To think she should look for work?

[Daisydoodo]

my sister is on the migration from tax credits to universal credit. Her husband works and earns around £25k a year and does not aspire to earn anymore she has 6 children 3 over 16 and 3 5-16years she was complaining today that she may be expected to start looking for work when she migrates and how she thinks it’s unfair as she is only just getting her life back now the 5yo is in full time school. AIBU to tell her to get a grip and get a job? I feel awful for saying it but it’s getting on my nerves as I was expected to return after 6 months mat leave. Should the UC system force her to look for work

No it doesn’t, it needs to welcome migrants who can and will work. Why on earth should we be encouraging large families?

I don't really understand this. What kind of support do people who have been unemployed through choice need? They'd soon get over the lack of support if benefits were stopped. They should never have been supported through unemployment in the first place. Personal responsibility.

She has work. She has 6 kids!

Popping out kids that everyone else has to support isn't a job. Not everything that takes up time is work.

Maybe. Or maybe they will se their parents taking full advantage of a welfare state supporting their family and think that would be options for them too.

Let's hope it is the former.

So what do you think that support should like? How long should it last? How much should it cost? What happens if someone never gets over said "apprehension"? Why would they take advantage of this new support having avoided any previous support?

exactly this

I don’t get posts like these. It’s your sister, not some random woman down the road.
Why make a thread for people to bash her call her lazy, entitled, benefit bashing etc

If she needs to look for work to get her full UC amount then that’s what she will do or she will lose some money. Her business, her choice, her life.

Don’t compare yourself to her, you make your own choices. She’s probably terrified about going back to work after so long out the work force, maybe a little support wouldn’t go amiss.

It's her fault she's 'only getting her life back' as noone forced her to have 6 kids that she can't afford. Thats the reason most done have more than one or two. She needs to get a job like everyone else

A perfect response, completely agree with all of this.

That basic support has always been available for those inclined to seek it out. Surely someone choosing not to work, and still bemoaning being expected to even look for work is the very definition of a scrounger? Whether or not there are hordes of them is irrelevant.

Yes, because 16 year of support so far hasn't been enough.

Do you know why your sister chose to have so many children - without funds to adequately support them? I’m genuinely aghast that the state bankrolls such poor decision making. This ‘let the tax payer pay me’ seems to be a prevailing and widespread attitude. Your sister should get a job immediately. Do people who pelt out 6 kids not understand that they are piling more pressure on a system that is quaking under the demands - with not enough high tax payers propping it up. As someone pointed out on a similar thread yesterday, unless you’re earnings are in excess of 55k, you are costing the state more than you are contributing.

Change is difficult. So she's probably apprehensive about having to push herself out of her comfort zone. I'd think you'd have a bit more sympathy and give a little more emotional support to your sister.

Also you must know that having 6 children living at home (and the youngest fairly young) must generate a significant amount of unpaid labour.

Do her partner and the older kids pull their weight? Or does he come home and put his feet up because "he's been at work".

If the latter, I can understand her dread at the prospect of potentially having to combine full-time work with all the daily unpaid drudgery for a family of 8. Personally it would send me running for the hills.

Six kids on a 25k salary, how on earth do they manage financially, even with top ups and child benefit. Plus once the kids are all at school full time she’ll be bored stiff.

In reality, the birthrate is through the floor. The tiny number of women who have large families is not really an issue - many more women only want one child or no children at all. There are ongoing discussions about how people can be encouraged to have more children.

I don't see why it is any of your business.

It's a load of bollocks anyway.

@SaladDays2024 has zero clue about public finances and the average personal contribution (or lack of) to them.

Im afraid the reality is that services are so overstretched- if everyone had 6 kids - there would be no doctor’s/surgeons appointments. That’s before we even discuss whether morally, with the planet in the state its in, adding 6 more humans is a worthwhile endeavour.

'Pelt' kids out? What a weird turn of phrase.

‘Meanwhile our children are raised by strangers, getting obese, lonely and cyber bullied because both parents are run ragged by a job who will toss you out any minute.’

I just need to correct you there. I don’t benefits-bash and I support vulnerable people at work. But despite utilising the help of ‘strangers’ to care for my kids as I worked as an NHS doctor, it was me that raised them. Oh, and they are slim and have friends, if you were wondering.

In your support of stay at home mums, you don’t need to cite the usual trope of working parents not raising their own children. There is a place for both working and sahms.

But the whole point is that very, very few people are having or want to have 6 children. No need to demonise those who are.

Our family structure (inverse pyramid) is much more common. My PIL and parents have 9 siblings between them. DH and I have 4 siblings between us. Yet there are only three children in the whole extended family and very unlikely to be more.