My vacation reading material tells me that, once again, the Berlin coalition seems not to be agreeing with each other. This time, it is about whether or not child benefits should continue to be paid. After all, it seems obvious that it had no effect, because compared with the rest of Europe, Germany is still close to the bottom with its birth rate.
Being the father of seven, I probably have earned the right to an opinion on this one. Our children are now aged between 31 and 15. When they introduced the child benefits, most of our children had already been born.
Consequently, you can see that the child benefits had no influence on our ”family planning“. However, the little bonus was not a bad thing. Even though Barbara always managed to spend a lot of time with the children, we were able to afford help. First, it was a governess, then we had au-pairs for more than a decade.
When we had the governess, the legislation for child benefits had not yet been introduced. To make up for it, the money we had to pay for the governess (including taxes and social insurance) ate up Barbara’s net income (she is a Mathematics Graduate, Univ., working part-time).
Then we had au-pairs from France, diverse Eastern-European countries, but also from South Africa. Au-pairs are not inexpensive. If I need an extra bedroom for an au-pair in a house in Riemerling, the cost of the house is easily 100,000 Euros more than without. Then you have to give them pocket money, an allowance for culture and necessities and once in a while for their travel home. Even with quite a lavish child benefit legislation, you will quickly reach the end of your teethers.
When we are talking having children, the main factors are our society and, of course, the enterprises as employers. Companies such as SoftResearch or Comet Computer come to mind. They had rented the former sewing rooms of Loden Frey with their skilights on the Munich “Mittlerer Ring”. Those rooms were pretty well illuminated by natural light. The real palms gave the offices the appearance of conservatories. A truly stylish enterprise.
Both were family-oriented Munich IT enterprises. Comet Computer still exists today, SoftResearch does not.
I liked SoftResearch very much. They produced and sold income and salary programs, mostly for enterprises active in the construction sector. It was an enterprise that laid great store on cooperation, both for employees and partners. Their office hours were extremely flexible.
They had their own cafeteria, run by a married couple. The woman did the cooking, her husband also did all the necessary repairs and looked after the palms.
I particularly enjoy the memory of the huge fridge with all those many beer brands and the well-attended monthly “skat” tournaments. Mind you, we are really talking stakes here! One time I actually won the tournament and returned home as a ”rich man“.
SoftResearch had a very nice firm newspaper and a number of branches all over Germany. Immediately after the “re-unification”, they also opened offices in the bigger ex-“GDR” cities. Today, I know an East German company very successfully following the SoftResearch model.
The company newspaper always reported truthfully about all developments and culture of the enterprise, which meant we were always up to date. There was also always a personal page in the newspaper. New additions to the company were introduced and reports about persons working at the enterprise were published. Marriages were announced and, above all, whenever a new child was born to an employee, the occasion was celebrated in a suitable and nice way.
Well, that is how it used to be. Unfortunately, SoftResearch was then sold to an Anglo-Saxon leader of the market in the 1990ies. Rumour had it that the founder had received a three-digit million number (in DM) – and then the culture was gone.
We at InterFace also try to support families. Being a counselling and service enterprise, this is not always easy for us. Because our customers often expect “full-time support” at a location of their own choice.
But some problems are quite trivial. For instance, we have our IF-Open. Even if we congratulate an employee because she has just given birth, we have to wonder if we are violating some data-protection law.
If we really want a higher birth rate, what we need is neither child benefits nor around-the-clock child care service. What we need is a society that welcomes children and enterprises that can afford solidarity with their employees and their families.
But, first and foremost, we should see a birth as what it is:
A happy event!
And that should be something you can publicly report about and celebrate.
“Politics”, on the other hand, should not count on being able to buy a higher birth rate with money or better around-the-clock child care. If politicians really believe more children should be born in Germany, then they have to promote a change in values. We have three unwritten laws that feel like strong human rights: the preservation of property, hedonism and ego-centrism. They must be replaced by the love of life.
Otherwise it is my opinion – and this is certainly arguable – that, at least in our German luxury society only people should have children if they really want them and can afford to have them.
I would like to see parents who are content to be able to contribute towards the success of their children’s lives. Parents who do not wish to clone themselves in their children and who absolutely do not want to be parents just because they think it is their social obligation, or because they want to find self-fulfillment or money.
Parents must be prepared to sacrifice something and love their children. If someone cannot afford children by our luxury standards, then they should not have them, or else they should be prepared to live modestly and do without all the luxury nonsense they are told they need.
To state it in no uncertain terms:
I am absolutely in favour of supporting families and single parents both materially and ideologically. But this support must not be because we want more children. Instead, it should be because we want to enable parents to do more for their children. And because we want them to have more time for their children, instead of having to hand the children over to others as early as possible and for as many hours as possible!
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
To this day, the memory of the box of champagne I was given by Dr. Peter Schnupp (at the time one of the three Softlab founders and managing director) when my son Maximilian was born, fills me with happiness. That was indeed a happy occasion, accompanied by another happy occasion.
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