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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not want people to judge those who recieve benefits????

572 replies

TidyTink · 18/02/2008 21:21

Im a single mother of one,

i was working up until my DD (3) was born, rather than take a part time job that i knew i would always be stuck in i decided to get to college and study asubject that will lead me to a very hard working and well paid job so that i can fully support my DD in the future.

I hate recieving benefits and cannot wait untill i have finished my degree

Once i start at work i will be paying enough taxes in the future to more than cover the benefits ive recieved over the few yrs.

So why does everyone assume your a complete waste of space?? not all of us take advantage of the system!!!!

OP posts:
wineisthewaytomyheart · 20/02/2008 23:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Tortington · 20/02/2008 23:55

so if benefits are that good why dont you go on them?

Scramble · 20/02/2008 23:56

I am damm sure I wouldn't have chosse this lifestyle.

Fulltime degree course from home, part time job, no husband, claiming tax credits.

But then since leaving school I had never claimed any benefits only a small student lone, always paid my way.

Once I had kids I claimed child benefit, then later on a small amount of tax credits, now I am single my tax credits are what keeps me alive.

Scramble · 20/02/2008 23:56

loan I mean

skyatnight · 20/02/2008 23:57

Fine - I accept that there are inequalities within the system, and that your sister may have been unfairly disadvantaged, but you are assuming that all people who receive benefits, or any kind of state help, are people who have never worked and never contributed to society, at any time. This is just not the case. Yes, there are people like that, who abuse the system or benefit seemingly unfairly from it, but no system is perfect. That does not make all those who benefit from it morally inferior nor does it give you the right to judge them or to generalise.

I found your remarks about Tidytink offensive, tbh, given that you know next to nothing about her.

wineisthewaytomyheart · 20/02/2008 23:58

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Tortington · 20/02/2008 23:58

on scramble - you benefit whore you.

it must be great whee you are sittin on yer arse all day

elkiedee · 21/02/2008 00:00

Haven't read all of thread but thought I'd respond to Tori32. I don't think OP is being unreasonable. I also would like to see there being much better support for those without kids (or without kids yet) in your position Tori. Because I was there and it was really difficult then, and I know it's a lot worse now.

I was unemployed and looking for a job for several years in my early 20s, I am still very shy but was much worse then and was just useless at interviews and stuff. In the end I did a secretarial course. I stayed on benefits by being a part time student under the 21 hour rule, I had to keep signing on and be willing to continue applying for jobs etc. I travelled to another town every day, a total of more than 3 hours, because the woman running the course there was far more sympathetic to the needs of people in my situation than those running a similar course in Leeds where I lived. It was hard, but it worked, I started my first temping job in the same week as my last exams and have only had a few days out of work since then (1995). The following year they cut the max hours to 15 and I suspect the whole scheme no longer exists.

That course was for me the only way I could see of breaking out of the benefits system. I'm fine with my taxes being used to support both tidytink and tori32, children or none at the time of studying.

Good luck iwht your studies tidytink,

Scramble · 21/02/2008 00:01

Well apart from the part time job, the studying, and taking my kids to all the afterschool activities that bankrupt me everyweek, I have hours to lounge about having babies all over the place and wearing tracksuits.

wineisthewaytomyheart · 21/02/2008 00:02

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Quattrocento · 21/02/2008 00:03

"you are assuming that all people who receive benefits, or any kind of state help, are people who have never worked and never contributed to society, at any time."

I have made no such assumption - I have on the contrary posted that I was glad the safety net was there for people who suffer genuine bad things happening to them

The trouble with buy-now pay-later as a lifestyle choice (by this I mean live on benefits now and maybe pay it back from future earnings) is that if you are not prepared (literally) to buy it now, someone else (the taxpayer) has to do the paying

You post on an open forum, you take the stick

wineisthewaytomyheart · 21/02/2008 00:05

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Tortington · 21/02/2008 00:05

what low life expecttions if you think that having a baby gets yo a shitty council house in a fucked up area and not a lot of money a week

and thats your lifestyle choice?

and this percentage of people is not representative of the benefit claimers.

butfor that small number of misinformed who think that having a baby gets them a house - i laugh at you - as i work in social housing, i laugh - becuase i know that you wilspend years living with your mother AND a baby. But your welcome to it yourlife of ugly houses and cheap clothes from asda - its yours - i dont mind - i am sad for you that you have no higher expectations for yourself.

envy you i do not. slag you off i will not. becuase i know that you are not indicative of all benefit claimants - you are a story perpetuated by the tory press.

skyatnight · 21/02/2008 00:06

Ok, well this has predictably turned into a meaningless, Daily Mail, knee-jerk rant about the morons on the Jeremy Kyle show. These people are of course representative of all people who receive benefits?!

wineisthewaytomyheart · 21/02/2008 00:08

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Tortington · 21/02/2008 00:08

and oh...oh the sweet irony of a landlord making money from the very people she despises.

so its my tax money lining your pockets wine? whilst your perpetuating the availablitity of private rented for the people you ae moanin gabout?

skyatnight · 21/02/2008 00:10

We all pay either now, then and/or in the future. Some pay more, some pay less. Someone who is studying now is expected to pay more in the future to make up for what they are not paying now. That is why the govt. chooses to fund them. Someone who is on benefits now may be washing your bottom in the future when you are old, in a state home and have no money to pay for private care. It is a SOCIETY, not an anarchy!

Quattrocento · 21/02/2008 00:10

Custy the rhetoric is good as ever

but has deviated from the point at issue

which is do you, or do you not, think that before bringing children into this world it is worth planning responsibly as to how they should be maintained?

expatinscotland · 21/02/2008 00:10

let me tell you, there are so many opportunities to work up here!

oh yes!

well, for DH, thankfully, who has a wife at home to look after the two girls, one of whom is SN.

he's SN, too, he gets DLA for it.

he was lucky to get DLA for it, too, oh, yes, so lucky, the functionally illiterate.

but he earns min wage, hey, there's a midwife of many years on here whose partner recently died on the job, but he was only earning a pound over min wage for 'dangerous work'.

it's not so easy as 'get a job' out there. where you are ten miles out of town.

get a bus! yes, we would.

if there were one!

nancy75 · 21/02/2008 00:10

actually what i said was because of a thread i read on mn, i have never read the daily mail or seen jeremy kyle, and both dh and i work and still have to live in an ugly house and buy cheap clothes because thats all we can aford. we would be about as well of on benefits as we are now but i think that as i had a child i should pay for her

wineisthewaytomyheart · 21/02/2008 00:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Quattrocento · 21/02/2008 00:11

BTW the government does not chose to fund undergraduate students

Students are by and large expected to fund themselves

Fair enough, I think

expatinscotland · 21/02/2008 00:11

only high-flyers in the city-state of London should breed.

skyatnight · 21/02/2008 00:12

Excellent idea Expat!!!!

Scramble · 21/02/2008 00:13

Well I can't be arsed working full time

No I am like an awful lot of other benefit claimers, I have reasons and I make an effort.

I am not kidding myself, there are plenty of jeremy kyle candidates in my areas same as all over the UK. But so what if they get their prescriptions free etc, I am not exactly jealous of their lives. It can seem unfair, my mum never claimed anything and the junkies next door got loads of money and grants for everything. But their lives were still shit and nothing we aspired to.

Of course their are flaws but I would rather have a benefit system than live in a gutter where I may have ended up if I lived elsewhere.

I think there are somes things that could be done better, I am a great fan of bringing in a new kind of national service where betweent he ages of say 16 and 19 you have to been in education, training or some kind of service to the community initiative. But anything like this is hard to bring in and make it work for everyone.