I think this whole business about child benefit is quite ridiculous. Looking at the letters' pages in the right-wing press – why do I put myself through that – I feel like running amok with a Kalashnikov. (Dear policemen who like to monitor the internet and chat forums, that was a figure of speech not a statement of intent.)
Child benefit was introduced to help encourage people to have babies following World War II. I am not sure whether it began with only being paid for the second child or whether the payment for the second child was greater than that for the first. I do remember my mother saying how absurd the system was because the first baby is the expensive one and the second one (or subsequent ones) re-uses lots of costly equipment such as the high chair, cot, pram.
By the time I became a mum, the government had changed the tax system. Married people had been taxed as a couple (unless they deliberately chose otherwise) and a tax allowance for children was included in the calculation for tax of the main breadwinner – almost always the father. It was decided – rightly, I think – that instead of this tax allowance just disappearing into dad's pocket, it should be added to the child benefit which would be paid, by default, to the mother as the main carer. It also meant that those on very low incomes or the unemployed, who because they did not pay tax didn't get a tax allowance, were paid the same sum.
Now, unfortunately, child benefit is seen as scrounging. I think it's this government's (IDS in particular) plan to do away with it all together. Children are seen by some as a luxury and many of those who don't have them complain bitterly about a mouldy £20/£13 per week. So who do they think will cut their toenails, sweep their streets, teach their grandchildren, etc. etc. in the future?
[hissing and spitting emoticon]