Raising a child to the age of majority in the UK has been estimated to cost more than £250,000. A pack of three Durex in Boots costs £4.49. Makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, when the maths is that stark, you'd have to be mad to have a kid, wouldn't you? And you'd have to be absolutely off-the-scale, grab-the-straight-jackets, certifiable to have five. And if you were jobless, you might reasonably add criminally irresponsible, too.

Kids, like cars, holidays and a new kitchen, cost money. You need to have a grown-up fiscal conversation with yourself before you throw caution to the wind. Can you afford it? Can one of you pack your job in? How much is nursery care? And, ultimately, how many of these very expensive and often thankless investments can you afford in the long run? Well, at least you used to have to do that.

This week, after the most mendacious budget in living memory, the Chancellor effectively made having a big family on benefits a career choice. Seriously. One 40-year-old single parent from North London, who rolled out to welcome Reeve's scrapping of the two-child benefit cap, said movingly that the two-child limit had been pushing her family into poverty and "taking a toll on her mental health".

She then revealed that "in a good month when UC gives full entitlement" she banks a total of £6,142.00. £6,142.00. A month. I had to double-check the figures. Then I had to treble-check them.

Someone taking home more than six grand a month seriously thinks they are on the edge of poverty?

She revealed she gets £2,800 in take-home pay and £3,342 in universal credit plus child benefit, before whining "it's living very much on the edge." On the edge of what exactly!? The super-tax bracket?

A second benefits mum of four with a partner who was signed-off with mental health issues, told us she was pregnant with her fifth.

What is wrong with these people?

One part of the problem is that we no longer have a clear understanding of what poverty is. Officially, it is measured as 60% of the median income, or £24,000. But you're also likely to get your rent paid and many associated benefits and assistance... it's not real poverty, you're just a bit skint.

Amid this, of course, there will be some awful stories of hardship. But there will also be some idle wasters who frankly should have worked a bit harder at school.

Then there is the second issue.

Rachel Reeves scrapped the two-child benefit cap - partly to play her favourite role of the virtuous socialist but mainly to pander to the hard-left Labour backbenchers who hold the whip hand over the cabinet.

"I don't think that it's right that a child is penalised because they are in a bigger family through no fault of their own," said St Rachel with almost Princess Di level doe-eyed self-effacement.

And on the face of it, there doesn't seem much wrong with that.

But, on closer analysis, of course there is. Like all of Labour's infantilising legislation, it removes responsibility from the equation. It infantilises where it needs to be motivating. Or rather, it motivates in entirely the wrong direction.

We have a productivity crisis but this legislation positively encourages people to remain idle. What idiots would work their nuts off when they can get just as much or more slobbing around at home? Us. That's who.

And why do we do this? Personal responsibility - an inbuilt, or perhaps parent-instilled, need to get out and do something, to work, to provide, to achieve, to stand on our own two feet.

And it is for this idiocy, which used to be a virtue, that we strivers end up paying for the skivers.