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.

They won't, and that is why they are over here. Recently she posted on social media - she is making cakes as a hobby, probably sells an occasional one, I don't know, but this is not an industrial scale, cash-in hand production, that I know for sure. But the caption literally made me laugh - she wrote 'Thanks to the support of my amazing husband and children I am now pursuing my hobby of making cakes' - yeah, right. Thanks to the amazing support of the British taxpayer, you are able to sit at home and now pursue a hobby.

Embarrassed to say, but in my family my ex SIL is milking the UK benefits system (she is Bulgarian) on an industrial scale. She came here illegally before 2004, then she registered her sister at her GP's surgery (sister lived in Bulgaria) and her parents. They would fly to the UK for treatment and now the parents are in a council-paid care home, hiding the fact that they own multiple properties in Sunny Beach. When I raised the issue with my ex SIL, she looked at me and said (it was before Brexit) - we are all equal EU members - if you parents want to go and apply for a Bulgarian care home, they can. She lied - nobody from Western Europe would want to do anything with social institutions in Bulgaria, they are shocking and also, Bulgaria does not pay for foreigners to have medical treatment or reside in care homes.

People, including my db say it is none of my business. Right. Only recently my accountant raised a query with me - he was advising me he is not going to put my 1st class train ticket (there was no availability in standard class) on my expenses, because 'HMRC won't like it'.

People also say I am jealous of benefit scroungers - and to be totally honest, I am. When I compare the end result and the outcomes for my family, myself, I am jealous of them. I do not feel jealous of genuine benefit claimants, my heart goes out to them and I know that anybody could find themselves in the situation and I am genuinely scared it might happen and pray it won't.

That's not the point though. However hard it is caring for small children they prefer it to the workplace.

@EI12

At least you are doing the right thing😀

I am shocked about the care home thing but the UK governments are so inept.

This is what I am trying to tell you, is not an excuse, they don't work more hours because they know if they get more hours they will lose the free childcare...

Actually, will they now? If both parents are working? Free childcare from 9months old.

I think this is fairly new, and not really as simple as that, for what I hear, the "free hours" are paid at such a low rate (from the government to the nursery) that it only brings the bill down marginally for parents, don't quote me on that, my kids are not in childcare anymore but that's what I gathered from friends and some posts on Mumsnet. When mine were small, my girl only got 15 hours free nursery, starting the term after she turned 3 so she missed a couple of months funding you could t just start right after their bday. Back them if you were on a low income , I think £16k or less, you'd get free hours from 2 years old, so yeah most of the spaces went to people not working full time.

If it's. Ot enough time for the parents to use that time positively why don't they spend it with their children, doing stimulating activities? Then that funding can go to people that are actually working?

It's not just single parents with kids under primary age, though: there was a thread yesterday (which has since been deleted) by a co-habiting mother of one one-year-old who was relying on UC because she didn't want to work until her child turned two. Her partner gave her 'some money', but not enough to avoid her being on UC.

Most parents, single or not, realise that if they or their partner cannot afford to fund an extended break from work to look after children, they will have to use childcare (paid or otherwise) and return to work.

I knew a couple, 4 teenage boys. Mum was SAHP, dad did 30 hrs. They still sat with them doing their homework round the dining table until A levels were finished. Neither had intention of working more hours. The DH had a house from gaining life insurance payout from his late wife. So housing not a problem so they lived on wages/ tax credits.
Boys are grown up now and don't know if they work more now.

It is new, we qualified for nothing at all til this change. It brought our bill down by £200 a month when spread across the whole year, which is not insignificant. And that includes the sundries the nursery added on for those hours. It helped so much.

I am looking forward to the 30 hours free when she turns 3, because that will help enormously.

When we first had DD we had to run the budgets through several times to work out if we'd be able to make it til she was 3 if I went back to work. It was my preference to go back anyway, but obviously the overall preference is to make sure the roof stayed over our heads and we could eat.

Since then I've had promotions and increased salary and more flexibility etc, so it was the right choice. The childcare costs years aren't forever, but working part time through it I can see why people would choose either path. I love the fact I don't miss all of her week while she's little. And I love the fact I have my own money and working life. The childcare changes could benefit many people who think they'll lose the childcare by earning more or working more hours.

I don't understand how you are differentiating between benefit "scroungers" and genuine benefit claimants? And why you feel jealous of one group and sorry for the others? Surely if each group is claiming what they're legally entitled to, what is the difference and why do you think one group is better off?

I don't want to woek - I hate it, particularly this week. Sadly I like my salary too much. However I work full time from home and my job is flexible which allows me to support my autistic teen. I also have family close by.

I don't know how single working parents do it? My ASD teen would not cope with holiday club or wraparound care so not sure what would have happened to her if I'd not been full time at home (and her Dad was home full time until she was 7 as a SAHD also).

Yes it is.

Humans have a choice. Most of us do decide to have children because we want them, let’s not pretend it is done simply so we can have a future workforce.

Agreed on all points

If you want to be a SAHP this decision should be based on the fact that your partner earns enough to keep you both afloat without needing to rely on handouts.

If not you need to work. Sorry that's life

it is a choice that lazy grifters make !
To choose to not work and to live of benefits to support them and their children they chose to have.
No one respects a grown adult choosing to do nothing with their lives.
But some people like getting free money to do nothing and then claiming it's because they are a parent.
Lots of people can do both!

50% of mums worked in 1975. This would have been less than 50% goijg back to 1970 and less in the decade before that. 34% working mums in 1960.

@WhiteLily1 but they would not have been getting benefits, they would have been supported by their husbands.

This is such a judgy post, full of ridiculous assumptions.

A mother prefers looking after her baby / child to sitting at a desk away from them- the horror, someone call the press.

I'm a single parent. Before I had children never understood why people (mostly mums) stayed at home even after their children started school. I get it now. There are literally not enough hours in the day to do everything and hold down a full time job. I work 30 hours and often feel like that's too much, I realise that probably sounds pathetic. My mental health suffers hugely and as a result my children get too much screen time and aren't given enough responsibility, although I am working on changing things. Everyone is time poor.

Last week I saw a post on a UC group on Facebook from a dad who was earning less than £1k a month, his wife was at uni, they had 3 kids, and he wanted to know how he could get UC off his back. Ridiculous.

There needs to be proper help for people trying to get back in the workplace though, not just threats of sanctions and insisting that unemployed people spend all their time applying for jobs that they aren't qualified to do and don't stand a chance of getting.

Absolutely - agree with every word you have said.
As a SAHM you get told you are ‘lazy’ it’s absolutely not a job, your husband will cheat, you are a fool and so much more. Just for wanting to look after your own child and not have to give that pleasure to someone else.
Sad times and I think it’s gone too far the other way.

I work 30 hours and often feel like that's too much, I realise that probably sounds pathetic

Not to me it doesn't. Running a house and looking after children is enough to do on its own...throw in a job and it's exhausting.

There’s another thread on AIBU and all of these things are being said, and more, right now about a woman who doesn’t work. It’s really sad.

You can if you have children, and a working partner

Why did you decide to have a large family? Would it not be better to have a small family and work, and avoid autistic burnout? You are contradicting yourself.