To ask why women financially dependent on men are viewed as morally superior to those dependent on the state?!

[Primarkismyonlyoption]

Just that really, my experience and something I see everywhere.
Having a baby on benefits? Irresponsible. Single mums? A drain on society raising kids without fathers who are growing up to be uncontrollable. A government document citing such women as raising the 'psychopaths of the future'. Women to blame for a cycle of poverty which never ends.
What scroungers. Lack of morals. Less so than married women whose husbands work. Why?
Why are women in relationships where men provide financially known as SAHMs but single mums are just that. Implying thay staying at home is only a morally acceptable choice if you have a partner. The single parents are pushed to find work by baby aged 2. Housework for them isnt seen as work at all but sitting on their arses all day.

Instead of the moral segregation of women based on their relationship status why can we not view their lives as equal in the case of any woman whom cannot be financially independent in their own right, and start to look at how more women can become independent of both men and the welfare state?
And to stop double standards as if mums hide what money they have in order to claim money for their kids they are done for benefit fraud.
If men do it by hiding capital in court for maintenence or divorce, the woman is still gets judged for having to live off benefits whilst men get off scot free and go on to impregnate more whomen whom may or may not stay together. Worse, imo, the judgement of women recieving welfare assistance is doubled if there are more than one father, the children are mixed race, the more children there are or the fact the woman dares to have a sexual relationship with another partner whom she cannot afford to live with because most men cannot or won't take financial responsibility for children who aren't theirs just because they love their mum. And why should they?
As it happens I had babies on benefits and have fucking grafted to get to where I am. I work equally hard as I did then but in a totally different way. Yet the difference in how I am treated is astounding.
AIBU to ask for your views on this and what can we do to change it?

My household tax contribution is pretty high and so we can afford for me to stay home. We worked out we could afford the kids that we have. Having kids with no means of providing for them at all is pretty irresponsible, anything out side of that is fine by me. Mistakes, change of circumstance, whatever is fine.

I appreciate the financial contribution the highest earners make, but let's not pretend they're not relying on others in society either.

No - I totally agree. Which is why a progressive tax system is inherently fair if you think about it. Say you run a successful business. That's great. But the chances are you've benefitted from the schools that the state has provided. And the healthcare. And the safety of the police, army etc. You've been able to use the roads to transport your goods. And so on and so on.

My point is that we absolutely shouldn't value - or indeed degrade - people on the basis of their financial contribution.

I agree we all rely on each other. Additionally the kids of SAHPs on benefits will grow up to be adults, who will contribute, and so on...

I've been a sahm as a single mum on benefits when I was younger, and also as a married mum financially dependent on my DH. Tbh I've found that in rl most people aren't judgy to your face about it, I'm sure they have their private thoughts but I've not had many critical comments in person. I found that some people were actually more understanding when I was a single mum as they saw it as less of a choice (me being unable to work as I didn't have a partner to support me so I was forced to be on benefits) and are less understanding now that I have DH to support me so in their eyes I could be working if I really wanted to. With strangers I rarely give much information about my working/marital status as I used to be embarrassed about being single in the past, now I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm a married lady of leisure (sahm with school aged dc!).

I think as a parent you just have to do what is right for your circumstances and what makes you and your family happy. Different people have different values and there are always going to be people who look down on your decisions in life.

Not sure if the OP is just being goady, but if you feel that people think this, I assume it's because in one case someone is working, paying tax and providing for their family, and in the other case someone is relying on the taxpayer to provide for them (for whatever reason).

I view a child's healthcare and education not as a cost the parent's tax should cover but as an investment into that child's future tax payments, to allow society to continue

I could agree with this, except I don't think there is a collective goal of having society continue, it's continuance is just a side-effect of us pursuing our individual interests, within the constraints imposed by other peoples interests.

In any case, society does not need anyone to have children, plenty of people who can afford to do so will do it for free. (If not in the UK, then in poorer countries, from where we can import them. It's much cheaper to produce new people in poor countries, there, the way to deal with childhood illness is to let the child die and make another one. Much cheaper than having healthcare for children. Education cheaper too, I've met someone who as a pre-primary child had to gather a large sack of rice in order to pay the teacher, before they could be admitted into primary school.)

Children who are born (in the UK) need healthcare and education for their own benefit. We all agree with that. It's not acceptable to neglect that children, and also not acceptable to force people who can't afford children not to have them, so we have no choice.

OP - Is this a joke? As long as one of the parents can afford to bring up a child, fine. I would like a flash car, I can't afford one, so I don't have one. If you can't afford a child, you don't rely on strangers (taxpayers) to pay for them. The default in life should be that you are self-reliant. The welfare state is there to assist people that fall on bad times. What the hell has this country come to when it is deemed acceptable to expect strangers to pay for something you happen to want. I don't have children by the way...obviously.

The simple answer to the OP is that our society traditionally frowns on children conceived outside marriage and more recently, outside a stable relationship and the MO is that it better for two people to be committed to the upbringing of a child rather than one doing it, and the other (parent) walking away. Presumably the parents who walk away will be mainly males who then will not financially support the child

So it's a conservative (small c) view of the way that the fabric of society should operate.

If this is to change completely, then I guess we have to wonder what function those males in particular have in society, when it's the females doing the childrearing. But the focus is on the mothers because they are the ones left literally holding the baby. And because women usually get the blame for most problems in society.

I'm not making a judgement here btw, just simply attempting to answer the question

The default in life should be that you are self-reliant.

So no NHS? No universal state education? Police and fire services funded through a separate poll tax? How far would you take this default position?

I don't think there is a collective goal of having society continue, it's continuance is just a side-effect of us pursuing our individual interests, within the constraints imposed by other peoples interests.

I think human consciousness, is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self; an accretion of sensory, experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.

• Rust Cohle, True Detective, Season 1

I like to think that we are not over-evolved chimps. I think that where I disagree with Cohle here is that our Species would not be where it is today without teamwork. That there is an inherent value in group effort in improving our lot.

Children are not self-reliant though are they.

Firesuit I see your point but it's quite depressing and I don't think I agree with you. I think (hope) most of us support the idea of society.

Natalia Tax pays for those things as everybody needs them at some point. No-one NEEDs to have a child. Just as no-one NEEDS to have a flash car.

I understood that pupil premium is given to schools for children in receipt of free school meals. Free school meals are not given to low income families who claim working tax credits.

Ironically the fundamental premise of a lot of the posters, who say that a single parent should work rather than being a SAHM & be 'funded by the state' is flawed.

A single parent who does not work will be eligible for Child Tax Credits only. (will presumably include housing benefit too), and the benefits cap applies (although the benefits cap is actually set higher than what you'd probably get anyway).

If they work, then they will also be eligible for childcare allowance & Working Tax Credits too on top of CTC & HB - and the benefits cap no longer applies.

So - the SAHM single parent is less of a 'drain' on the taxpayer than a working single mother in the grand scheme of things.

Gromance02 if you want to retire, you need somebody to have children. Once a child is born it is all of our responsibility to care for it.

Unless you are going to go down the compulsory sterilisation route (and I don't even want to discuss that as if it is a reasonable idea) how it gets here is nothing to do with anyone else.

Gromance. But then it's not about self reliance, is it? Many people with jobs won't cover the cost of their own medical treatment, especially if they have a long term chronic condition.

And need or not put aside, what do you do with those children who are born to single parents and are here? Do you starve them and their parent of resources, like in Victorian times? Likely to make for a pretty unpleasant society in the long run, I'd say. Or forcibly remove them and have them placed into care or put up for adoption? As a pp just said, children aren't self reliant. They need to be looked after.

It is all part of the demonisation of single mothers. As a single mother you are scum who are incapable of bringing up your own kids properly. Whereas SAHM married mothers are the ideal middle class 50's version of a "proper" family.

The reality is that both are SAHM and that is fine. Single mothers should not have to work outside the home until their kids start school.

no-one definitely needs a flashy car.
but we do need future tax payers though.

I'm not saying children should starve or that there shouldn't be a safety net for children born to parents that couldn't afford to have them. I was responding to the OP asking about who is morally superior. I believe the people that aren't relying on strangers to pay for their children are morally superior.

Shmithecat - "why do I think SAHM look down on me", maybe because they use expressions as you just have like "why does it have to be a race to the bottom"

And the original argument/point the OP was trying to make is that neither SAHM or SP are financing the DC still stands so the question does come back to why do you think you are morally superior as your comments suggest you do.

So because a man supports you you think you are morally superior? SMH

The number of people NOT relying on strangers to pay for their children, as the last few pages of posts have shown, is very small.

I believe the people that aren't relying on strangers to pay for their children are morally superior.

Ok - but you've just damned a huge swathe of society. As I said upthread, anyone with children who isn't earning a hell of a lot more than the average household income is relying on the state to subsidise their children.

...and what about the pensioners who are relying on the children of their peers to work to pay for their pensions? How do they fit into this moral compass? Should we sneer at the little old lady in the post office in the same way as we sneer at the single mum at the children's centre? Or is that different somehow?

We prioritise our kids emotional welfare (which to us means effectively that we believe our baby/toddler/preschooler is happier at home with mum) OVER branded clothes, posh cars, trips abroad and to the ubiquitous and ludicrously overpriced centerparcs.
I know too many families where mum works and the kids are dumped in full time care from 1 year old so they can afford all this tat which they see as 'a better life for their kids'

I completely agree.

"Oh poor little Johnny wouldn't be able to go to the south of France and eat olives at snack time. And of course I NEED my big black posh car to drive to toddler group in. How dare I not shop at Jo Jo's and John Lewis for his lovely jumpers. And yes I NEED A Cath Kidston changing bag or other people might think I'm scabby"

If you went with out all that bollocks you could actually bring your own baby up.

Material things are fare more important nowadays then actually just being.