk of damaging things, the mother making no effort to control the child.
The child, aged about four, told by the manageress to behave, stuck one finger up at her. Here’s the next generation in the making.
And still on the subject of children, there’s debate in the UK about ending the two children benefit cap. Personally I would like to see a maximum 100% benefit for the first child because that is the point where loss of a parent’s income has the greatest detrimental affect.
The second child should attract a 50% benefit and nothing for subsequent children.
Why? Giving benefits to subsequent children only encourages people, particularly those on benefits already, to have more children, and all that does is increase the benefits bill in future years – and do we want more Ds and Es?
NHS RICH LIST OUTRAGE
Reading UK newspapers and particularly the right wing ones, and watching Gbnews, you would be led to believe that everything in the UK was collapsing around people’s ears.
But I am pleased to say we have discovered that there is considerable improvement in the time taken to get a doctor’s appointment, and the standard of care received when you get one.
Last year we had to put up with having to get in an 8am telephone queue to get an appointment, with endless boring music and a recorded message to tell us how many were before us in the queue.
But now our particular surgery at least has an on-line or a written form to complete which is triaged by a nurse and it took a day or two rather than weeks to get an appointment.
In addition, pharmacies have greater scope to diagnose simple matters, taking the strain from surgeries. Now we to have to see how good the hospital system is and how long we have to wait for appointments there.
One NHS problem which needs sorting and quickly is the vast salaries of NHS bureaucrats. A new report revealed that hundreds of managers are receiving six-figure salaries, despite poor performance at their Trusts.
In a report released by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the first-ever “NHS Rich List” exposed 512 managers who earned more than Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s £172,153 salary during the 2023-24 financial year.
The added problem is these vast salaries filter down to the next layer, and the next layer, right down into middle management, and critics say it appears that priority is being given more to management than to clinical frontline.
Perhaps the UK could do with the services of Elon Musk who put an axe to unnecessary management in America. How such people can get salaries the equivalent of 12 nurses beats me!
GRIME AND PUNISHMENT – BRITAIN’S FILTHY SHAME!
Sadly, Britain is greatly in need of some TLC. We were impressed while driving through France – no discarded rubbish along the motorways and gangs of maintenance staff busy cutting back the overgrowing grass verges.
How different it is on the other side of the Channel. Not only is there rubbish on the sides of the road, but verges are totally neglected, and it looks a total mess.
The problem is that neglect is catching. People see grass and weeds growing out of control and don’t bother to look after their own gardens in the way they once did. The British need to re-find pride in their country.
And if this doesn’t convince you that there’s something drastically wrong in Britain, then nothing will!
Mrs M went to the hairdresser a few days after returning to the UK, and while chatting the shop owner told her that a few days earlier she saw a rough looking man outside selling drugs. Then the man came into the shop and offered customers jewellery which he claimed he has just stolen.
She slipped out of the shop to the nearby police station to tell them. Instead of going to investigate, they told her: “Sorry, we are in the middle of our lunch”.
No wonder Britain is in the crime ridden state it is.
