What does job centre/society actually expect this woman to do?

[steppemum]

I support a lady (friendship through a charity) I'll change some details to make it less identifiable.

She has a son aged 5 and in school and so the job centre are giving her a lot of hassle to get into work. But I just cannot see how she is supposed to do this:

• she is a single mum. Her partner is not son's dad and doesn't live with her.


• she lives on a large council estate out of town. Very little work on the estate. 20 minute bus ride into town. Some work in town, mostly in shops (which I doubt she would get, she's not likely to get a customer facing job) most work is then a further 20 minutes on the bus from the bus station in town.


• there is no breakfast club or after school club, or holiday clubs at the school


• there are no childminders on the estate. The closest ones are about 1 mile away, and don't do school drop offs or pick ups


• she does have local family, but they are not willing to do any childcare, either before/after school, or in the holidays.


• she is only likely to get a minimum wage job as she has no qualifications.

So, she could only work day time, from about 9:30 - 2:00 in order to do school run, no weekends and she has no-one to look after her son in the holidays.

Job centre has told her she is being too fussy and she must be more flexible with timings.

Am I missing something here? I just don't see HOW she can get a job! She would like to work actually, but is also pretty scared about ending up with less money.

Charity shop and job centre courses

Yes it is difficult but also the job centre will give you support to become self employed and you can use your work search hours for training instead. In this woman's position I would be looking at college courses. You're right she is in an almost impossible situation as regards employment right now, mostly because of her childcare limitations. But with one child at 5 years old she has a good opportunity to improve her qualifications which will put her in a much better situation later on. There are lots of free fully funded level 2 qualifications at the moment for people out of work or on a low income.

Self employment wise she could do most things in hair or beauty some don't take much training or kit. Something like spray tanning or eyebrows. She could do cleaning, domestic, or specific like oven cleaning, carpet cleaning, window cleaning, car cleaning etc. She could do painting and decorating or odd jobs or labouring, gardening etc. It's hard to know what would suit her. But if she doesn't have the people skills for customer service (really? I've worked in retail and hospitality and some of those people are rude as hell!) then she definitely doesn't to work as a childminder.

That said if she does have an interest working with children, it would be ideal because it's the only job to fit nicely with parenting really.

It sounds like she has an external locus of control and expects the whole world to solve her problems. It won't. She needs to work out what is within her power to change.

@MrsRuggles Not even just poor rural areas tbh - I wouldn’t say our village is particularly poor, but childcare is non-existent. We manage because DH has an extremely flexible, home-based job and a very understanding employer, and can drop everything to collect DS if I have a client to see, then stick the TV on for DS and crack on at the kitchen table. But a more rigid employer (as many low-paid jobs are) would be impossible for us to manage with. We simply couldn’t be there when we needed to be for DS.

The lady already volunteers at a charity shop.

This. The school could be offering wrap around care every day 7.30am-6pm and she still wouldn't be able to hold down a job which would pay for it. She clearly has additional needs and a chaotic life.

What are the charities plans? How about opening a social enterprise type business in the area? A cafe/community centre where they can work and also offer support groups / educational help. Perhaps a library and homework club for the kids. If I were in charge of the charity I'd be very worried about the next generation being in the same boat... need to raise aspirations all round.

@Evilista she can hardly read or write, she can’t do a level 2 qualification.
Being self employed requires numeracy and literacy skills.

Given she has more than one child I would also suggest that she doesn't have any more children. Frankly, if she hadn't the most recent one she would be in a much better position to support herself. Yes, such a PC point of view, but people having multiple kids when they clearly cant support them is just not a good idea.

This is really sad. Sad for her child too. The skills you’d need from a parent like helping with homework, reading you bedtime stories, teaching you life skills… I wonder if there was any consideration for the child before deciding to have him.

One of my brothers has ASD which means he struggles a lot with working, needs supervision. He does pot washing at a local pub and it’s perfect for him. It’s a defined task which he does every shift, it’s always the same. It sounds like the lady here would do quite well with it. It might be worth calling round pubs, restaurants and hotels seeing if they have any lunch time pot washing shifts.

I don’t think mumsnet in general will ever give you much helpful because the demographic of posters on here will have no idea of the reality of the woman you are speaking about.

Get training, become self employed. For crying out loud, come and spend a day where I live. Come on the school run with me - you’d be shocked.

I live just outside an estate like the one described. My dd goes to the primary school on it. I recognise this lady in many of the parents I see daily.

Dds school has no wrap around care, it’s not needed. Most of the parents don’t work or one stays at home. There are no childminders. Not many people can get permission to do it in rented homes and their lives are far too chaotic, unsuitable and have social care involvement.

Quite a few are unpaid carers for their own parents, some of whom are younger than me and already in a bad state of health through poverty.

Shock horror, none of the schools here even have PTAs! I asked when we moved here, the head laughed and said “take a look around on your first school run, it’s not the sort of place where people are interested in raising money for the school, most think we are out to get them”.

The majority of mumsnet just don’t seem to realise how the other half live sometimes.

I am not targeting you, but I have quoted your post because this is exactly the sort of nativity that I mean.

These things just don’t happen in many families. They haven’t happened for generations now and their children will grow up the same.

I know people who’s lives and parents lives and grandparents just revolve around arguing with neighbours, drinking and sleeping with the same pool of people and having children with them and arguing with each other about that.

Poor social boundaries don’t help. Some of the parents in dds class, I knew all the gory details of their life and their families life before they had even told me which child was theirs. So I know exactly what OP meant when she mentioned this woman’s social boundaries.

I don’t think that unless you have lived in certain areas or become friends with people like the OP described that you can appreciate the difficulties.

I would just like to address this thing about wrap around care.
Some posters are shocked that there is a school /town that doesn't have any childcare at all.
We live in a large town (city sized) in south of England. Town is not expensive (housing wise).
My kids went to local primary, I was a governor there for several years.
There was a breakfast club. Attended by about 5 kids. It was heavily subsidised by the school to make it affordable. As I was leaving, they were talking about cutting that subsidy as the club was so poorly supported.
There was no after school club. School ran clubs on some days (eg football, choir) but they were not suitable for chilcare for a working parent as they were randomly cancelled, didn't happen first and last weeks of term and changed term by term

This is typical of schools in this town. Some breakfast clubs, not all schools have them, those that were subsidised are now closed. Those which are not subsidised are quite expensive, typically £3.50 per child per day.
After schools clubs on school premises are extremely rare, I cannot think of a primary within 5 miles that has one.

There are a couple of local nurseries that do after school clubs, and in the past they have collected from local primaries and walked the kids down. That worked quite well, but it only worked if there were enough children in a particular school to justify it. I cannot remember ever meeting a child minder at the school gate doing school pick ups, but there were some informal arrnagements between some parents where they looked after each others children. (and I did that too, I used to take a child to school whose mum had to leave early for work)

Covid has put a stop to quite a few of these and they have not restarted. Partly I think because people now have more flexible working, so are able to do school pick ups.

There is not a demand for them.
Most families at our primary still had either a SAHP or a grandparent who collected. In fact I would say 50% of people at the school gate were grandparents. This is a town where people tend to stay, so many people grew up here and are still here, hence the large amount of local family support.

When I read about schools with good wrap around care it actually surprises me that it is there, and expected and happens consistently enough for working parents, as it is so outside of my experience with schools here.

Wow, have you read any of the thread?

She doesnt have the emotional or intellectual capacity to keep her house to a standard that would suggest she is able to clean for other people to a standard they would expect. She is probably just about meeting her own child's needs by way of external supports in place like early help or childrens centres etc

She has had children removed from her care, dont you think that schools/after school clubs would do safeguarding checks to determine whether future employees would be suitable for that work, similarly with care if she is doing work with vulnerable adults, she would have to complete DBS checks etc for both these groups

Not a clue

We would all be in a better position if we had no children. They turn our lives upside down. But hey - let's deny the privilege of children to those who are disadvantaged. They should jolly well just do without, and leave the child-rearing to those of us who have more advantages in life.

I get your point you are trying to make, but your post sounds really judgemental.

Holy shit @Itsallok Where is your head? That is one of the most clueless posts I’ve ever read on here.

There's nothing wrong with saying this. I said in one of my earlier posts that she needs to be on contraception. Having another child would be a bad idea. I'm not saying she should be forcibly sterilised. At the end of the day, it's her body and if she had another child, so be it. I can still think it would be a lousy idea.

Just to reassure those who think it is any of their business 🙄
Yes she is on secure contraception.

Actually I am quite pissed off that people think they can make comments about her being on contraception.

I know of another lady. She has 5 kids, the youngest 3 kids VERY close together in age and is struggling a bit.
I am sure mn would be jumping all over her for having too many kids.
But the reason she has those younger 3 is that she was in an abusive relationship with someone who wouldn't use contraception and would not allow her to use any.

There is often so much we don't know about people's lives.
But hey let's judge and victim blame.

Op I get what you are saying about being surprised at difference re cc

Here demand is very high, many more two working parents and much lower parental help due to relocation away from home

Could you say has she worked before? Is that part of the reason the benefits are tied to getting work, because previously she did work?

People having multiple kids when they clearly cant support them is just not a good idea

You're right, it's not. This view never goes down very well on here, but that doesn't change the truth - especially in a case when two children have already been removed from the mum's care

You'd hope people would focus more on the childrens' needs and futures than on the mum being "denied privileges", but sadly it often doesn't happen that way

At my daughters primary lots of the kids would be picked up by grandparents and even great grandparents. Lots of the families are related so there are also lots of aunts/uncles about. A lot of them would be picked up by both parents as neither worked.
MN really is a bubble. Numerous parents in DDs primary supplement their income by shoplifting.

I do know a parent in a similar position. She is unable to keep her house clean and tidy herself. She wasn’t always even spell her own name correctly, couldn’t fill out a contact form for school. She’s being doing remedial English classes since DDs were babies (they’re teenagers now) and she’s starting to get somewhere. It’s a long rough road and the system isn’t there to support them properly.

I don;t think she has ever really worked.
I don't want to give any more of her story or history really.

I wrote this thread because I felt for her in her frustration.
It seems that the structural issues around child care etc are so hard to overcome.

And I really agree with the posters who said in the 'old days' there were a lot more straight forward factory type jobs which would have suited people in her position. I am not sure what happened with childcare then though.

well , lets be thankful she has you in her life, shows that society hasn't completely broken down
It's so hard just surviving sometimes

Believe me I do know and that it what makes it so sad to me. Some people are on the back foot due to race, upbringing, intelligence a whole lot of factors and it feels awful for some feeling like you are in a race you can never catch up on.

The world is only getting more competitive with is all competing for limited resources. Having parents who can advocate for you and care about your learning is such a big advantage.

I am not sure what happened with childcare then though.

A lot of the time nothing formal. My parents both worked, I was the youngest of 7. Older siblings were expected to watch babies even though they'd be primary age, if you were 5 upwards you'd go to and from school with a sibling or a neighbour child or just yourself. You'd be at home yourself sometimes from a young age. Neighbours would keep an general eye. Summer holidays we'd just go on "adventures" with siblings or friends or take ourselves to the swimming pool as it was cheap or walk into the city and go to the free museums. Different times. Depending on where she was working, my DM sometimes took me to work with her but I was a very well behaved child.