That cutting benefits to widow/ers with young children by over twenty thousand pounds is heartless and cruel?

[Somerville]

My DH was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013 and died in 2014. During both the period he was ill, and immediately afterwards, it was extremely difficult for me to continue working. A well as caring for him and then dealing with the huge administrative burden, I have children for whom continuing to attend school every day and 'cope' with normal life was impossible. Alongside all that I had to somehow try to find a way to live with my own grief. And then get out and learn a living - as a freelancer I'd have had no income at all unless I continued to work.

The bereavement benefits I received helped me immeasurably.

• I got a bereavement payment of £2000 which helped cover the immediate few months after his death when I could barely get dressed - let alone work.

• I also got a monthly amount of widowed parents allowance - about £450. (Non means tested but taxable, meaning that as my earnings increased I returned some of this to the government through my tax bill. However, I knew the safety net was there when my earnings dropped again - as indeed they did at one point when one of my children could only manage half days at school.)

I've remarried so no longer qualify - fair enough - but if hadn't I'd have received this until my youngest child left school.

However, the support available for parents who are experience the devastation of becoming widowed after April 1st this year is changing.

• £3,500 immediately.
• £100 per month for the next 18 months.

That's it.

Research by the Childhood Bereavement Network (CBN) suggests 91% of widowed parents will be supported for a shorter period of time than they would under the current system, which can pay out until the youngest child leaves school. It says the typical working family will lose out on more than £12,000, and expects a working parent with young children to lose even more – £23,500 on average. link here

Widowed parents are lone parents without any shared care with an ex partner. Without any maintenance payments from a former partner. And with bereaved, confused and devastated children.

How about it MN? Am I unreasonable to think this change is cruel? And if not, what can I do about it?

And thanks for all the posts and particularly those offering support or asking thought-proking questions. Sorry I haven't managed to reply to everything - I intuited to when I posted this but RL getting in the way, as ever.

But then one of my children caught sight of a tear-jerker advert raising money for a cancer charity and had a panic attack

Oh fucks sake. What is confusing about that?

User you are confused at a child having a panic attack after seeing an advert about the disease her father died from?

You're coming across as a complete cunt, is that your intent?

*interntion

Fuck I'm so cross I can't spell!

Somerville I would highly recommend not interacting with that poster.

I won't from now on. I'm trying to make my blocker work so I don't see their future posts. And thanks BakeOff.

You're welcome Somerville. Hope your DD is ok.x

U2 I was just reading your earlier post, which I missed before, apologies. I knew you were also widowed but didn't realise before that also to NHL.

With respect, OP, I get the user's confusion, it sort of came out of nowhere and frankly, I found it a rather gratuitous and manipulative attempt on your part to reinforce your arguments about bereavement trauma in children. A tad hypocritical too to slam the tear-jerking in an advert when you resort to heartstring-tugging on your own account.

I am sorry for your loss and I do sympathise with bereaved families who find themselves in a financial hole due to bereavement but I'm not convinced that ongoing non-means tested financial support after an initial 18 months or so for such families is necessary and any more than for any other sole parent household. It was originally intended to support traditional sahms who were totally dependent on the earnings of the late spouse and had few or no prospects of employment outside the home. I do however see the need for ongoing emotional support and counselling though.

Fucks sake.

User : you appear to be a teacher. And possibly , from some of your comments, in some kind of pastoral responsibility.

Oh. My. God.

My lovely best friend ( a teacher) ahs just lost her husband to lung cancer - from diagnosis to death in a matter of weeks. I have never seen a person so vibrant so destroyed.

I have children under my pastoral care destroyed in a huge range of ways by the death of grandparents, let alone a parent. And MH services are stretched beyond capacity to help them.

Jesus wept.

Ongoing emotional support and counselling is one of the many many services being cut, Being!!!!.

Unless you pay privately with your ongoing widow/er's benefit. Oh wait...

Sorry, haven't rtft but in response to the 'can we afford to fund this' debate...

We've just given £100m to Turkey to buy fighter jets for their army. Of we can afford these payments, it's a political decision not an economic one.

pyangyang Yes, that's why I said I support it - my point, which I failed to make clear enough, being that it should be freely and unequivocally available for as long as needed.

These things do come out of nowhere. I was driving down a road days after nubbins death. ( 2 weeks before mothers Day) and I saw a sign saying "treat your mum for mothers day." Tears were streaming down my face yet seconds earlier z was holding it together.
Op sorry for your loss. It's lovely the way you are sticking up for people who in the future will have to face being widowed with much less support from the government.
The poor deceased person misses out on a state pension and the widow/ers receives less support too. Win win for the government.

My mums got changed to nubbins.

Of course a widower is worse of financially than a lone parent who relationship has broken down.
The grief could affect ability to earn massively. Jail and separation are choices they are not comparable.
I do think women whose relationships have broken down should be better supported but that's a separate issue.
This government is very cruel. We have life insurance if my dh was to die. I am uninsurable foto my disability and many health conditions.

Whilst I appreciate that being widowed is terrible, why is it more worthy of benefits until your children leave school compared to children (thankfully not mine) who grow up seeing one of their parents abused and being abused themselves who then end up in a single parent household?

OP, I am not reading further than the second page of this. I have also benefited from the current widowed parent allowance. I earn a good salary but it is still only one salary after being used to having two. Comparisons to other reasons for lone parenting are not helpful as there has been no choice in the matter, often no warning period and the emotional fallout is huge. I'm afraid some cosy mumsnetters on here have their heads too far up their own behinds to have any empathy and seem to expect that a reasonably comfortable family life is fine to turn overnight into a life of lone parenthood and benefits - like some kind of reverse fairytale. As if life insurance covers the lost income of potentially 18 years, as if scraping along on benefits is just what children need when they have lost forever one of their key careproviders, influences and sources of love. Nest of vipers, indeed!

And that's if the Life Insurance even pays out.

Andnow Jail and separation are choices? Who chooses to have their partner go to jail? And in cases of abandonment, the remaining parent didn't choose separation either. And what about the children of these relationships? What choice do they have? That's a bloody offensively reductive argument not to mention ridiculous.