Do some mums just not like working?

[Dragontooth]

I know this sounds awful, and judgey but I'm trying to understand. I am not a benefit basher and I used to be on benefits, also a single parent.
I'm on a lot of 'being skint' forums, I was on UC but now I have quite a lot of experience in various things so I like to try to help.
There are a number of mums who were previously on legacy benefits who are terrified by UC and the work search appointments. Lots who are unemployed and some who do very part time jobs, 10 hours or less.
I don't understand why they are so resistant to finding work or better paid work. Having been on benefits, it is a horrible existence. I was paid £850 per month. Clearly it would only take a MW part time job to make me so much better off. And they pay for childcare/ holiday club.
It literally changes your life. You can pay for things to have a better, easier life like driving lessons. Not only that but you are back in the work place so it's not such a shock when your children leave home.
I feel these women are so anxious, they can't see how their lives could look with more money/ options. Not only that but a lot of them have their heads in the sand about retirement, will we even get a state pension? Then there's the fact that it's so much harder getting back into employment after five or ten years out, I think that's what UC wants to avoid. I'm not saying it's a kind or person centred system but in reality is taking years out of the workplace really in these women's best interests either?
Disability/ disabled children obviously excluded.

But you were working, you were raising children.

I think it's much more complex than money or will/laziness. Sometimes, it's the mother's subtle power manoeuvre to gain or maintain status in the household. I'm talking mostly about cases where (1) it's a nuclear family where both the mother and the father want to stay together, and/or (2) both parents had high-paying careers before having children.

For example, the father may earn enough to cover the whole family (and more than the mother does), and/or they may collectively decide that "mum is better at childcare than dad". The mother then decides not to work. The justification on the surface is that it makes more sense money-wise than outsourcing childcare, especially if the children are young. And more people can empathise with the desire to raise your kids than to work for some corporation.

But once the decision has been made, the mother can then secure her unique position in the relationship, for at least the 20 years when children are dependent on them. First, the father will never quit his job for at least these 20 years, because the whole family depends on him. This is way more dependable than benefits, and often much more money. Second, the mother, delusional or not, believes that this can enforce the father's loyalty to her because "she's given up her career for the family." It's actually a way to increase her bargaining power should a breakup or divorce happens.

Not saying that the mother doesn't love her kids or love spending time with them, but it's not in conflict of her using them either, especially if she knows that the father will do anything for them.

I say this because I'm the child in this case. It's really a reflection of the mother's self-misogyny (believing that she has more value being a mother/wife, than working, even if it's a high-paying career), and actual misogyny, when it actually works out for the reasons I listed.

Sadly, many mothers' "plans" don't work out, and the father still leaves or cheats, and/or what you do for your children does not guarantee any returns from them. I maintain that women must work, no matter how painful it is at the moment, for their own sakes. Because the perceived easiness (and satisfaction of child-rearing) at the moment can quickly dissipate and you'll be left with 30+ years of uncertainty.

Odd mix there

Free bus passes that aren't use don't exactly cost much money

And you would shit from a great height on someone who took a winter fuel allowance when they didn't need it. But think it's ok to take benefits when you could work?

Interesting contrast

Being a parent IS work. We pay childcare staff to care for children why cant we pay parents to do the same?
Surely it's coming anyway when gvts start to panic about the lack of production of new workers?

Parents raise their children. Raising children involves providing for them financially.

I think the government should take over companies to an extent, and make work a flexible thing where you do your hours when you are able to. That would help a lot of people want to and be able to do it

I don’t want to work because I want to be around for my kids. I want to be there each and every day and not miss a single thing both inside and outside of school. I want to drop them and pick them up from primary and be there to open the door with a smile, patience, food and care when they are in secondary. I want them to do lots of after school activities most nights which I need to get them to. I want to be there when the school rings or when they arnt well enough to go in. I want to be around every single day of the school holidays to make the most of the precious years when my kids are living at home
I want time to clean my home and prepare good food.
I want to have time for myself when the kids are at school, to relax, exercise, meet with friends, Pursue hobbies, decorate
I want to be able to go on holiday when I want not be told when I can and can’t go.
So many reasons!

@BlackShuck3 You think SAHMs should be paid for choosing to stay af home?!!

@WhiteLily1 How can you afford to do this?

I don't like working, no. Or at least, not even a tiny fraction as much as I enjoy being at home with my children, teaching them, taking them out, watching them grow...

I work two days a week, soon to be three when the youngest goes to nursery at 2 years old, and am massively resentful about the time I'll miss with them 😥. I get everyone's different, but for me personally, using Excel and having meetings, isn't anywhere near as rewarding as bringing up a family, nor is the slightly limp carrot of maybe getting to retire at some point.

I'm pretty sure if every parent of child aged under 16 didn't work and became a stay at home our economy would be in a whole world of trouble.. We all "bring up our children" I work full time but still bring my son up whilst also teaching him the importantace and benefits of working to support our family.

Of course not. It was a plant-a-few-landlines-and-run, job.

Oh really? Humm ok .. interesting.

Tell me how many babies you have had and how many times you have made the decision to return to work when they were small.

Self misogyny indeed.

You think working means you can’t have hobbies, good food or a clean home?

@WhiteLily1 It's not a choice for some like it clearly is for you. I'm assuming you have a wealthy partner?

So did you ensure that you were financially secure before having children? Or did you have them knowing that the government would have to fund that lifestyle choice?

Funny that. That’s pretty much how is was 30+ years ago. Don’t remember the country being in a whole world of trouble.
By bringing up their children people are meaning looking after your child during the working day / week. Not being overall responsible

Don’t claim any benefits. Made sure I wanted to have kids with a very stable partner and enough money / house first before having any kids. No family handouts either.

@WhiteLily1 By "stable" you actually mean wealthy.
Are you aware you can have a stable partner who isn't wealthy? My husband is an example of one.
As an aside, I wouldn't give up my career even if my husband was a billionaire.

Obviously there are some people who don’t like to work. I doubt mothers are overly represented in that group.

But I think there is a lot about working - especially unskilled jobs - that some people find difficult. For instance some people really hate the idea that their work has to be good enough for someone else. It’s not that they are necessarily crap at everything, but they get stressed by the idea of it, worry about, feel constantly uneasy and as though they are going to get told off, etc. Other people have a hard time with some of the executive functioning, like time keeping, that most jobs (especially those that unskilled people are more likely to do) require. Or find the idea of being told what to do mentally challenging. And, in my experience, there’s a large minority of that jobs have terrible managers who can make workplaces just horrible - a few people with experience of that may actually find work (which, on the face of it, sound ridiculous but bullying can lead to long term mental health problems that some people never overcome).

I think there are quite a few people in society who never really launched well into work. I don’t know any mothers who seem to live on benefits for as long as they can, but I have experience with men.

I worked with a charity in the US for a while whose mission was focussed on getting black men from disadvantaged backgrounds into well paying work. There were huge gaps in their skill sets that made their attempts to work likely to end in failure. None of them were lazy. But they really had no idea how being employed worked as many had no family members who worked. A few things that I saw, and which more experienced case workers say were fairly common

• Men who couldn’t read or do basic maths (and trying to hide that because they were embarrassed)
• Never being on time because it was not, and never had been, something that was of any importance in the rest of their life
• Thinking that a manager telling you what to do was disrespecting you
• Being completely phased by unspoken clothing requirements and not being able to work out what was meant (One guy had a gold lame suit that he’d worn to interview because it was his best suit that he wore out to clubs when he really wanted to impress. He could not get his head around the idea that it being impressive at a high end nightclub was not the same as being impressive at work).
• Not understanding the idea of overhead costs or profit margins.
• Accusing their boss of stealing from them because their pay had taxes taken out
• Blatantly lying about something that will be obvious very quickly because they’re trying to avoid getting negative comments without realising that the lying about it is going to be far worse for their job prospects than not having done it.

Some of these are pretty extreme and probably won’t apply to many mothers trying to get into the workforce, but they do illustrate to some extent how much base knowledge that is rarely talked about is needed to navigate the workplace. It can be really daunting.

More personally, one of my old school friends went from job to job with plenty of time off in between. Could never seem to settle. He wasn’t lazy by any means, always helping people out and doing stuff and he was educated to degree level. But he really hated being employed. He never felt like he knew what he was doing in a job. Ended up doing seasonal work, labouring, etc. - something that’s harder for women to fall into - so that he wasn’t disappointed when they let him go to pay the bills when he had to, but mainly trying to get by with as little employment as possible, because it made him feel like a failure.

I think there are complex reasons for people who are long term unemployed. The idea that they just don’t want to work will only be true of a few of them.

So children that are 4+ are bought up by their school teachers? Both sets of parents worked 30 odd years ago, my parents work pretty much opposite hours to provide for us and I'm nearly 40..

It wouldn't happen though, as we are all different. Plenty of women wouldn't want to stay at home. Feminism was supposed to be about having a choice.

But regarding your comment about the economy? What have we gained? 2 wages in a household has just meant 2 wages are needed to purchase a house. Now we have those 2 wages, we have so many more things to buy, it's just a vicious cycle - the more we earn, the more we buy, the more we consume, the more expensive things get and the more we take from the environment. The more we have to prop up those who can't earn.

Then surely that's irrelevant? This is about people who could/should work but don't, then receive government support.

I agree with you, we need two full time wages in our household to pay the bills, our mortgage has nearly doubled in the past year. I would love to work less hours but we couldn't manage at present as my husband is self employed and work can be sporadic but it also means that we can afford two cars and weekends out which we couldn't do on one wage. But when in see over £1500 deducted from my wage packet and speak to people who simply don't want to work as they find it too stressful with children it makes me wonder why I do it.

@WalkingonWheels I think what @WhiteLily is insinuating here is that people on benefits have not "chosen very stable partners and have not got enough money/house first before having any kids."
She could never, of course, contemplate a life of luxury supported by her very wealthy (and stable) husband. Simply unimaginable.