Assumptions about single mums

[JustSeethingPat]

How do you stop yourself becoming resentful?

• someone assuming my kids get free school meals (I'm in an pretty decent job)
• colleague asking me why I'm not dating, as if we must be in a relationship at all times or constantly searching for a stepdad
• someone assuming that I would want to cut my hours to get more UC (again, I'm not eligible)
• surprise that I own my own home

It's not that there's anything wrong with claiming benefits you're entitled to, or not earning a house (I own one by luck!) but it's wrong to assume all of those things when it's a small proportion of single parents.
I want to keep this term ring-fenced for its original context but it feels like a micro aggression.
When my child went through a stage of refusing school I remember asking citizens advice what would happen and none of their advice was applicable to a single mum in their own home with a career. It felt like the whole system was designed to encourage mums to give up work either because they weren't the main earner or because they assumed the mums didn't really care or want to work anyway.

I said to someone at her school 'it would be in no one's best interest for me to give up work, I am not a teacher. My daughter wants me to be her mum, not her teacher, friend, pe teacher! She just can't access school'. It as if they had never considered that women don't actually want to be at home.
I'm sure there are many more, but the general assumption is that we are thick, flakey, man hungry, skint, grabby, lazy and lonely. I don't know any single mums who are like that.

The answer to a school refuser is to give up work, work from home or employ someone to supervise them instead and pay for counselling to help them through whatever is stopping them going. If you can't get a child into school they can't be manhandled and forced I'm not quite sure what other options there could be it's nothing to do with being a single parent, it was to do with being the only parent. My married DPs had that choice when my DBro was younger and my DDad gave up work as he earns less than my mum. I've taken on a good WFH job incase my own autistic DD ever has issues with school attendance.

I haven't experienced most of the other things although friends did go through a phase of wanting to set me up with men, whilst simultaneously complaining about their own husbands - why would you want to give up singledom for that?!

Single mum of two here. My eldest's DF lives overseas, my XH (youngest's DF) lives a five minute walk away. XH does absolutely sod all to co-parent, nor does he pay maintenance (in and out of work). I try to ignore the comments, or bat them back.

I've had comments about not working and living off taxpayers money: I've always worked FT, apart from when I was at university (I worked PT then!). Hell, I was the breadwinner when I was still married. One guy years back propositioned me, and when I politely turned him down, got shitty and threw that one at me. Stupid thing was that HE wasn't working and was on benefits!!

People have expressed surprise that I've got an education. Well yes, I've got two degrees, and I worked bloody hard for them. I didn't get to where I was without hard work.

I've had people being surprised that my children have good manners. That really pisses me off...it annoys me that some people will assume that single mums don't know how to bring up kids properly.

People have commented on why I'm not dating (I want to remain single - they can't get that). FWIW, I didn't plan on being single: I'd been with first ex for 3yrs and knew him for years before that. He walked when I was pregnant (I didn't predict that one). XH developed a drug/alcohol addiction after an RTA. I divorced him for that and for cheating on me. I certainly couldn't have predicted that issue either!!

Oh and I get the usual comments of having latchkey kids (they were/are in wraparound care)/"why have kids if you're not there for them?", or being a "working mum". One guy kindly pointed out that HIS wife was ALWAYS at home for their kids (he's on a six figure salary and they could afford it, which is great and works well for them). I pointed out that had I not been working, I'd probably be slagged off for having kids and being on benefits. I also pointed out that I have to work, as if I don't, I lose my registration, and my ability to support my family independently, because there is no one else that will support us as a family. Funny how he didn't comment about fathers who fuck off and don't equally co-parent their children.

I've figured that you can't bloody win, so the idiots who make the comments can GTF. If you work and support yourself, you're somehow lacking as a parent: if you stay home and are on benefits, you're also somehow doing something wrong. If you stay single, you're questioned. If you date, then people presume you're on the hunt for a man to pay your bills.

Oh how I hope you laughed at them both 😂😂😂

I’m a single mother and work full time.
I get UC (mostly for nursery fees) and live in a housing association house because I got lucky and found one.

I get asked why I bother working full time… for me and for my income to give my son a better life. Yes I would get UC but my income would be a lot lower.

I won’t qualify for school meals and I don’t qualify for free prescriptions. I pay full council tax (minus the 25% single person discount)

people assume UC is the big bucks- it really isn’t.

I’m also studying at college to better my prospects. Hopefully I can earn enough to no longer need UC

This drives a lot of women who paired up nuts. It's okay, because most are lovely. It is just a subset of women who want you in the pity box. When you explain the rest of it, they feel cheated.

I recognise this. I remember one saying she was fed up with her husband, because the single moms were able to pay for extra-curriculars and tutoring for their children and she couldn’t 🫢. Excuse me ma’am, this is not a competition where my child is supposed to do worse than yours 😟.

Madness!

@Thepeopleversuswork it sounds like you have a lifestyle where you have to earn well to have, if you know what I mean. Basically you're unlikely to be an unemployed mum on benefits who has snuck in somehow and so people wouldn't assume that you are.
My experience is of the fringes of the working class/ lower middle classes where it is more unusual to meet someone with kids at private school, in families of all sorts. The problem is the assumption that single mums are more likely, even in this community, to be all of the things I mentioned in my OP. When that's not true.

In regards to the statistics, rather than poverty it is maternal education level which is the best indicator of a child's future if I recall. So my mum was a single mum claiming tax credit, working two days in admin, and money was tight, but she had a degree and eventually retrained to be a teacher. Therefore education was always prioritised.
From working in social care, the correlation is much more parental substance use, domestic abuse, poverty, parental mental health rather than just being a lone parent. Obviously if you're living alone, domestic abuse is less likely! However for memory, poor mental health is more prevalent in single parent households, but this could be mostly due to finances or possibly the social stigma discussed on this thread.

I've got no idea, it's baffling, isn't it? Like they always seem to assume that children will have a parent who can join in school activities during working hours.

This drives a lot of women who paired up nuts. It's okay, because most are lovely. It is just a subset of women who want you in the pity box. When you explain the rest of it, they feel cheated.

Totally this. If you then point out the (many) benefits of single parenthood you are invariably accused of being “bitter” or “jealous”.

I understand where you are coming from. People are always surprised I own my home. Before I added my third child I was always asked and offended by the questions about if they have the same dad! Now third has a different dad and I'm embarrassed to admit that. But it's because I won't be treated poorly by men and they seem to only show their true colours once you are pregnant.

I can't say I have experienced this much at all.

I also own my own home and earn just slightly above UC thresholds - although crazy thing is, if I rented I would qualify for the rental part of UC and would get approx £200 a month, which I find bizarre. I tried this on the calculator with my mortgage amount - so for the same amount of rent, I'd be classed as in need, but for the same amount but mortgage, I'm OK. It's no wonder rents are so high, because landlords know that it will essentially get topped up by the government. Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent.

As for dating/being single - parent or not, I have always found some people just assume you are longing to be in a relationship /on the look out for a partner. I've found this attitude significantly less as a single parent and couldn't even tell you the last time someone asked me if I was dating or suggested I should - it was always a hot topic in my younger years.

@Singleandproud I think you're missing the point with school refusal. It is a single parent issue because we are the only one! In couples, there is the choice that one of them can go part time, find another job, give up work. We do not have that choice. In the same way that I cannot afford to give up work and live off DLA, I don't have money to throw at full time, specialised ASD friendly childcare so I can work. It's not like the majority of us are on six figure incomes.
The problems is that schools need to make adaptions. At the point I'm talking about, they weren't even helping me apply for an EHCP. It took me writing to Ofsted to get them to help me.
I have no doubt they expected me to give up, deregister her and homeschool.

@PurpleBugz be proud girl! How many men have children by two women? Look at Boris!

You have said in your own post its the way the system is designed that's exactly what UC has been made to be a poverty trap. A lot of people who are saying its better than the previous working tax system are partly wrong. UC is an umbrella benefit to I find its that what brings the assumptions more than anything!

In reality most people pay for school dinners once your child is in Y3 at school, free dental care and prescriptions only applies if you earn less than £925 per month.

I'm a single mum to one and I do be absolute best and that's good enough for me OP.

I have never ever been entitled to free school meals (well, my child) and I cannot fathom how anyone manages it. I've had no job and benefits, a small job and some benefits, a bigger job and not as many benefits, no job and a student, a bigger job and no benefits and I've never bloody qualified 😂

All my school mum friends were/are married and at it took a while to weed out the ones who thought I might try to poach their husbands, which was a bit ridiculous.

@JustSeethingPat , it’s not worth the resentment. People are threatened by you not conforming to their idea of who you should be, so this is more a them issue. I’ve learnt to perfect my inner eye-roll and chuckle.

My daughter attended a Catholic Primary and I lost count of the number of times I told teachers I was not Mrs ‘ex’s last name’. They couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact I was not married, even though I never signed a form or anything else with that surname.

I live in a HA property with some UC, so no-one seems to grasp that I’m also capable /desirous of a full-time job (had one for years) study and forging a career.

No-one understands why I’m not struggling, why my daughter is at a private school instead of being a delinquent.

My daughter had to tell some classmates that even though she doesn’t live with her dad, she sees him regularly and has a good relationship with him (even though they’ve seen him picking her up from school often). Unfortunately this is a long way from changing, because these are teenagers with the same old attitude.

If you don’t fit into the boxes society has labelled for you then you’re seen as an anomaly. It’s not you, it’s them.

I can't speak from my experience. But just things my mam has said over they years. I went to a private school she said all the other parents were lovely to her, she was a lot younger than, them also all my friends had 2 parents + a few sibling set ups. She even now whenever I talk of school days she has nice things to say. So maybe she wasn't as judged? IDK. Don't want to sound mean but she was overweight, and we both had 'regional' accents in a very posh area.

I don't really think anything negative or positive when I hear 'single mum' but I am guessing that's because I had one. I've worked with plenty over the years and as far as I can see they are as varied a bunch as any other

Now I do, of course, but at that time I felt embarrassed and indeed like a fraud.

I'm a single parent, have been for almost 6 years now. Two kids, both late primary, one about to start secondary, so they were young when we separated. Ex husband was abusive.

I feel nothing but pride in all I've achieved since then. I went back to work whilst still signed off due to stress/trauma. Three days a week to start with, then got a better job and went to 4 days, then to 5 and got a promotion to my current role. No mumsnet 6 figure salary here, I earn around the average wage. Own my own home due to divorce settlement and family help. I get topped up a small amount in UC and have no guilt for that.

The negative/intrusive comments I've had relate mainly to dating- there really is an expectation that we must be desperate for another serious relationship, without much insight into the reasons why it's not top of our priorities. It can be insensitive but I'm pretty good at not dwelling on it for too long. I don't believe it would be in my kids best interest for me to have a serious relationship with someone else. I date when I can be bothered but only for fun, and the kids aren't even aware. I'm also pretty traumatised after being in an abusive marriage and have major trust issues, and fear of the same happening again, so just don't even want to go there.

I do think the other school mums have been more distant since I've been single, after being quite friendly before. I don't know though if it's because our lives are now quite different, rather than judgement on me as a single mum.

Was it Liz in Motherland though, who said of the other mums 'they all think I want to shag their fat husbands' 😁

I've not had school refusal from mine (yet!) but I did refuse myself. It was so hard for my parents and they are together so having experience from a child's perspective, knowing how hard it was for my parents and now being a single mum, I really feel for you on how hard it is. And yes completely to the options that just aren't there as a single parent! You're effectively the single point of failure when something goes wrong without the same back up that a two parent family has. It plays out all the time, from helping with homework, school runs, looking after the house, juggling alongside work, medical appointments, the list goes on. You're doing the job of two people.

I'm not a truly 'lone parent' as ex does have them EOW. All the donkey work is on me though, he doesn't do 'parenting', he does Disney dad-ing. I know though that it's even bloody harder for lone parents. And let's face it it's mostly women.

And when a man is a lone parent he gets nothing but praise. Women still get a whole heap of judgement.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant! But was glad to see this thread, I have so many thoughts on this and no one to really talk to about it.

That would never be my perception of a single mum. But maybe that because my best friend has been a single mum from when her girls were 4 and 6 until very recently remarried 14 years later. She owns own house, works full time, did an OU degree whilst working and looking after her 2 girls - tbh I think most single mums are superheroes - (sorry if that comes across at patronising) doing the job of 2 parents is not in any way easy.

My mum and her 3 siblings were also brought up by a single mum after her sad passed away when she was young, she also worked (quite unusual in the 50's/60's) as she needed to to make ends meet. My mum and her siblings all went to grammar school, University.

I guess it's just logistics op. You asked what happens If a child doesn't go to school. If the child is at home, someone needs to be with the child. When there's just one person, that's you. This is the eternal unresolvable issue of single parenthood, that you can't be in two places at once.

I hope you manage to resolve your issues with your daughter. Ime local SEND parent groups can be helpful in clearly setting out the kind of provision she is entitled to and how parents can advocate for it. Sadly parents do have to become experts and advocates as well as providing the actual support to their children, when they have additional educational needs. It shouldn't be that way but it is.

Does DD have an EHCP?

The single mums I know are high achievers and most are solely funding private school as the dads are either too tight or too skint to help. I admire them for not tolerating the nonsense just so that they can say they are in a relationship. I can’t say I feel the same about the feckless dads who have kids left, right and centre but don’t bother to raise them. And that includes the ones who are ‘involved’. They don’t seem to do any actual parenting they just take them out somewhere flash for the day, usually with the latest girlfriend in tow.

I find this really weird because people are saying there is an assumption they should/ would want to date again but as a single mum I’ve experienced the exact opposite and the assumption is I should never ever date again and I should be alone forever now I have children. No one expects me to want to date again and if I mention it I get met with shocked faces as if I should ever want to date again and how terrible it is and I should be “concentrating on my children only” so it’s funny others have said people expect the opposite.

@jeaux90 this was me with a new acquaintance recently - I was gobsmacked private school was affordable tbh.
So then I got to feeling pretty impressed when I realised what an intense amount of work this mum was doing to keep all the plates spinning.

Single mums can be just as well endowed with personal energy, competence, financial success and luck as parents who cohabit. It’s less common as so many women seem to have been shafted by their exes and the inequality that persists in our society, but no one should assume all single parents are objects of pity. Patronising attitude. I gave myself a big head wobble and will try to be a better person in future.

@TuliLily You aren't allowed to WANT to date, don't be silly. Other people just can't bear to see others alone and can't understand how you can be happy on your own. But if you do date, don't introduce your children, you just have to be seen as going through the motions.