Argument

Found it. I've found the argument.

Apparently 8 out of 10 people think I should be prepare to be robbed in order for people who want both a career and children to have the childcare paid for.

Brilliant. They're entitled to their opinion.

So am I.

Children are something either you, the Pope or fate decides that you will have. In order to have them, you have to have carnal knowledge of a member of the opposite sex, or you have to find a donor and a turkey baster. Or buy one, in a Madonna-stylee. Or rely on being impregnated by a deity, which doesn't happen often.

But it is apparently something that you can't decide not to do. I am told by some women that they have no choice, for they have a biological clock which makes the decision for them. That is fundamentally bollocks, although I understand it in the same sense that my body is telling me that if it doesn't get a decent chicken tikka jalfrezi in the next couple of days there'll be trouble.

I've got kids. Lots of them. I have never, ever, asked for anyone else to pay for them, although they have all had free schooling (such that it is these days) and I would rather pay for kids to be schooled (and thus looked after for a large part of the day, too) than for the country to be overrun by illiterate, innumerate semi-savages. Sadly, that part of my plan appears not to have worked. But I spend rather a lot of my time augmenting my own kids' education, and explaining to them that not everything that's pumped into them by the state is necessarily right. I'd help others too except I have to be CRB checked and, although I would pass one, I resent the state's invasion of my privacy. So sod them.

When I was a young Marvo, my Mum looked after us and my Dad went to work. I think he worked for a cruise company, because I often heard my Mum explain to people the "he worked for Cunard". I think that's what she said. But, apart from being in the RAF immediately after WWII, he worked in various trades in the private sector (as the call it now - it used to be called "proper work"). He was an opportunist, as am I. Eventually he did quite well, through bullshit, arrogance and bloody hard work. It was pretty hard, but we never wanted for much. My brother and I built our first few bikes from bits we nicked from the dump - from scrap that richer people couldn't be arsed, or had not the ability, to mend. We always ate well, although the stuff we had was really cheap and instead of spending the money on other peoples' efforts my Mum did the work herself. That way, you can eat like a king at the cost of a pauper. So we didn't have anything to complain about.

Now look, I don't have a problem educating women. I say that because I'm scared, and because I believe that women have the same rights as blokes. I live in the twenty-first century. I don't have a problem with the ladies choosing a career - why the hell shouldn't they, if I can? They can have kids until they run out of biologicals (although it's not often a good idea to start popping them out at 50-odd). They can choose to have them early - kids round here have them before they leave school - or they can choose to have them late. Or in between. Or the bloke can look after them. It's not that bloody difficult.

But really, I don't see that ANYONE has the right to have their cake, eat it, AND have it paid for by me. I struggle to pay for the kids I've got, and they come first. Every bloody time. And as they're crap at building bikes, and I'm not allowed to take stuff from the dump any more (health and safety, you know), I'll buy them.

Now the Labourite whingers are saying (apparently it isn't a whinge, it's in our DNA - BOLLOCKS, BROWN) that the eeeeeevil Tories will stop handing out childcare vouchers/tax credits/supplements willy-nilly which means that you won't be able to have a herd of kids and then spend your life ripping me off to pay for them while you earn money. That makes no sense. You earn money, I pay for the childcare. That's me giving it to you. Pure and simple. Now get real.

It's a choice. Your choice.

Make it. Pay for it. It's your right.

I really am a bastard, am I not? Still, might get a few comments, if anyone has the balls (or other things) to shove their necks over the parapet.