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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be negative about choosing single parenthood?

216 replies

Dixy30 · 15/12/2013 21:47

Hello

Think I am here.

Saw a good friend today who has another friend I know pretty well for about 10yr but am not an independent friend of and lives elsewhere.

Anyway this friend is 30 brought up by single mum & has hada douche boyfriend who already has other kids for a few years.

He always said u get pregnant, i end it and u never see me again.

So friend is now pregnant (was an accident not sure of details)& he is true to his word and gone. She is saying this may be last chance at parenthood (she is 30) and will live with her mum who will help.

I would never say this to the actual woman but I was very negative when I heard this. About the man too. This person is going to have such a tough time doing it alone I just feel so sorry for her eg will get virtually no maternity leave, is totally reliable on her mum etc.

What would other people do? I don't think I would have been able to have a relationship with this man from day 1 given his attitude.

Hmm
OP posts:
stubbornstains · 19/12/2013 13:15

I don't think that's true askbasil. If a man is not married to the mother of his child, he would have to accompany her to the register office to get on the BC. But all non resident fathers are liable (in theory) to pay maintenance for their children. If a man claims that the child in question is not his, the CSA are happy to arrange a DNA test for him.

IneedAsockamnesty · 19/12/2013 13:46

Stubborn is correct PR has nothing to do with maintainance

AskBasilAboutCranberrySauce · 19/12/2013 17:18

Yes, sorry, what I mean is the question won't arise as she's having nothing to do with him.

Except if she claims benefits of course, at which point, the state suddenly decides maintenance is a Good Thing. If she doesn't, the state isn't remotely interested in enforcing maintenance payments.

OddFodd · 19/12/2013 17:27

I don't remember reading that blog post before Basil - it's excellent Smile

Elfhame · 19/12/2013 17:37

I enjoyed basils post too.

The bit about financial abuse resonated with me - I was better off on benefits than with my ex, who was an alcoholic and pissed all our money away.

I'm another one who doesn't want a relationship. It would turn my life, and more importantly, my kids lives upside down. Plus, I like my freedom.

mumandboys123 · 19/12/2013 19:24

there is no longer a link between maintenance and benefits and single mums have no obligation to declare paternity and open a case with the CSA if they are on benefits. It has been this way for several years now.

OddFodd · 19/12/2013 19:49

mumandboys - when I (briefly) claimed IS a few years' back, I had a woman from the CSA call me up and badger me for the name of DS's father. When I refused to tell her, she laughed that he must have been a drunken one night stand.

In retrospect, I should have reported her - the way she treated me was appalling.

AskBasilAboutCranberrySauce · 19/12/2013 19:51

Do they not demand that you fill in a CSA form anymore then Mumandboys?

They used to badger women to do that. I didn't know they'd stopped, do you know what the thinking was behind that?

OddFodd · 19/12/2013 19:51

I'm a single mother by choice incidentally - but I just didn't think that was any of her business

IneedAsockamnesty · 19/12/2013 22:50

They haven't for a few years,its because pwc's were having money taken from benefit then a huge amount of nrp's weren't paying so it was casing massive problems.

mumandboys123 · 20/12/2013 08:17

basilcranberrysauce I don't know what the official line on it was, only that ultimately, the benefit system cannot keep up with all the changes with maintenance so it became non-compulsory to claim through the CSA because maintenance no longer counted as income for means-tested benefits purposes.

I also think that a clever NRP who was set on making life hard for the PWC could do that by paying and with-holding maintenance on a willy-nilly basis. Many PWC (I would guess 'most' at 51% or more but I could be wrong) receive some kind of benefit and/or tax credit and the system is just too slow and cumbersome to continually calculate what you're owed according to what your ex has/hasn't paid. My understanding is that PWC were going without benefits for weeks at a time which, obviously, has a massive impact on the children and their well-being.

Possibly there is also an element of the modern world catching up with us - that people can choose to have children without a relationship and not every biological father should be made to pay for his children according to agreements made between biological parents. And of course, not every PWC wants the hassle that can go with maintenance payments including violence and other forms of abuse. And not forgetting there are those NRPs who pay maintenance without any need for any kind of 'official' intervention by the CSA or other agency! (I think we often forget they exist but they do!)

Whilst I am a single parent, I am one who didn't choose it. Rather, it was forced upon me by my now ex-husband walking out for another woman. It makes depressing reading that even in today's world, we are always seen as the lowest of the low and no matter how well we bring up our children or how hard or how long we work, it is never enough for so many people. Why we're not just 'parents' doing the best we can, like every other parent out there, I'll never know.

AskBasilAboutCranberrySauce · 20/12/2013 08:37

"Why we're not just 'parents' doing the best we can, like every other parent out there, I'll never know."

I think I do. Wink

Government, the media, society as a whole, has a huge vested interest in upholding marriage (or at least a man and woman living together in the same house). The idea that women can live without men in their homes and actually succeed in raising happy, functional children while being happy themselves, is horrifying to many people. It's actually threatening to the status quo. If women understood that they have a genuine choice about single parenthood, that it isn't necessarily a punishment inflicted on them for not being a satisfactory enough wife but can be an active, positive choice and they decided en masse that rather than share their space with men who may not be satisfactory housemates they would choose to live without men in their homes, then men as a group, would have to behave an awful lot better than they do if they wanted to continue to live with women (and they do). And er, that's a bit of a stumbling block.

Hence the constant propaganda that single parenthood is a terrible thing when all the data shows perfectly clearly that in of itself, it is no better and no worse than living with the father of the children. If men can persuade women that single parenthood is a terrible choice, then women will put up with an awful lot of shit in their homes, before choosing single parenthood. That's why we hear such a lot of negativity about it - it's crucial in persuading women that they have to put up with crap from men.

AfricanExport · 20/12/2013 08:55

I come from a single parent family and there is no way on earth I would ever have had a child in that situation .... and I know this as I had to make the decision to give a baby up for adoption so its not a case of if you had been in that situation...

I think it is unfair on children to knowingly put them into a situation where they do not have two parents, and incredibly selfish. ...

but we all view the world differently Smile

EmmelineGoulden · 20/12/2013 09:22

The trouble is that children cost a lot to bring up - not just in terms of what you spend, but also in terms of the impact on your ability to earn if you are the pwc. The state steps in and subsidizes to an extent, but only at a basic level. For many people in single parent households, it is only because the state steps in that they can manage without a second adult. While poverty hurts two parent families as well, it is to a much lesser extent because the resiliance of having two potential wage earners, and the lower need for childcare, has a significant impact.

This is, in effect, a massive transfer of wealth from women, children and the state to nrps who don't pay maintenance. That is a bigger reason for the state to want to see children brought up in two parent families. I don't disagree that there is a cultural acceptence of poor behaviour by partners that the state doesn't challenge, but the real reasons for the state pushing for marriage is economic.

teacherandguideleader · 20/12/2013 09:33

I was brought up by a single mum. To be honest it is probably better for the child if the father isn't around than if he was and didn't care about her (like my father). I don't feel I missed out as my mum is amazing, but I wish he hadn't been around to screw my head up.

I'm 30 and if I got pregnant in those circumstances I would probably think it could be my last chance. Ok, women have babies much later but when you factor in the time to meet someone, build a relationship etc that time quickly disappears!

AskBasilAboutCranberrySauce · 20/12/2013 11:25

"I think it is unfair on children to knowingly put them into a situation where they do not have two parents, and incredibly selfish. ...

but we all view the world differently Smile"

Yes we do.

I think it is kneejerk and not very considered to argue that it is unfair on children to knowingly put them in a situation where they do not have two parents when there has just been a whole load of discussion about how outcomes are the same whether you have one or two parents, because it looks as though you haven't read any of the arguments or if you have you've just ignored them in favour of unexplained gut-feel knee-jerkism, but hey, we all view the world differently. Smile

Wallison · 20/12/2013 11:56

AskBasil, I am applauding your posts and love your attitude. I am also horrified at the underlying assumption behind some others' posts that it is somehow a woman's duty to have an abortion just because the father of her baby is a dead-beat. That to me is not what having the right to choose is all about.

Signed: a happy single parent, with no man on the horizon and no intention of there being one.

AskBasilAboutCranberrySauce · 20/12/2013 12:00

Smile Wallison.

I think it's unfair to put children in a position where they're going to have 2 dysfunctional parents instead of just one.

I used to wish my parents would divorce, because then at least I'd only have 1 abusive parent instead of 2. Half the pain and all that. Grin

Wallison · 20/12/2013 12:06

Oh AskBasil, I'm glad that you can smile about that now, but that must have been very hard for you as a child.

AskBasilAboutCranberrySauce · 20/12/2013 12:14

Well yes at the time it was, but of course it was normal for me. It was my norm.

Children go with what the norm is.

My DD has never lived with her father and my DS hasn't since he was 2 so doesn't remember it. Neither of them "miss" their dad being there, because he never was. It's just normal to not have him around.

The problems that are caused in lone parent families are not necessarily caused by the family dynamics; they are caused by external forces such as poverty and the stigma society is still determined to inflict on them irrespective of what the data say.

LightsPlease · 20/12/2013 12:18

What about the children not having a father and how that impacts them. No one has mentioned that. I find it incredibly selfish.

MidniteScribbler · 20/12/2013 12:21

it is only because the state steps in that they can manage without a second adult.

This is, quite honestly, a load of crap. People who are having children as a means of living off benefits are very few and far between. There are many single parent families out there that are doing just fine, and they're getting on with it and not expecting anyone else to pay the bills.

Wallison · 20/12/2013 12:21

I agree with that (that the problems are external). And actually those problems would melt away if we weren't living in a society with such an insanely high cost of living coupled with it being a low-wage economy. I mean, one wage was sufficient to feed and house a family back in the 70s. That is of course a problem for everyone, not just single parents, but it impacts on single parents more because they will only ever have one wage.

Wallison · 20/12/2013 12:22

Tell that to the father then, because it's him who has walked out on his child. Don't blame the woman.

MidniteScribbler · 20/12/2013 12:27

What about the children not having a father and how that impacts them. No one has mentioned that. I find it incredibly selfish.

What about children who live in families where a parent works 12+ hours a day?
What about children who live in families where a parent is in the armed forces and is away from home for months at at time?
What about children raised in a family where a parent has drug or alcohol problems?
What about children raised in a family that live in a caravan?

What about, what about, what about?

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