Single mother DD, refusing to get a job.

[LiloAndS]

Hello everyone.
My DD is 30 and a mum of two (9yo girl and 4yo boy). My DD fell pregnant with her eldest young, accidently and with her first, long term boyfriend. Unfortunately, he did not step up to the plate and left DD when she was halfway through her pregnancy and has had nothing to do with my granddaughter for her whole life. DD lived with us until granddaughter was around 2, then moved in to her own flat. Shortly after, she met a new guy who seemed lovely, but fell pregnant pretty much straight away. I will say, this was definitely unplanned and a very upsetting time for my daughter. She considered abortion multiple times, to the point where she had a consultation booked twice and had me drive her, but ultimately could not go through with it. New guy turned out to be not so lovely, and also wanted nothing to do with his child. DD was depressed for her whole pregnancy and struggled to bond with the baby inside her. Thankfully, she fell in love as soon as he was born. I want to add, my daughter is a fantastic mother, her whole life revolves around the children, they are happy, clean, well cared for, etc, etc. But the reality is, she has been on benefits all this time. Fast forward to now and her youngest has just been diagnosed with autism. He is only just learning to speak and has some challenging behaviour, I'll admit that. DD has been awarded DLA and carer's money for him. She told me today, work is not on her mind at the moment as her little boy needs her, and she has decided to dedicate the next few years to helping him develop. I just feel so sad for her. She could be going to college, getting a part time job and meeting people. I worry about her future. She has no partner to help or support her. I'm also ashamed to admit, I feel a bit embarrassed when my friend's talk of their high flying children. How can I encourage my DD to want more for herself? She is smart, beautiful, has so much potential in this life. Thanks.

I am genuinely shocked that you cannot see a difference between someone who worked up to having caring responsibilities and someone who didn't work anyway but ended up as a carer.

Ok 👍

There is no difference as far as DWP is concerned.

Although the OP is long gone, did she state that her daughter has NEVER had a job in her life? If the OP didn’t (and apologies if I missed it) she may have worked for periods after leaving school/college and during her 1st pregnancy. The first child would have been around 4 when she fell pregnant with her DS, so I don’t think it’s that outrageous that she wasn’t yet back into work before conceiving him.

Is your daughter happy OP?

That's all I really hope for my children - that they are largely happy with their lot.

I find it particularly grim that on a predominantly female parenting site, there are people referring to single mums who care for children with disabilities as “breeding”. 🤢

Yes I noticed that as well. And yet we’re shocked that we live in a society that by the day respects the female anatomy less and less, with more of our rights taken away. Not the point of the thread I know, but there’s so much other misogyny reading through as well.

There are a lot of really vile posts on this thread, bashing people on benefits and single parents. It's horrible. I wonder where the OP is.....?

There are a lot of really vile posts on this thread, bashing people on benefits and single parents. It's horrible. I wonder where the OP is.....?

Or where MNHQ is. In the past, they wouldn't have allowed so many posts filled with vitriol towards carers of disabled people to stand. It has became a horrid place over the last few years where disablism is rife and tolerated.

I think a lot of the ‘vitriol’ is aimed at the OP’s daughter not working between 18 and 21, and not working between 21 and 26, when the disabled child was born. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that she has intensive caring responsibilities now, but at slightly perturbed that she has chosen not to work…ever.

@Hibiscrubbed I think you need to read the thread 🤔

The op never said she’s never had a job, just that she’s been on benefits ‘all this time’. And that she and her husband had big professional careers. It’s not actually clear if it means her daughter has never had a job, or had one that needed benefits top up. Perhaps @LiloAndS would like to return to clarify this part or at least show an ounce of defence for her daughter?

No one has bashed anyone on benefits with caring responsibilities.
The only 'vitriol' is towards people that choose benefits as a lifestyle rather than work.

1 - the daughter is continuously berated for her (not even confirmed) past when she is now a carer. Plenty of younger people were on benefits before finding a job however that presents itself. It just happens that her work now means being topped up by benefits. But so is the case for millions of others these days.

2 - Tax credits take a mother with a child under 5 (UC under 3) as someone with caring responsibilities. Which the daughter came under with both her children until her son showed long term need for said caring responsibilities. If her son had not been born with a disability, UC would have expected her to be returning to work at this time and would be looking at sanctions if she was actively making no progress to do so. Like many others. I know single mothers who are being threatened despite having part time work that revolves around school hours so they really are pushing not just for work but as close to full time as they can threaten with regardless of childcare issues.

People really are clutching at straws to try and lay in to the DD. The past is in the past as Elsa would say. Let it go.

What do you think ‘all this time’ means?

There was a good portion when the the daughter lived with the parents.

Seeing as this whole thread is about the OP wishing her daughter would consider working and having some drive to better her life, it stands to reason she’d have mentioned any employment the daughter had. Alas.

Anyway, as I said, I rather suspect the thread written from the daughter’s perspective would have garnered very different responses.

The knots some people on this thread will tie themselves into to justify the daughter not working from ages 18-21 then again from after maternity until she was 26 are astounding.
Apparently now she has caring responsibilities nothing she did in the past matters.....except it matters a great deal as she has zero work experience to put on a CV at 30 years old. Even if her autistic child grows up to be capable enough for her to work in say 5-10 years time no employer will be desperately trying to recruit a middle aged woman that has never worked a day in her life before.
I am sure her mother would not have started this thread if her daughter had been working from the day she left school up until the birth of her autistic child.

As a mum to a child with ASD, your daughter will need lots of "spare" time when your DGS starts school with meetings, unsettled days etc. I have to work, can't afford not to but I work nights so I can still be around for every meeting etc. It's hard and if my child is unwell I have the guilt of phoning in "sick" to work. If your DD can comfortably be at home that's amazing because she can give your DGS the time he needs. I'd be devastated if my mum thought like you did and was disappointed in me for putting my child first. How about instead of feeling sad, comparing her to your friends children you are proud of how she is a full time carer, as that is her "job" now.

@PomTiddlyPomPom you don't know that the daughter wasn't working before her ds was born. The OP doesn't say that. But she was 18 when she had her first child! The OP was working throughout, what was the daughter meant to do about getting back to work before her child was 3? How was she going to look after her child? I assume she left school with few qualifications.

And I think your post is wrong - an employer in 15 years won't care if the daughter has a bit of shop work on her CV when she was 19. An employer might care what further education she has done in the years immediately preceding her applying for a job (unless she's applying for a minimum wage job in which case the employer won't give a jot what's she's been doing for the last 25 years)

And although you seem to care that she hasn't worked isn't the question instead about what the system needs to do to support single parents like the daughter? Who have sole caring responsibilities for their children whether or not they're disabled? Is the best thing for the child for the mother to work in any shit job and leave the child in (extremely hard to find, extremely expensive) childcare? The best thing for the child and possibly the mother isn't to get the mother into any old job at all costs.

And now the daughter has an autistic child - what are you expecting her to do? Have you ever had an autistic child? I have. It was hard enough with a partner to do all the caring, but I also became a single parent with an autistic child and fucking hell its hard.

All the benefits bashers on this thread are coming at this from the wrong angle. It's not about your money funding her (although personally as someone who has always been a higher rate taxpayer, I am very happy to fund her) it's about the systemic changes that this society needs to put in place to support people like her, and, possibly more importantly, her children. She's only 30, she has another 40 years left until her pension (probably) so she has time to turn herself around, but it's extremely likely that, like many single mums and in fact many coupled up mums, she'll have no pension and will have to live on a tiny state pension and is likely to be in poverty. It's not her that needs to change, it's the society we live in.

She wasn't 18 when she had her first child.

oh ok. Maybe I've missed it, but I can't see that the OP says that the daughter hasn't ever worked? It might also be the case that she was in work until the last baby was born? -Apologies if I've missed something.

But whatever the case, she can't work now as the sole carer of a disabled child.

You’re still not getting it. It’s irrelevant. She could have worked from 18 right up to her sons diagnosis but she (and many others in our position) will be fucked when it comes to getting back into the workplace. Especially to earn anything comfortable or building a new career. The level of needs means any job she’ll eventually have will still have to work around having a child with additional needs, he’ll never truly ‘grow up’. There’s no support beyond school places and often high needs children miss a lot of school or don’t have appropriate placements. After school care for SEN kids is essential non existing. All the options available to typical working families becomes obsolete for us.

All carers, regardless of their past, end up with empty CVs, huge gaps, no offer of further training or back to work schemes (that’s usually offered to under 25s and those on UC being told they have to find a job). You become an unpaid carer, you’re in the same position as anyone else in your situation.

I worked before having children, but not great jobs. I was actually a carer for another family member right after uni (yes I even have a degree, shocker) due a hugely unexpected incident so could only work part time. Then made redundant from my full time job when pregnant with my first (business closed). My ex built his career up from us being on benefits and is now secure for life, whilst I’ve had to become a carer for our children for the foreseeable. It wasn’t the plan, nor did I imagine I’d be a single parent but here we are. I’m as screwed as the OPs daughter will be, no difference between us in terms of future job prospects. So yes, for the millionth time, it’s irrelevant.

You’re not even beginning to take in the consideration of the mums health and welfare. Many autistic children don’t sleep and need all night care as well. As someone else mentioned, time at school is usually for admin, meetings, anything you can’t do when the child is at home (I often have to do extra cleaning as my child smears bodily fluids at night, need to wash clothes/bedding, go out to replace things, fix anything broken or in disarray from meltdowns). Imagine doing all this as a single parent, with little sleep and expected to work part time as well since your child is ‘grown’. Too many mothers of SEN kids have full mental health breakdowns, sometimes ending in awful tragedy. The pressure and lack of support is a huge factor in that.

I don't suppose anyone noticed that OP mentioned DD struggling with MH issues, which could have made her get signed off at some point(s) over the years and could have also made her handle job interviews poorly, or even miss them due to anxiety/finding it hard to manage her schedule etc.

In any case, with no childcare, she was probably competing with many other mums for the handful of jobs that could work around her older DD's schooling.

Even the "part time shop work" she's looking for tends to want to own your soul and want you ready to drop everything because someone called in sick and so on.

Last Xmas I did seasonal work for a large chain, and suspect that part of the reason I wasn't kept on vs others is because I had childcare commitments and needed to work around DH's hours, so I couldn't do as much short-notice overtime as the young and childfree/less.

I don't suppose anyone noticed that OP mentioned DD struggling with MH issues, which could have made her get signed off at some point(s) over the years and could have also made her handle job interviews poorly, or even miss them due to anxiety/finding it hard to manage her schedule etc.

I did notice, and considering ASD is often hereditary and presents in women as high anxiety/MH issues there could well be a connection. However that is me putting my own narrative on the situation, very much reading between the lines. No one is in a position to assume anything from hearsay posts of course, but even MH alone is certainly reason in itself to have difficulty getting and keeping employment.