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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

jack monroe

84 replies

ihatemincepies · 04/12/2013 20:46

Ok. Going to start a huge bun fight but here we go. Why the heck did Jack Monroe quite a good job then moan about being poor!! Read an article she wrote where she said she had given her ex partner their son on Christmas day because she was to poor to give him a good crimbo!! I could never do that!! Please enlighten me.

OP posts:

perfectstorm · 04/12/2013 21:07

You can't understand someone putting their baby's most basic welfare ahead of their job?

Erm. Not sure what to say to that.

PenguinsDontEatPancakes · 04/12/2013 21:07

You are sounding really rather daft now OP.

You say you'd never leave a job in this climate without one to go to. What exactly would you do - take the child to work with you? Leave it home alone in the flat? Leave it on someone's doorstep?

No childcare and a single parent + employer who won't help you work in a way that allows for childcare = no choice about leaving the job.

VworpVworp · 04/12/2013 21:07

ihatemincepies- perhaps you should set up childcare that operates 24/7 then, because plenty of lone parents cannot work shift patterns

It can be difficult enough for families where both parents are nhs/medics, let alone 1 parent.

She did not choose that situation, that is simply the one she found herself in.

I do wish they could teach empathy, because some people so clearly need lessons.

perfectstorm · 04/12/2013 21:08

Cross-posted, sorry.

OddFodd · 04/12/2013 21:08

Ah super - another single mother bashing thread, just in time for Christmas!

Until you've actually tried being a single parent with no family support, I'd suggest you STFU. Thanks

Mignonette · 04/12/2013 21:08

Read her fucking blog then come back. Well don't as you'll have the answers to your question, Mr Littlejohn.

Fairylea · 04/12/2013 21:08

What would you do if you had no childcare? If the only job you had or could get meant either there was simply no childcare available or the childcare that was available was inadequate?

Would you rather people left their dc with awful childcare options or at home alone just to keep a job?

The benefits system is there to protect the most vulnerable in society.

OddFodd · 04/12/2013 21:09

Ah - see you've understood now. Perhaps you should think/research a bit first before starting a thread in future

Mignonette · 04/12/2013 21:10

Well Richard LittleJohn (that surely has got to be a fake name surely- Dick Litteldick) didn't do any research before he wrote his slanderous 'column' either.

Original poster

ihatemincepies · 04/12/2013 21:12

I am a single mum to three kids

OP posts:

Vatta · 04/12/2013 21:12

OP, when you say you wouldn't have quit a good job, can you spell out what exactly you WOULD have done?

Left the baby home alone? Given him over to social services to raise? Spent so much on childcare there was no financial point working? Moved in with the first person you met? Or is there some other solution that only you and Richard littlejohn have thought of?

Original poster

ihatemincepies · 04/12/2013 21:13

Odd food. That's what threads are for!! For informative info on an "Adult" site!

OP posts:

Vatta · 04/12/2013 21:14

Cross posted sorry, I see you have now learnt a bit more about jacks situation.

SlightlyDampWellies · 04/12/2013 21:16

Okay. I have never been on a JM thread, but am a subscriber to her blog, which I love. :)

I am married. DH works from home. I used to work out of the house, but had a bit of flexibility to work from home, and even I could not make that work with childcare and the costs of it, so ended up dumping my job.

I in theory had the perfect home life. The fairly good finances in place. The perfect Dh and the perfect job, and I could not make it fucking work.

Mignonette · 04/12/2013 21:18

Jack has replied to my tweets many times, has come onto a Local Mumsnet site, responds to many of her readers and is a compassionate, erudite and thoroughly decent human being. I think she truly is a Woman of Substance. I am straight but i so would ...

PenguinsDontEatPancakes · 04/12/2013 21:19

This was a genuine question, yet you prefaced it with the statement that you knew you were going to start a bunfight and apparently have never posted elsewhere with this user name?

I put it to you that a genuine question would be more like:

I read an article by Jack Monroe where she wrote where she said she had given her ex partner their son on Christmas day because she was too poor to give him a good crimbo!! I thought she'd had a good job before she had her son. How did she end up in that situation?"

See the difference?

And, you know, you could Google Jack Monroe as a starting point before asking. It's pretty easy.

MyMILisfromHELL · 04/12/2013 21:23

Jack Monroe left her job because she couldn't afford the cost of childcare and could not arrange childcare around her shifts. Read the blog please, before spouting off nonsense!

MyMILisfromHELL · 04/12/2013 21:24

ihatemincepies I'm intrigued. I take it you are working. How do you afford to pay for childcare for your children?

MotherofthreeDragons · 04/12/2013 21:25

she said she had given her ex partner their son on Christmas day because she was to poor to give him a good crimbo!! I could never do that!!
Um, because she cared more about her sons day than her own, if I couldn't provided my DC with a happy Christmas, I would do the same, forgoing my own Christmas.

JM and her blog has gotten me through the hardest 6 months of my life, she is a hard working, decent woman and if you are on MN, thank you

perfectstorm · 04/12/2013 21:30

Someone once messaged her to say their benefits had screwed up and would take a week to sort, and she had literally nothing to eat other than what was in her cupboards/freezer. Jack asked for a list of what that was, then created a series of recipes that enabled this woman to eat (and well) for that week. She did it unpaid, on her own blog only, and just to help out someone in a the same hole she'd once been in herself.

She's good people, as they say in the States.

GogoGobo · 04/12/2013 21:32

What a horrible thread to start. "I could never do that" do what? What exactly do you think Jack Monroe has done OP?

NorksAreMessy · 04/12/2013 21:39

Blatherskite · 04/12/2013 21:41

What exactly would you have done then op?

RagamuffinAndFidget · 04/12/2013 21:41

Oh FFS, what a nasty thread to start OP. As has already been said, Jack Monroe is a member on here and obviously sees the things people write about her because she has replied to posts previously.

What's your problem exactly OP? Did Jack (who seems like a lovely person btw) not try quite hard enough to suit you? Was a suicide attempt not quite enough evidence of how bad her situation was and how utterly depressed she must have been? Should she have just stuck her DS in his cot with a bottle and some biscuits and gone to work for the day/night? If she could not work another day due to her mental state/lack of childcare/no dice hours then how was she supposed to stick it out until she found something else?

Even though Jack Monroe is now fairly successful she is still a human being. Did you stop to think how a thread like this might make her feel?

RagamuffinAndFidget · 04/12/2013 21:43

dice = fixed

FFS, poxy Kindle..

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