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.

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.

Many workplaces used to have a nursery, with staff paid for by the factory. (That was pre Thatcher, when there used to be luncheon vouchers and a canteen, and a tea trolley would do the rounds during the day. It was a different culture altogether.)

There are still tax exemptions in place to enable workplace childcare;
www.gov.uk/expenses-and-benefits-childcare/whats-exempt

Another big difference I remember that strikes a chord is women at home.
I'm not saying they should be at home or it should be women necessarily.
You often had one wage supporting a family or one and a half.
For my parents we had one and a half, we also had Granny to childcare because Grandad could support both and an Aunt who was a stay at home parent who did school pick ups.
I think the value of that is overlooked so much. To be a productive member of society now you need to be earning money. We've forgotten all the benefits non wage earners have to the functioning of society.

@MayorDusty great point about value of non wage earners in that context. Growing up we had my mum at home, grandma around the corner who helped out with childcare when mum decided she wanted to get a part time job. Mum had friends and they all helped each other with childcare because most were sahms- in terms of simple cost saving that's thousands (2x kids, £10000 a year for nursery- that's my cost today, I have no idea what that was 20+ years ago!- from say 1-4, then wrap around after that to the end of primary)

However, I think where that falls down is where the 'non wage earner' is disadvantaged because of their status. It does seem to affect women more than men, you see it often on MN where a woman has given up her career and ends up dependant on the wage earner (man) and struggles to leave when it becomes abusive/is left penniless when he leaves, struggles to get back into work when their dc have grown, or that single wage isn't enough and the whole family suffers because wages have stagnated while costs are rising at horrific rates.

Or in this case, a vulnerable woman being penalised and having the benefits she depends on to just about survive reduced because there is no adequate support for complex needs- because there is no money for those services even if those services were funded, realistically what could they do to help the lady the OP is talking about?

Plus employers and schools haven't kept up with changing lives and increasing costs, we have a system that still assumes a family can survive on a single wage and that every child has a parent who can drop off and collect them from school and still hold down a job that pays enough to live on.

We aren't going to see real change until the people in charge have some basic understanding of the reality that most of us live in, and I can't see that happening any time soon.

I am very interested in when, how and why this changed. May I ask how old you are ?

Our school has wrap around care available, but during the holidays it's a case of trying to find holiday clubs ( not many around ) or relatives / child minders , which isn't always easy to afford or find for 13 weeks a year including bank holidays and inset days.
The only people i know who could afford to work full time had relatives on their doorstep who could do it all for free, but this was in the 90s! The school clubs are good, but not that cheap.
I'm mid 50s and my mum never left us home alone , but some of my peers were latch key children from about 11 onwards or went to their grandparents after school if mum worked , but it wasn't that common really.

@bellac11

I only read the OP and responded I didn't RTFT

@Hastingsontheup - when I was at primary school (late 1970s) DM didn't work and nor did any of the other mothers. However in the holidays a tribe of us would wander off to the abandoned quarries in the area and play out all day. DM and her friends had no idea where we were or that we were running up and down the steep quarry banks all day etc etc. I'm still amazed at how none of us broke our necks. Talking to DF who was evacuated in the war he and his friends ran up and down the slag heaps (even more dangerous) and no one turned hair.

I think that there are two issues with the change in the way things work today. Firstly that mortages changed to take two salaries into account which meant house prices rose to what 2 salaries would pay for so both parents needed to work. (And the grandparetal generation that benefitted from the equity chose to spend it on cruises etc rahter than staying round the corner and helping with childcare.) Secondly, the bar on what is considered to be good childcare (or at least non negligent childcare) has been massively raised. I can imagine that social serivces would be round if I'd given my DC the level of benign neglect I benefitted from - in particular as a pastoral lead at DCs school suggested that I was negligent for allowing an 11 year old in year 7 (armed with a mobile phone) to get the tube home from school....

I wouldn't rule out kitchen assistant in a school. I did it 2019/2020. No interview, just details taken and dbs done (they paid). I was a relief so worked across about 6 schools, I could work every day if I chose to. It was washing and putting away pots, cleaning surfaces, setting tables up, mopping floors and ladling food. It was 1030/11-130/230 depending on school. No training at all.

@wotwududo I was a school kitchen assistant post-A levels and worked alongside women with learning difficulties and low IQs who had been in the roles for decades. They were well suited to it. I'd say this is the role for her to aim for.

@BoDerek Nothing at all ignorant or judgmental in what I said. I said it's her body, her choice if she has children. I don't want contraception forced on her if she doesn't want it. I'm just saying that the sensible thing would be not to have more children if you're already struggling. That advice goes for everyone. If you're struggling to manage, more kids is a terrible idea.

if a middle class mum comes on these boards to say she wants more children, everyone thinks it fine to lecture her about the environmental impact.

To be fair op does seem to be saying that the woman involved is so disabled that she can’t do any job at all.

I’m not convinced you understand the meaning of judgmental (despite being very judgmental)
it isn’t a positive quality, and says a lot more about you than anyone else.

I can imagine that social serivces would be round if I'd given my DC the level of benign neglect I benefitted from - in particular as a pastoral lead at DCs school suggested that I was negligent for allowing an 11 year old in year 7 (armed with a mobile phone) to get the tube home from school....

Why so? It’s commonplace for dc to get public transport once they’re at secondary school, surely?

I'm not convinced you understand the meaning of judgmental (despite being very judgmental)
it isn’t a positive quality, and says a lot more about you than anyone else

And you can't actually address the points I've made because you know it's right.

You can have an opinion on something whilst realising it still remains a personal choice.

So I will say she has a right to do what she wants with her body. I also hold the opinion that having another baby will be a huge mistake.

You are trying to be outraged by my opinion but you actually aren't because you know it's right.

The thing is we live in a civilized country and we have bodily autonomy. That is a good thing. If someone who is struggling continues to have child after child then we have to deal with that and support them. There's no other option. However, if you think it's a good idea that a single mum, who is illiterate, who can't organise herself, who can't keep her house clean and who has no childcare support has another baby then you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

It is clear to those of us with education and normal intelligence that it would be ideal if this woman had no more children - that is a given.

But there are many people who, like this lady, do not have the intellectual or organisational skills or ability to think ahead that is required to ensure that no more children are conceived.

I have worked as a social worker and I know it takes a while to absorb this fact, as logically we can see that this makes sense and it can be exasperating to work with this fact.

Ideally she should have had a perfect upbringing; ideally she should have been born with normal intellect; ideally services and support should have been available to help her, Sadly this is not the reality.

What she needs now is proper support - it is in all our interests that she, and those similarly disadvantaged, should have this - to include parenting skills, literacy help, gently helping her into the work environment over time (likely a long time), contraceptive advice (and support to obtain and use this), budgeting skills etc. She needs to feel valued - to feel worth society's effort.

What actually happens? - she is hassled and threatened with loss of benefits if she does not get a job, something which, without proper support, she cannot do. She simply does not posses the organisational skills and confidence required to sort out child care. She finds herself under stress that she is not able to deal with, to the detriment of her and her child's well-being.

If we wish to claim to be a civilized society then we have to find humanitarian ways of helping people like her. Sadly the punitive and judgmental nature of our government simply compounds the problems. Once upon a time we had Sure Start, whose task was to support people like her and help them to join the mainstream - we had local Family Centres, where parents learned skills to do their job well, and found support to navigate their way through all society's systems that we can deal with, but they struggle with.

Our government wants us to conform - to fit a mould - to be reasonable and capable. But life simply does not work that way. Are we happy for people like this lady to be judged and forced downwards, or would we rather see them receiving the help and support they need?

It is virtually impossible for us to walk in her shoes - we do not have her brain; we do not have her built-in disadvantages; we simply do not get it.

Excellent post. Absolutely this!

Brilliant post Mischance . I wish everyone could be made to read it and take it on board!

Good post @Mischance it's crazy how punishing people for being disadvantaged or just less capable is so popular.
The delight some take in making these situations worse and ensuring it's a never ending cycle is telling.
we claim to be civilised but look around, too many are jumping at any chance to have law of the jungle.

we don’t have to walk in her shoes to have a little compassion and decency. All it takes is to listen when people tell you they are struggling rather than talk over the top of them. Lordy I do despair by how mean so many people, who happen to be infinitely more privileged, kick those who are less fortunate.

we don’t have to walk in her shoes to have a little compassion and decency. All it takes is to listen when people tell you they are struggling rather than talk over the top of them. Lordy I do despair by how mean so many people, who happen to be infinitely more privileged, kick those who are less fortunate.

Indeed so - but sadly the society that we are faced with is run by the privileged and those who are out of touch and lack humanity and compassion - I do not know what we do about this.

I am not sure that our democratic system is able to change this. One can only hope.

We need for good people to get together and push for change.

And to diversify absolutely everything industry so that everyone’s voices can be heard.

And stop fawning over rich people. And demand respect and dignity for all.

@Mischance brilliant post 👏

Maybe op you need to step back and let someone else help this lady. You are very negative to a lot of suggestions maybe it boosts your ego to be ASSISTING someone like your client but you appear to be holding her back. Any help suggested you dismiss let her get help from someone who will genuinely want to help her you sound like you help her with obstacles. What is wrong with a pot wash job at lunch time what is wrong with getting UC for child care everything according to you. You sound horrible and controlling and not at all helpful to her