to think that there are people who choose to live a life on benefits?

[autumnlights12]

the recent threads about George Osbourne made me wonder..
A high number of posters say that people don't choose to live like that, they stumble into it, hate it, what a miserable existence it is, nobody would ever choose it etc..
but if you have two or three children through choice, whilst at the same time having no job to provide for them, or if you turn down the job at the local factory (as I know someone who did) because it pays £7.50 an hour and a full time job there doesn't give you the same unemployment rights and benefits, isn't that choosing to live a life on benefits? Or being trapped on benefits? I'm not talking about people who can't work, disabled people, ill people, women dumped by feckless ex and left to fend for herself etc.. of course they should be protected.
I was watching 999 What's Your Emergency and I know that area. And I know people like that exist. And it's often a second, third generation who have never worked a day in their life, even during times when work was freely available. In the town I live, we have numerous Eastern European immigrants who all seem to be working, but mostly in low paid work the locals wont do
What say you?

Yes I think so too, MrsDeVere. It's one of the things that's frightened me for a few years now.

There's so little support for each of the three main parties that no one won the election. Yet those parties are relying on a Hobson's choice, as if they'll always be the only game in town.

The situation is ripe for a new party to come from nowhere promising all sorts of goodies to people who are increasingly desperate. They don't have to be realistic goodies - the promise will be enough. And the new party won't (yet) be contaminated with the lies and failures of those with track records.

Add to that the suffering and instability in our European neighbours and I'm really quite scared. A nice little external conflict is so uniting when you need to distract from the shit at home.

Greece is already well down this horribly familiar path.

I am about to become a sahm and I claim carers allowance because I care for my severely disabled teenage daughter. I have got to the point where I cannot cope with working anymore as it seriously affects my health. I couldn't care less what any of you right wing posters think of me tbh. I put far more into society than i take out. It would cost the taxpayer and the economy an absolute fortune of I amd the army of carers that exist were to throw their hands up in the air and give their children/partners and parents over to the state to care

wannabee i have a moses basket and sheets/blankets/stand it was a brand new gift when i had my youngest but has only been used for about 5 hours in total,if your anywhere near me you are welcome to have it as a gift and as long as you arnt to far away i could bring it to you.

can't take a poster with 'communism' in their username seriously at all

Im in Northern Ireland sock, so probably too far. Thankyou for your kind offer though :)

glad that many people can see exactly where I'm coming from and not surprised that some chose to deliberately misunderstand what I wrote and made all kinds of silly,petty assumptions based entirely on their cartoon cutout impression of baby eating Tories.

oh im on the mainland thats a shame.

Coming back to this after the discussion has moved on a bit, but I am stunned that anyone would think that any person has a "right" to be a stay at home parent. I absolutely do not see that any of us has that right. It has never been a right & it should not be. It may be an affordable choice for some. However, I do not believe that every parent has the right to sit around at home for 6 hours a day, paid for by the state, while their child is at school for 13 years.

Is that really what you are suggesting morthanpotatoprints?

Sickening, isn't it Bugsy?

And then these people wonder why there is support for the benefit cap.

I know. A right to stay at home while I go out to work away from my children to pay for them to do that. Grr.

It's actually pretty obvious why there is support for the benefit cap. Is not the Daily Mail the most popular UK newspaper? Does the DM not frequently spout anti-single mother, anti-disabled, anti-carer b.s?

People support the benefit cap because they would rather believe somebody's highly dubious anecdote about their best friends cousins, uncles wife than they would the cool hard facts.

It's thanks to people like this that attacks on disabled people have massively increased. Great going girls, you do the nation proud!

My sister is a benefits scrounger... always has been -

I never know what to say to her - she now has 5 children - 3 under age of 6 - living with an unemployed partner (though the word partner indicates a permanence that does not exist ....sadly)

She has never had employment - I can't say has never worked because as a mum of 5 I know she works bloody hard (but she is now nearly 40 and never had a job!) , lives in a council house and does HONESTLY thinks the world owes her a living...

I love her to bits, but I do find it hard when we are working hard to pay the mortgage, stopping at 2 kids, because that is what we can reasonably support without any hardship. I guess I envy parts of her life and she envies me pats of mine...

A benefits cap would hit her hard, would make her rile at the "unfairness of it all" but would ultimately make her think about her choice of lifestyle (though it would, in her case, come a bit too late for any effect) . She would never voluntarily go out to work for a living - she is one of those the Tories are trying to give a wake up call to and I just can't see an answer...

I don't know, I don't read the Daily Mail. My news information comes mostly from the BBC, either on television or the app. I'm also able to form my own opinions no matter what I read, I was blessed with the power of thought, which enables me to decide if something I read is bullshit.

I support the benefit cap because I believe (from my own experience) that there are too many people who choose a lifestyle that they expect other people to fund because of their misguided belief that they are entitled. There are people on this thread that prove my point, and are actually proud of it. That speaks for itself.

Some denialist will be along soon to tell you it's not true and you're lying, BytheWay. Count on it. Because apparently it never happens. That is my first ever !

Ho ho at blessed with the power of thought.

Oooh, Brycie! Your first ! I love a well placed !

"It's thanks to people like this that attacks on disabled people have massively increased"

Actually it's thanks to the abusers and the people that deny and condone them. People are fed up with it. Direct your ire elsewhere.

I'm addicted to this thread. I have to go to the post office. I spelt zeitgeist wrong about six times before.

Smellslike, I'm a single mum & I don't read the Daily Fail - can't stand it. I'm still stunned that anyone thinks they have a right to solely rear their children at the expense of everyone else if needs be!
I'm not hardline & I think as a society we have a responsibility to ensure the care of those who cannot care for themselves. I'd like to see proper long-term consistent support for those who need it - but I don't hold with the "right" of anyone to be a SAHP.

PostBellam

I don't sit around for 6 hours, and as I am the mother of my children I don't expect to receive sudsidised child care so I can go to work and buy material goods.
Once again I will state that we all have the same choices in life and I believe my family are far better with me as a sahm. In addition why should I go to work and pay tax to subsidise other parents childcare, pre school and school education that costs thousands. Now that would be unfair, if you can't afford your childcare tough, why should others subsidise it?

Why should I subsidise you to stay at home? Why? Why should my poor kids do without me so that yours don't have to do without you?

furious. Post office.

It isn't though, it's the people who support the cuts too. The vast majority of people have absolutely no idea how physically, mentally and emotionally draining it is being a carer and yet these people are the ones having their services cut first. Do you think they have the energy to fight those decisions? I haven't. I have been pushed to a point where a lack of appropriate care services and a cut in our care package, which I still maintain is illegal, has driven me to giving up my job. I doubt I am alone. You don't need to suck your teeth though as I am financially supported by my husband - but if I were not I would have to be reliant on benefits but I believe the cuts to services (maybe not not welfare) are making more people reliant on welfare as they are no longer able to work.

I know it's difficult to understand if it doesn't affect you, but a lot of these cuts are flawed and making life even more difficult for those who are already finding it so

Your family is only better with you as a SAHM because of the over generous benefits system that allowed you to have children you can't afford, and the fact that other people go out to work to fund it for you.