AfD on families

The AfD wants to give families financial relief and more time, and to let parents choose freely between caring for children at home and paid work. Counseling and support services for families in crisis are to be better funded and easy to reach in rural areas as well. The platform justifies this with the state's low birth rate.

The AfD wants to help families. Parents should have more money and more time for their children. They should choose for themselves whether to work or care for children at home. There should be more counseling for families in need, also in the countryside.

The platform says the state should not interfere in families but should create good conditions for them. Schools are to prepare children for marriage, partnership and family cohesion. Ties between generations are to be strengthened, with states and municipalities promoting multi-generation concepts. Employers are to offer remote work, flexible hours and company daycare where parents want it. As causes of the low birth rate, the AfD cites the high cost of children and what it sees as a lack of recognition for work done within the family.

The AfD wants to pay a welcome bonus of €3,000 for every newborn child. It would go to citizens whose main residence is in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and is meant to make it easier for young people to decide to have children.

The AfD wants to give parents €3,000 for each baby. Only citizens who live in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern get the money. The state pays it in three parts. The goal is for more young people to have children.

The money would be paid in three installments. The first comes at birth, the second when the child turns three, and the third at age six. According to the platform, citizens with their main residence in the state are eligible. The AfD says the payment is meant to ease the step into parenthood.

The AfD wants to keep daycare free of charge while enforcing more staff per child. Childcare workers are to be paid better and relieved of paperwork, and daycare operators are to be monitored more closely. German is to be the mandatory language in daycare centers.

Daycare should stay free for parents. The AfD wants more staff for the children. The staff should be paid well. Everyone in daycare should speak German. The state should check daycare operators more closely.

In the future there would be one staff member for every four children in nurseries, every ten in kindergarten and every 17 in after-school care. Pay for childcare workers is to be based on the public-sector wage agreement (TVöD). Counties and municipalities are to get inspection and audit rights over operators because, in the AfD's view, free daycare created false incentives; the state is to contribute more funding. The platform says daycare centers should be free of what the AfD calls ideological indoctrination. The party justifies mandatory German with the integration of children with a migrant background. Home-based childminders are to receive more support.

The AfD wants to keep the current time-limit rule for abortion and rejects any further legalization. At the same time, help for pregnant women in distress is to be expanded so that more women decide to have the child. The party considers the right to life of the unborn insufficiently protected today.

The AfD wants to keep today's rules on abortion. It is against loosening these rules. Pregnant women in need should get more help. That way more women should decide to have their child.

The platform points to about 100,000 reported abortions a year in Germany and criticizes that conflict counseling has often become a mere formality. It plans extensive support during pregnancy and after birth. In counseling, women are to be able to see ultrasound images if they wish. Confidential and anonymous births are to be expanded, baby hatches secured and adoptions made easier.

The AfD wants every state law and regulation to be checked for its effects on families before it is adopted. The assessment is to be mandatory so that effects do not become visible only after a law takes effect.

The AfD wants new state laws to be checked in advance. The check should show what a law means for families. For example: Will families have less money or more paperwork? The check should be mandatory.

The assessment would examine how a rule affects families' disposable income and whether it creates or reduces bureaucracy. Further criteria are the effects on housing and infrastructure and on how easily schools, doctors and childcare facilities can be reached. It would also assess whether parents gain or lose freedom of choice and personal responsibility. Families are thus to be considered from the start of the legislative process.

The AfD wants to preserve and expand Childhood Houses, where children who have experienced violence are cared for and interviewed in one place. Mother-child facilities are to receive stable funding that covers their costs. This is to be accompanied by more prevention and training for professionals.

The AfD wants to protect children better from violence. There are houses where doctors, police and youth welfare offices help together. These houses should stay and there should be more of them. Facilities for mothers and children in need should also get enough money. Professionals should learn to spot dangers to children early.

In Childhood Houses, experts from the justice system, police, youth welfare, medicine and psychology work together so that affected children do not have to be questioned several times. The AfD wants to press in the Bundesrat for the federal government to deliver its announced funding with enough money, and to examine where another house could be set up besides the one in Schwerin. For mother-child facilities, the daily rates paid by the youth welfare office are to cover actual costs so that no places are lost. Prevention programs in schools and daycare centers are to be expanded. Staff in youth welfare offices, schools and daycare centers are to be trained regularly to recognize signs of child endangerment.