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.

I would not want to miss out on those years when my kids were young. On my death bed I wouldn't think "oh I wish I had gone back to work and pay someone else to look after my kids"

Wow. Seriously? Are you always so hard of thinking? The threshold for not being able to claim UC is low. Far, far lower than two full time incomes. So no, he can't support me.

Why would I want him to, anyway? I don't want to lie here all day doing nothing. I want more for myself. Unlike you, it seems.

It can be doable but the question is whether it's worthwhile. If you don't have a good support network or money to throw at the problem, then things can get difficult very quickly.

I think if the child is let’s say under 5 I totally understand why mums don’t want to work, especially full time. Some mums have concerns about the care provided in nurseries, sadly every few months there is a horror story in the news. They may also be concerned about the lack of attention each child gets with the adult: child ratio.

Equally, however, and as a mother who put her young baby in childcare to go back to work, I also get why mothers do that. We want to provide for our children, because we love them!

I think both type of mothers are doing what they think is best, both driven by love. I don’t think it’s fair to judge either one, we are all mothers at the end of the day!

You don't have a choice nowadays, the rules with UC are you have to work at least part time when your youngest is 3.

This is news? Of course there it is just dressed up as 'I need to he at home' if it works fine but quit complaining about it

I agree, I think a lot of people just don't want to work and having children is a great excuse not too!
Although I do see the issue, if you're in a low paid job it's hard to find something better while you have very young children but if you can't get a better paid job then you essentially land up just working to pay child care then what's the point!

I value time over money. I don't need or want for anything more.

My daughter went back to work after having her first child, myself and nursery looked after him, she then went and had another child and she went back to work, same childcare arrangements.
At the time the government introduced free childcare places to 2 year olds, because my daughter was working she didn’t qualify for the free places, yet parents who were unemployed and on benefits got the free childcare, people who were not working had no reason to be putting their 2 year olds into childcare, it’s working people who should have benefited from free childcare!!!

I find that it is only a certain type of jobs that pays well and some people are just not suited to those types of jobs

I'm not up to speed on benefits these days, but certainly when my kids were little, if you didn't live on the doorstep of an employer, it certainly didn't pay to work and pride didn't pay bills. Costs of actually getting to the job needed factoring in, too.
I hope that's changed, but it's employers paying piss poor wages and the need to be state topped up that needs an overhaul. Companies that rake in huge profits should be forced to pay decent wages before dividends/ shareholders.

Wow. What a nerve. That poster and many others are paying for your child's dla out of their taxes so don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Does anyone know what support UC offer for those with disabilities if they want to start gaining qualifications so that in future they can try to get a job ? I never had any education past primary level , would I start with GCSEs ? Is that funded or do you self fund ?
My local college does courses but I think GCSEs are needed to do them

How nice for you. I value a roof over my family's head, food in the cupboards and household utilities. Priorities, though.

It's not "free childcare" those hours are to benefit the children from very low income households who are already at a disadvantage, to help them socialise and learn. It's not about childcare.

Laughing my arse off at all the comments about choosing not to work because it’s stressful and exhausting.

It just shows that so much comes down to choice. We are all more stressed and more exhausted because we work, we don’t all choose to sit on benefits though. Thank fucking God because who’s going to pay for the benefits if we all took the same approach.

I'm fortunate that I have all that as well because I am a carer for my disabled children.

Also this! As a working couple we paid £35k for childcare for two days a week to essentially keep my job, I really don't understand why people not working were entitled? More time to watch tv in their hectic schedules?!

Some people just want to be at home with their kids, not away from them twelve hours a day.
Some people won't consider the marginal better pay as reasonable compensation for the logistics of ferrying kids to childcare, getting to work etc.
Some people will have such poor education/ grades that they feel really limited in what they're able to dom. The hours of low paid / low skill work may not fit around childcare options (nights, weekends)
Some people are lazy and don't want to work.

And lots of other reasons I can't think of.

For me, I worked from 16 to 33, through high school and Uni until my poorly newborn came. Id intended to go back but he was v poorly so took redundancy.
As he got better and options opened up, I had twins.
Then COVID hit.
I don't drive and cannot afford to learn / get a car but obviously I could if I got a decent job. But before then I'd be on public transport getting the kids over to a childminder (nothing local) and then into work and then get back across to the childminder and then get the kids home all on the bus and that feels like such a huge thing logistically to sort I just don't know where to start.
And then what happens holidays? Who will take a couple of preschoolers and an older one for those length of days every holiday bar a few weeks of leave? I know there's holiday club but thru often don't take them until a bit older or it's shorter days but if you're in work an hour by bus away 9-5 then clubs running 10-3 aren't much use.

And that's before the hospital appts that id need leave for for eldest and then the illnesses they'll inevitably get. DH gets legal minimum so doesn't have many spare days once you take out a week's holiday, kids birthdays, Xmas, helping with other kids when we have hospital etc.
This year DS did three days in hospital, has had two minor surgeries, the nurse is over once a week, we have three consultant appts as a minimum plus the ordinary stuff like dentists and opticians.

It just feels SO big, so insurmountable and I KNOW other women do it and are great parents and capable adults and far better than me but I just...

So I concentrate on my OU degree and volunteering and helping out at school where I can to disguise how useless I've become at adulting.

Well, we could trot out the often used line on MN... move somewhere cheaper.

Go and read up on why those hours are offered to those children. It is to benefit them, not their parents.

Hmm. I can't speak for those on or eligible for benefits but:

I worked for 16 years in the City and had a wonderful time and loved every minute of very hard work. In work at 7.30am, out at 7.30pm, bed by 10pm but it bought me a house. Then I got married and when the dc came I had 7 years off, because I could and we could afford it.

Those seven years were wonderful. They were fun and I had more personal time and freedom than ever before in my life.

Then dd was settled in reception and I got bored. So I saw a p/t job advertised and applied. It was local. It paid peanuts but I'd earnt no nuts for 7 years and it fitted into school hours - 9.15-2.30 Mon to Thurs, after a year they let me work Mon to Fri but term time only. Then they made me a full-time trainee role and sponsored professional qualifications. After 8/9 years the pay wasn't great but it funded the au-pair and it was a springboard. DH worked 12-14 hour days at this time and I did the domestic load.

Then I got a better job and became a director. I'm close to retirement now and wondering what I'll do. The DC are grown up, one is married, the other very steady.

I can see no reasons whatsoever why people can't organise themselves to work providing they are in good health and the DC are well. Most women (and men) I know who don't work are selfish and bone idle and frankly quite boring banging on about the tennis club, holidays and their DC. A small minority are philanthropic and genuinely do a lot of charity/voluntary work but not many. Once or twice I've nodded at a full-time mother stressing about getting Chrstmas organised with both dc at school, and I have walked away and judged.

Life on benefits for the well should never be better than life working.

Find me an affordable, wheelchair-adapted property in my area, that's cheaper than my current one, and I will move there.

You won't, though. Because we looked for 15 years, gave up and had to have one built 👍

That poster you're criticising certainly has more pride than you. Do not dare mock her for working full time. She pays for you to stay at home out of her taxes.

Completely agree. The thought of relying on the state to support me is horrifying. I work hard and am not financially reliant on anyone, and I'm raising my kids to have the same attitude. Self-reliance is very underrated in this country!

I was born and raised in a WC family on a council estate, and my parents were outliers in my family in that they always worked. My aunts and uncles did not share their work ethic - and it shall come as no surprise that many of my cousins are NEETS and/or have never worked. I cannot understand it.