Only eight days ago of the last elections and when the government is not yet defined because there is no majority to govern from the PP, the first measures to be established after winning the elections arrive. One of them, probably motivated by the rise of the parties that have promised the most social benefits, is to attend to fathers and mothers to try to counteract current low birth rates.
How? Well for now with an economic aid which would add up to 100 euros per month for working mothers and 100 euros received by large families, in this case for those mothers who demonstrate an "obvious tiredness" for the care of their children.
Birth, on the ground
The birth rate in Spain is low, very low, if we compare it with 2.1 children per couple that would be desirable so that there is a generational relay. That figure was left behind in the 80s and since then it has been declining until 1.16 in 1998, which rose to 1.45 in 2008 and is now in 1.32 children per couple, which makes the population pyramid totally unstable, because at the birth of so few children the population ages more and more, with everything that entails at a social and economic level (exactly, who will pay the pensions of so many older people?).
This low birth rate responds in large part to job instability, to the crisis, to the lack of sufficient financial means to take care of the children, to which the children have each time later (and then it costs to have more than one or two) since a child can be cared for with greater or lesser sacrifice, but two or three can be tiring in couples who work every day, as they say, from sun to sun.
Helping mothers who are more tired
With the intention of increasing the birth rate, offering a little support to the mothers who have a worse time with the children because they do not sleep well, because they cry a lot, because they wake up many times at night and it seems that when they finally fall asleep they are barely left a couple of hours to go to work, a benefit has been proposed for the most flagrant cases, those in which mothers may require a small reduction in working hours, someone who lends a hand or similar. The amount to be received is still unknown, although there is talk that It could be up to 140 euros per family, per month, during the first 18 months of the baby's life.
The complicated thing in this case is to know how the evaluations will be carried out to determine which mothers should receive the aid and which mothers should not, because tired I think that, more or less, they are all. They may carry out a questionnaire or test, or even a medical visit to know the degree of exhaustion, similar to those performed by medical courts to determine the level of dependence of people with some degree of dependence.
And the parents?
Surely more than one father has bothered you a little the issue of "help for mothers." Already when the baby check was established at the time of the PSOE many of us felt a little bad that it was given to the mother, and not to the family unit. It didn't matter if there was a father or not, help was given to the baby's mother.
Well, this time it seems that the thing is similar, because it is the mother who will have the right to perceive it and the father's fatigue will not be taken into account in any case.
Come on, that in the few families in which the father is the one who takes care of the baby and the mother is the one who works, the exhaustion of the father will not serve to receive the help.
Anyway, when we know more about it (how the evaluations will be made to the mothers, how much money we talk about, what forms should be filled out to request help, etc.) we will inform you, because after many years being forgotten, it seems that families start counting more for political parties.
Upgrade: Indeed, as someone comments in the comments and many people do it in Facebook, it's fake news, although it would not be bad if governments began to take care of families a little more and especially that they took into account the birth problem we have. Happy April Fools Day!
