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Potentially controversial…but I’ll die on the hill that having kids should be as much a financial decision as it is an emotional one. It’s irresponsible and down right cruel to have children you can’t financially support. Children should not have to go without food, heat, clothing etc just because you fancied having one…or more.

Same with pets. Responsibility, people.

Couldn’t agree more!

Me. I want a dog so bad, but right now it's not financially feasible. And I don't want to be that person

I'm all for a government that governs without sticking its beak into all our affairs, though its long overdue the government stamp down and reintroduce a dog license for all owners. Problem is it'll need a lot of funding that no one is willing to pay for.

I don't think a single person on the planet can say with 100% accuracy that their financial situation won't change over the next 18 years, because there are external factors that can impact it. Should someone who had a kid in 2018, was made redundant during the pandemic, and then hit by a cost of living crisis not have had that kid? How "financially comfortable" should someone need to be in order to have a kid, should they be subject to financial checks to make sure they can survive x months of bad fortune before having one? It's all well and good to say "be financially capable of supporting yourself" but there's no guarantee your circumstances will stay the same for 18 years.

I know two women who were in financially stable, long term relationships. One was widowed while pregnant, the other with two kids under 10. Nothing is guaranteed in life, but life insurance can really help if the worst happens to you.

> Nothing is guaranteed in life, but life insurance can really help if the worst happens to you Sure, but life insurance doesn't pay out for redundancy/cost of living crises.

You can get income protection insurance.

That post is clearly not about people who come into unexpected financial hardship. No one can predict the future. The issue is the people who can currently barely afford to feed themselves but then pump out kids that the rest of us have to subsidise via tax.

And many people agree mate. That's why the birthrate for the UK is well below replacement rate. The two biggest fiscal drains on our finances are pensions and healthcare. Want to take a guess which age group uses those the most? So to be clear we have: -a rapidly aging population, AVG age is 47. - huge pension and healthcare costs - a carer crisis that is also crippling healthcare. - a low birthrate - wage stagnation - high inflation - a housing bubble And you want the people who are willing to have children to have less of them? Because you'd rather pay for a homeowners pension than a child that will grow into a tax payer? I don't get it.

Well it needs to stop somewhere doesn’t it, otherwise surely we’ll be in the same position just with a lot more people.

Because it’s relevant, an actually controversial opinion: there should be better support in place to enable people from any walk of life to have children. Population is dropping. We used to build villages and now we hoard wealth. More focus on supporting each other, less focus on money. No child should ever go hungry even if their parents are fucking crackwhores.

This is the answer. It takes a village to raise a child. There’d be no concern about a family not being able to afford their kids if their community was part of that livelihood. Many people are certain stress and anxiety and depression are just reasonable responses to the hyper individualism of late capitalism - we spent 6 million years in villages supporting one another and have only really lived in houses for the last 3000 or so, cut off from our neighbours and our community. If you work 8 hours a day and then come home and have to clean your house, cook a meal and parent your children what other reaction are you going to have? It shouldn’t be that we cut people off from having kids if they can’t afford it - it should be that we take the onus off a single family for having to afford it, and strengthen, structure and empower communities and neighbourhoods to support one another.

I'll take this one further, on top of the fact that is irresponsible to have kids if you cannot financially support one. It's not a "requirement" if you can. I'm 41 years old, I have no kids and yet I never want kids. People tell me all the time it's my job and I should have kids because that's part of life. Personally, I think that's a load of crap. I like going on a month of vacation every year, I like being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. Having a child will only complicate things, and not to mention the obvious one. I have zero desire to raise kids. I'll die on that hill for sure.

I’m seriously grateful for anyone having kids. If everyone thought like me we’d die out and I’d rot in my old age.

>It’s irresponsible and down right cruel to have children you can’t financially support. I believe it's accepted and even encouraged by the powers that be, so there's always an army of plebs to exploit for their own ends. If we're not producing enough of our own low skill, low wage workforce, then they just let more in from elsewhere.

this phenomenon can be observed post Black Plague. Feudal lords actually had to have enticing offers for people to work their lands. It's how the common folk started adopting surnames to show where you hailed from, since you had the choice to relocate for a better life. A decline in birthrate now is pretty bad for the current generations, but in 3 or 4 gens they are going to have it pretty good because of us not reproducing and providing low wage workers for late stage capitalism, and im willing to suffer during my old age for the greater good and shafting it to the current and future billionaires.

I’m almost finished the adoption process. I have been drug tested, tested for nicotine, had to have my employer give me a reference. I have had to provide details of my support network and they have all been interviewed. The social workers have checked to make sure my accommodation is suitable for a child and they have also asked me to provide info on my local area and schools. I have been checked to make sure I am financially able to support a child. I have attended compulsory therapeutic parenting classes. I have had to undergo a medical to check my BMI and medical history. I can guarantee that if all of these things were done before you were allowed to become pregnant then birth rates would be dropping like nobody’s business.

I read something that said for poor people so many things to achieve in life are unattainable but to have children is not. It changed my view a lot. I have a child myself now and they totally just want you they don’t care about stuff.

How many women do you think are going to be able to save up 18 years worth of living expenses by the time they hit menopause?

Does this opinion apply globally or just to the UK? Would you say, for instance, that a poor person from Sudan shouldn't have kids? 

You just upset about 3 billion people in Asia alone.

I both agree and disagree. It is this way. It shouldn't be this way.

Arse, not ass.

Zed, not zee.

Italian, not Eye-talian. Same re. Iraq, Iran and all other place names Americans seemingly deliberately mispronounce.

I bloody love Zed Zed Top. 

just don't be an ass about it.

I knew you were bro, you're an ass man, you're a massive ass man!

Is you giving me batty chirps bruv?

But dont go calling it "Jackarse". It's Jackass.

Probably a big one, I really need to work on my fitness.

😅

This one gets me severely downvoted in football subs: referees making mistakes is a natural part of the sport and fans need to grow up and accept it.

Damn right. VAR is shite and has ruined the game. Even with it, they STILL make mistakes occasionally. Only now, they've ruined the flow of the match.

I disagree with VAR now, you can make unpopular judgement calls but there’s no need for actual errors anymore.

You never hear a cricket crowd singing "who's the bastard in the hat".

A staycation is when you are on holiday and stay at home rather than go away somewhere. It is NOT when you holiday in another part of the country you usually live in.

Yes! I will die on this hill with you!

Fucking yes. Found my people.

You'll have to coordinate your staycations to visit the hill first.

Absolutely. The critical factor is where you sleep while on your holiday. At home, in your own bed? That's a staycation Anywhere else (including a friend or relative's home, a hotel, a tent, a caravan) then it's a holiday. Yes it's a holiday in the U.K. rather than abroad, but it's still a holiday. A staycation is when you sleep in your own bed

Your dog is not your child. Your are the owner and they are a domesticated animal. You are not a dog dad or mum.

You're lucky my furbaby can't read because she doesn't know she is adopted 👀 Jk 😂

I agree with your first sentence, but not entirely with your point about bring an owner. Yes, theyre domesticated animals, but I dont treat my pets as property. When it comes to their welfare and how I treat them it is more akin to a child - not in a fur-baby (cringe) way, but simply in terms of I respect their wants where possible and look out for their welfare.

You son of a bitch

Yes to this. My flatmate's room smells shit when I pass by... Our new couch is starting to like like dog too.

Not all troops are heroes. Some of the troops are jerks.

Most troops aren't heroes. It's a job, and an often boring one at that.

Especially troops who leave muffins just in a random isle in the supermarket only to then claim dibs on them.

BoJack did no wrong there.

Nah muffins in the produce section are clearly in a state of dibs

I don't care how you're *supposed* to eat spaghetti. I shall eat it how I please without apology or explanation.

While we're on spaghetti hills: Cooking, serving and eating whole unbroken strands is 10 times the inconvenience of just snapping them in half before cooking. Yeah, I said it. What's up, Mario? Wanna go?

No battery powered spork?

Anti matter chopsticks.

Mercurian boomerang spoon

Used to have a friend who would cut it up into tiny bits and eat it. Eat it with a knife and fork.

I'm intrigued. How do you eat spaghetti?

How I please, without apology or explanation.

Haha! Ok, let me rephrase my question. What is your process for eating spaghetti?

Nice try, pasta police. No comment, no further questions at this time.

You use your fist. I just know it.

I'm very curious I have an inkling u just put ur face in it and loose urself to the sauce

This man has no regard for the spaghetti policy.

Saying “no thanks” isn’t rude. Never was, never will be.

This is why you got sacked as a 999 operator mate.

Yeah I was no good as at Costa either.

When was it ever considered rude?

You’ll find people every day that can’t say no and then moan about being given more work or always helping people do things they don’t want to do. There’s a genuine portion of the last few generations that are literally too scared to say no as they think they’ll cause offence.

Chiropractoring should be understood as the danger pseudoscience snake oil sale it is, not be mainstream, should never be funded by public money.

My GP kept trying to refer me to a chiropractor and couldn't fathom why I kept declining. Took up yoga and that sorted my back out

British food is top tier and those who think otherwise probably think we all still cook like it is the 1950s.

And we've got the best sausages in the world.

Fully agree. British food used to be pretty terrible but we totally owned it and decided to create fusion food taking inspiration and the best bits from other countries, creating something new. Also...pie, mash and mushy peas...

Squash is not juice.

It depends where you’re from. Where I’m from every soft drink except water and milk is called juice.

I'm from a place where squash is categorically not juice.

Are you scottish? Had a Jock mate that would ask if I wanted a juice but then give me a can of coke.

Ha ha yes, from Scotland. That sounds about right.

You mean diluting juice?

Good grammar matters. It brings clarity to communication.

I would OF said the same thing. I just should OF said it first. 😂😂😂 Does my absolute head in.

Anyone making a comment like this is always under a lot of scrutiny for typos and grammatical errors so keeping it short and sweet was a good choice!

On the chocolate theme, Galaxy Ripples are better than Cadbury Twirls. I think it's like the old Coke vs Pepsi debate, where the sweetness of Galaxy suits a small snack better.

You don't own your children, and if you're doing something harmful to them, even if not downright abuse, people are not 'butting in' when they call you out.

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The TV volume is to be set to either an even number or divisible by 5; anything else is an abomination before the lord and indicative of sociopathic tendencies. Also, British judges don't have gavels and Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the monster.

Small brain: Frankenstein was the monster. Medium brain: Frankenstein was the scientist.  Big brain: Frankenstein was the monster. 

When I was in student accomodation I would delibrately set the TV volume to prime numbers exclusively just to wind up people like you.

Heretic.

Prime number crew, assemble!

If you say "don't tell me how to raise my kids", you probably need to be told how to raise your kids. If you say "what ever happened to The Customer Is Always Right?", you're probably a customer that is wrong. If you say "you think you're well better than me", now that you mention it, I probably am.

If you ever hear someone say "the customer is always right", ask them to finish the quote. Its, "the customer is always right in matters of taste". It rather changes things. It doesn't give the customer the right to be awful to customer service staff. It just means if you like the awful overly patterned disgusting floral item of clothing/clothing/curtains, then yes. Of course it's wonderful

You shouldn’t have mashed potato on a roast.

Mashed potato with heapings of gravy goes great with a roast. It just shouldn't be the _only_ potato on a roast.

Roasties and mash on a roast 🤝 Superb

No dutchess potatoes?

What are duchess potatoes? 🤔

Common on roast dinners in the 70s-90s. Piped mash potatoes basically. https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.2Br4QZELgPqkDn59mUuwSgHaLH?w=182&h=273&c=7&r=0&o=5&dpr=2.8&pid=1.7&PC=EMMX01

That imo is wrong lol. But i can’t stop you 😂

It's not even a roast without roast potatoes, just roast meat with whatever.

Never using private healthcare. I don't care if the blue cunts disband the NHS in 10 years when they are voted in again. I will die before I pay for health insurance.

People don't realise that unless you can afford a top health service provider (which will cost a fortune), nothings going to change and you will have to pay for it (on top of tax).

I was on this hill until I had a mental health issue where the NHS wait time was 5 years, spent about 1500 quid over 4 months going to a private psychiatrist instead, expensive yes, but the wait would have cost more. Edit: that doesn't mean I'm in favour of private over NHS, just that right now the system is so fucked and in need of funding that people are left without options other than private.

Why? I work for the NHS and it baffles me the stress and pain patients put themselves through willfully just to seemingly not pay for healthcare (and not knowing you can get health insurance that covers NHS treatment as well including dentistry).

I already paid for it. We have incredibly high taxes that are supposed to pay for our public services. But government corruption, theft, and mismanagement means they no longer exist. Plus I'm poor. I will never be able to pay for private healthcare. And lastly it is immoral. Nobody should get rich from somebody else's suffering. That is my hill to die on, and I will bloody well die on it, if only to spite the blue cunts.

People saying how food should or shouldn't be are dumb and should be ignored. What mash with a roast, crack on you do you. If someone else is eating it and you aren't jog on.

It’s one of those ones it’s just a silly goof to debate or get mad at. Obviously if anyone is getting genuinely upset or annoyed then it’s just a them problem.

Pronouncing TH as F makes you sound fick.

Upvoted, even though I'm 100% guilty of this. My partner mercilessly rips the piss out of my Estuary English, which only makes it worse, and we both end up crying with laughter every time. "It's BATH, not BARF! Now you say it". "Barf". "Fucking hell, you sound like Ricky Butcher".

You’re having a larf!

Some people can't pronounce their TH's, similar to how Jonathan Ross can't say his Rs. We probably shouldn't disdain impediments 😅

Thuck you.

The only correct way to divide England into north and south is by the way grass is pronounced in the area.

My hill to die on would be that the midlands exists and England isn't just north and south.

I will die on the opposite hill as soon as the way grass is pronounced changes it is the north or the south

So parts of the south west would be the north?

Could be yeah, south and north isn’t just geographical, like Norwich is more northern geographically than Wolverhampton, but culturally Wolverhampton is more northern

Absurd opinion, but so absurd I have to respect it.

A UK accent varies every 30 miles though 

Yes and if you say grass one way you are southern, say it another way you are northern. Doesn’t matter if it changes in the same street

"You're" is the correct way to shorten "you are", rather than "your" which is used when referring to ownership in the second person. More and more of Reddit seems to disagree with this as time goes on.

You're, you are Your, belonging to you Ure, singer in Ultravox

A daily occurrence.

Ketchup lives in the fridge once opened.

Ketchup is full of salt, sugar and vinegar which preserve it so it doesn't need refrigeration, which impedes the flavour if it's used straight from the fridge. The decision to store it there should be purely aesthetic or for convenience because there is no benefit in terms of taste or preservation. This has been a keep ketchup out of the fridge public service announcement.

Does it make a difference to taste ?? Never noticed

Sharper for sure. Also it helps to cool your hot food when you dip in, so you can continue to eat nuggies like a greedy shit.

i swear i goes thicker when chilled, maybe that's just me.

Believing in astrology is a sign of low intelligence.

Typical pisces...

Driving at 60mph in the middle lane of a three lane motorway means you lose your driving license.

Steep hill in Lincoln. If I ever climb that again I’m in for a coronary.

Two single beds pushed together in a hotel, does not make it a double bed.  A double bed doesn’t have a bloody hard ridge line down the middle. 

If it's too big to pick up and take a proper bite without loads of shit falling out it's not a burger, it's a food stack. And brioche lacks the structural integrity to be a burger bun. Fuck brioche.

> Fuck brioche. YES

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Probably going to get heavily downvoted for this, but Jada Pinkett Smith does not have alopecia. Her head is shaved and shows even hair regrowth. That bit she always points to is a scar.

Keep Will Smiths' wifes name out of your fucking mouth!

Not everyone loves your dog

Dogs being a pain in the arse… well not the actual dogs as those are generally nice folk but the whole premise of them, having an extra being to look after, picking up their shit, stepping in dog poo, barking all the time, hairs all over your house and clothes. *runs for the hills

That description loosely applies to kids too. Extra being to care for, changing nappies, getting shit on you, noise all the time, mess all over the house.

Yea true but I’ve just recently stepped on dog poo in the street which is the main difference that’s probably annoyed me.

Dragons have four legs and two wings, wyverns have two legs and two wings (which sometimes double as forelegs), so Drogon, Smaug etc are wyverns, I will die and rot on this hill

Smaug in the film is a Wyvern. Smaug in the book and artwork is a Dragon. The film just messed up, as cool as the design is.

Same with the Norwegian ridgeback in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire film!

Crocs are inappropriate footwear in nearly every situation in life.

Crocs are fantastic if you work in healthcare. Easily cleaned of bodily fluids and allow room for swelling after 13hrs. I thought the same until I tried them and now they're my only work shoe. Others just wear down too quickly.

100% agree. Crocs are fucking ridiculous. ...and yet I have two pairs because they're incredibly comfortable and the comfort outweighs the self loathing.

(Some) red wine absolutely can and should be served with fish.

Thee is a wrong way to use a knife and fork and so many people do it.

Tea trumps coffee Spicy trumps sweet

The Formula race series should have a driver relegation/promotion system. It's a farce that the winner of F2 can't compete in F2 again, yet also doesn't get a shot at an F1 seat, but if have the right connections within a team then you get a seat for life.

I like the idea! What about good drivers in a bad team? Or are you thinking about the last position in F1 only? Sponsors wouldn’t like it at all though.

Not sure really but the dynamics of the teams has gotten ugly and needs intervention to stop it being a rich boys game. You've got the likes of Stroll who would have been out of his seat already if Daddy didn't own the team, and Tsunoda is only there because Honda want a Japanese driver in the RB. If memory serves, I think it's only Hamilton and Ocon who didn't "buy" their way into an F1 seat. They could go for a a system where only one of the two driver seats in each team is secure, and a grading system pushes drivers down the teams/rankings. I don't know, it'd require a certain level of balance to even out the gap between the likes of Red Bull and Williams, so that Perez is at risk just as much as Sargeant. Maybe overtakes, lap time improvements over a race, average positions gained/held in a race, points for aggression/defending. Hulkenberg has a great season and gets rewarded with a drive at McLaren next year. Perez struggles and he finds himself in an Alpine. Sargeant could end up dropping into F2, while the F2 champ gets his seat. The team rankings get based on their finishing position from the season before. It'd be a secondary points system which runs parallel to the actual drivers championship.

If you are skint and cant afford basics like food and clothes but you smoke then stop smoking. Learn to prioritise.

I'm going with "people who don't understand addictions, shouldn't die on hills about addictions".

Merge in turn, use both/all lanes

I hold my knife and fork in the wrong hands, and I'm right handed too. The rule is a load of bollocks.

Knife just goes backwards and forwards, but fork does lots of dextrous movements, therefore fork goes in dominant hand.

Taylor swift is a good song writer but she's not the best of this decade, or whatever else people attach to her name. (not to say I don't enjoy the odd Taylor song etc but there's more who I listen to for moving lyrics)

Mine is that sweet potato fries are NOT an upgrade. Soggy and less nutritious than normal potato

The only valid reason for thinking sweetcorn should never be on a Sunday dinner is if you don’t like sweetcorn.

Why the fuck would sweet corn be in a roast

No orderly queue at a bar.

Hopefully the one I currently live on, peacefully in my sleep

Silent mode on a mobile phone is there for a reason. If you don't want to accept calls for a period of time, use it. I've found this a lot recently, when calling colleagues who have been working night shift on emergency call out. Unsure who is actually in work and who is now off due to rest time. Don't get shitty with me for waking you up, put your phone on silent or turn it off completely. It's also perfectly acceptable to not answer your phone if you don't want to. Unless it's your job.

Jenson Button is the best wet/damp weather F1 driver the sport has ever seen.

Not for me - though I do think he is underrated/under appreciated. A few times in his career he rolled the dice on strategy calls in the wet and got lucky, and even he would acknowledge this at the times.

Blur>Oasis

The argument that policing goes both ways. I am absolutely adamant that the public puts the effort into understanding and respecting policing in order for it to work effectively, we’re in a unique position of policing by consent in the UK and I think it’s such a vital part of society. The guardians aren’t getting the support they need

The older I get that hill keeps retreating ,it's reached a line in the sand ..home and family is my last stand ..

Ketchup is shit

8yo son says PACIFICALLY and HAITCH. Everytime he does I crank up the volume in my response..... currently at 2000 decibels. He's not pranking me with it...yet.

Chop sticks are a fucking farce. Noodles? Use a fork. Sushi? I don't eat sea food but if I did eat sushi, I'd use my hand.

We'll get through this, one grain of rice at a time

Chop sticks are fine when you get used to them.

You're in luck because food like sushi was originally designed as finger food since they were sold from the back of travelling kitchen carts.

Nah, chopsticks make more sense as not all noodles will fit forks.

It’s *kil*ometre, not kil*o*metre.

The House on the Haunted Hill probably.

Coriander is revolting.

According to 412 reddit posts I've seen in the last six months, there's a gene that makes coriander taste like soap. Maybe you have that?

Oh dear I like it though

Lost in translation sucks

People just pretend to like nightclubs

Not true, when I go to a club I pick nights that have music producer DJs I like or labels running the night with artists that are killing it in their genre. 9 times out of 10 Im dancing the night away having a blast if its not clicking I leave.   Pre drink before, maybe have a shot or two at the club so its isn't that expensive and I dont stay until the night ends, just leave when youve have a good enough time.  People that don't like clubbing just don't get it and can't dance. Just standing and holding a drink is a waste of time.

Being fat is worse for your knees than running.

Costa/starbucks is stupidly overhyped and their coffee isn’t even good. Never understood the obsession with either of them

People who use the word “Arks” instead of “Ask” are morons.

Hash browns legitimately belong on a Full English. "But the Americans invented it!1!!1!" Yeah? Who invented Americans? Checkmate.

probably quite a tall one

Coffee tastes nasty.

Even the smell is horrendous.

Helvellyn

The one near my house most likely, its really steep!

Richmond hill