Why are women dependent on benefits viewed as lesser than those dependent on men?

[Miladamermalada]

Just that really.
Women, usually single parents are viewed as total scum when they rely on benefits to live.
Women who are funded by their husbands are seen as morally superior.
Both women are dependent on an outside source-why is their value decided by what source of income they have?
Most families receive tax credits which are also a benefit. So many of the UK parent population are dependent on public money.
Thinking specifically of the Radford situation and the recent thread on their proposed receipt of tax credits (this may not be true but was suggested by a poster.)
Sue is seen as a wholesome mother with a wonderful family and good marriage.
If she were not married she'd be a breeding scrounger.
In both situations she'd be doing the same job-raising children and doing the wifework
AIBU to be pissed off at this disparity?

@zsazsajuju I don’t believe you, or anyone should be judged for claiming benefits, and how much tax someone has previously paid, or may go on to pay is irrelevant to me.

State benefits are for people who need them, not for people who deserve them.

Benefits were meant as a safety net not for people to choose to have children and not work. There's a big difference between need and want.

Yes NRP should pay child support but that doesn't absolve the PWC from supporting the child too.

Women get the final say in pregnancy, they hold all the cards. Far to easy to blame all the men alone.

Nobody is forced to have children but they should be forced into financially supporting them. The number that think somebody else should provide is astounding and a sad decline in society.

Subsidising childcare is different to just handing out money. The worker who needs thirty houses childcare will be paying tax, the childcare provider will be paying tax an debt employing people and the children grow up in households with work ethics which means they will likely follow suit when then are adults.

Boxsets are you saying women should abort babies they can't afford? Even women like me who will be paying back into the system once my LO is at nursery?

I was on income support for two years after leaving my abusive partner of 10 years. I had 3 children, 2 of them preschoolers, in a rural area and could not afford the childcare. I managed to do an access course in that time which was a massive achievement, and now we are in secure home, I'm 2 years into an NHS degree. I receive tax credits still.

Maybe I should just send the kids to the workhouse @Boxsets?

@BoxsetsAndPopcorn
If NRP (men) paid for the children they fathered even when not romantically involved with the RP (mother) then we wouldn't have this issue.
The problem IS men refusing to do anywhere near as much childcare as women and not paying even the pittance the CMS expects in many cases.

And lets not forget it's difficult to always know if you will always be able to afford childcare and other expenses as the costs have risen so dramatically in the last few years. All the planning in the world doesn't account for this.

When DD started going to nursery at the age of 1 her childcare was £500 a month, when she left at the age of 4 it was £800. I can only imagine what the nursery charges now as this was 7 years ago.

A family unit that supports itself is just that. It makes no difference whether this is achieved by both parents working or one parent, on a part-time basis, full-time, shifts or whatever. It's is a private matter within that family as to how they want to finance their lifestyle and raise / care for their children. It does not impact anyone else.

For instance, our family unit contributes significantly more tax to society due to the fact I've been a SAHM. DH's earnings are off the scale compared to mine, so the opportunity cost of me working / him working less was never worth considering in our case. He had needed to be able to work well above "normal" hours because this is the nature of what he does. We have 3 DC who have never needed childcare or benefits or state school places as a result of the way we have organised ourselves. There was never any point to me working in our particular circumstances. Even if we split, I would be better off than if I'd been working all these years. Not all men abandon responsibility to their children after a split and au think it's outrageous that so many seem able to get away with it.

That said, of course I don't think women whose partners have run off and are evading maintenance payments should be "viewed as lesser". Absolutely not! This is why the benefit system exists. It's the useless men who should be viewed as lesser.

If NRP (men) paid for the children they fathered even when not romantically involved with the RP (mother) then we wouldn't have this issue

You'd have to be very naive to believe that the PWC would claim no benefits and would suddenly gain a work ethic just because they got child support.

Having children is a choice. Nobody has to have them but if they do the minimum expected should be that they work to provide for them. Choosing not to should be classed as neglect whether it be the
PWC or the NRP or both. There doesn't seem any shame in not providing, just excuses or an entitled attitude.

Child support is so low it hardly makes a dent in the costs of things like childcare and people are stupid if they think that answers all the problems.

I get £260 a month for 2 children. For me to return to work full time i would need to pay £2300 a month for childcare.

OP, this is a slightly pointless thread, because the “single mother”, Cheryl Prudham, you refer to and claim is called ‘scum’ is actually, er, very much married. To Robert Prudham. In fact they were sentenced together in January for theft and handling stolen goods after he stole £5k off his work which she spent on a holiday

If she’s a single mother at the moment that’s because he’s in jail. Not because he’s single

So nothing at all to do with the domestic abuse related conviction he also has then?

The financial unit argument of a family's superiority is flawed though.

Women (single women) are left caring for children while their exes and / fathers of their children get away with paying a minimal amount of maintenance.

So society supports a structure where parenthood cripples a single mother but doesnt cost a single father so much. It is the loss of freedom, loss of opportunity, loss of earnings, savings, pension contributions, u name it, it will cost a single mother MORE.

And society allows this.

So they cannot have it both ways as that is not reasonable. Either restructure things so that parenthood doesnt fuck up a single mother's ability to earn, or stop blaming/judging her for being in receipt of benefits. Judge the people so dumb they blame and shame women for having children.

No one is seen as total scum. Some people end up on benefits through no fault of their own.
But if you carry on having dc when you are on benefits, this is wrong and you probably wouldn’t make these choices if you had to pay yourself/your benefits wouldn’t go up on producing more offspring.

If a couple decide that one will stay at home to raise children/upkeep home and the other will work to fund the family then this is not morally wrong at all. Why? They aren’t relying on others outside of the family to fund their children. It’s their own business, not that of the tax payer. Simple as really.

But if you carry on having dc when you are on benefits, this is wrong and you probably wouldn’t make these choices if you had to pay yourself/your benefits wouldn’t go up on producing more offspring

Is this thread about people who do that?

If a couple decide that one will stay at home to raise children/upkeep home and the other will work to fund the family then this is not morally wrong at all. Why? They aren’t relying on others outside of the family to fund their children. It’s their own business, not that of the tax payer

Because a couple could never be in receipt of Child Benefit, tax credit, housing benefit or any other kind of benefit? What is your opinion of couples who receive these benefits and continue to have more children? Why are they untouchable but single parents are scum?

aYes, very few people willfully carry on having child after child.

Swedish studies show that the number one factor in unplanned pregnancy is a lack of hope about the futures, lack of opportunity. So I cannot even condemn that small sector of society that does that. On the one hand society judges them, and on the other hand, Society won't hire them. Again, wanting it both ways. We won't hire you but we'll judge you and blame you.

Op you can't have been on here long if you think sahp with a partner are not judged. They have been called prostitutes amongst other gems.

@pa1oma it’s not really you staying at home that’s saving the taxpayer money tho is it. Some high earners have two working parents. If you worked and hired a nanny she would pay taxes too.

Just saying it’s not as simple as all that. You have to be a higher rate tax payer before you pay for your own NHS/education/ etc. many of these family units are not paying their way either

Lets not forget that choosing to remain childfree is seen as a lesser choice too.
I am a parent but feel there is emense pressure to have children.

Oh really get off your high horse and read my post properly? where did I say single parents are scum?
My first sentence ‘no one is seen as total scum’.
I said to carry on having children when you are on benefits is morally wrong. I didn’t specify couples or Single parents at all.

To be clear my point is if one person chooses to give up work while the other is working, and they aren’t relying on the state to do this then that is their own business.

But anyone who chooses to have a child whilst on benefits is forcing the taxpayer to pay for that child. That is a very different matter to a family who can afford for one parent not to work.

My opinion is that I am happy for anyone to receive benefits who needs them. I may need them myself one day if something unfortunate happened. But if I did I wouldn’t dream of bringing another child into the world at that point in time.
So whilst I don’t mind at all that taxes I pay go to families who find themselves in the situation where they need benefits, I do mind people having more dc when they can’t support them. Whatever the family unit looks like.
Myself and dp work. If we keep on having dc we won’t be able to afford them. Who would pull us out of the shit then? No one. So how is it right that you can have a big family when you don’t work. It’s not and I do resent my taxes going towards the upkeep of such families.
But I have no problem with families with a sahm who aren’t getting benefits. It hasn’t got anything to do with me because The taxpayers don’t pay for their upkeep.

And again, the thread isn’t about people who have more children whilst on benefits.

Boxsets are you saying women should abort babies they can't afford?

If women are 1. sexually active 2. have no means to support a child, and 3. are averse to abortion - then it's probably best that they get very serious about birth control.

Feeling sentimental about a foetus is a private matter and not something that one can reasonably expect taxpayers to care about.

Tax payers don't get to decide where their money goes though do they?

No oh really but it is about single mums on benefits being judged badly and sahms (supposedly) aren’t judged.

So I gave my opinion that I do Jude those parents (not single mums, parents) who reproduce when they know can’t provide. I think it’s wrong.
I gave my reasons why these situations aren’t comparable to a sahm who is not relying on the tax payer.

Guess what, it’s a public forum I’m allowed to give my opinion. You just decided to jump on my post and accuse me of calling single parents scum.

I don't think anyone has called single mums in benefits "scum" have they?

zsazsa - I agree it's not quite as simple as that. But what is preferable - me working full-time for say £40k and him restricting his hours to get home at a more reasonable time, maybe he'd earn £200k and be employing 100 people? Or me taking care of everything at home and him having the potential to expand, employ a few thousand people, earn a lot more and pay multi millions in tax when the company is eventually sold? Not everyone works allotted hours or is on a pay scale, so families adapt accordingly.