To think we’re going to have to do more to support single mums

[Flowersinthehood]

I don’t know if this is the norm or just my social circle I’m in but my five closest friends are all single mums. Three of them have become single mum's in the last two years, two have been single mums since their children were babies. I’m in the middle.
How they are coping with it seems to vary so much depending on level of income, type of job, support network, the nature of the split, their children and their ages/ characters/ SEN, whether there a homeowner, MH.
However there are struggles for all of us.

Childcare is too short, hard to get and expensive. It’s super difficult to find a house to rent. UC, if you get it, doesn’t pay childcare in advance so for something like the school holidays is a huge outlay, especially for more than one child. Yes these costs should be shared but in a domestic abuse or coercive control situation, ex H’s aren’t always involved.
Very often women get trapped not working and it’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because the barriers to get back in the workplace are huge, especially when you’re feeling vulnerable.
The housing situation is hugely biased. No single parent who gets benefits, even ones who work can find a private tenancy. Discrimination, although supposedly outlawed, is still rife.
Flexible working, again, not easy to obtain.
WFH roles are harder to get, most only let you WFH after a period of time. Yet at the same time, childcare is being reduced due to the amount of people WFH.

I suppose my thoughts are that none of these help women leave unhappy, potentially dangerous or abusive relationships.
On MN I see a lot of ‘LTB’ but with no actual support when women actually do. It feels very much like the only women who are allowed to leave, according to MN, are those who own a property in their own name, earn six figures and have a car.
What about the rest of us?
Do governments feel that making things hard is necessary? Would women be having more babies in short term or non sustainable relationships if we made things better for women?

Unfortunately accessing accounts is not straightforward - they have to go to each bank with a separate order and therefore relied on me to provide information on banks as he was not compelled to do so. CMS have very few powers. He could have had secret accounts and neither myself or CMS would know anything about it. The children told me he had bundles of cash on him - never used a bank card. He also bought various assets with cash as a way to hide wealth. Not uncommon, I understand.

My DH died when our kids were 5 and 7 having been ill for 3.5 years with cancer. He was an excellent father. I’d chosen a life partner really well. I also didn’t expect my eldest to have additional needs. We’re managing financially but I am emotionally wrecked and physically exhausted.

I get what you're saying but actually I think the bigger issue is that people are having children in poor/insecure relationships.
I get that sometimes men can change but actually quite often the writing was on the wall long before children arrived and we'd be better off working on teaching girls/young women the warning signs of toxic relationships and encouraging them to be more selective about who they have children with. And teaching boys/young men how to be better partners and fathers, not to just walk away from their families, and to take some responsibility for rearing and supporting their children.
I'd rather we focused on earlier prevention of family breakdown, than just accepting that loads of kids will end up raised by single mums because we know the outcomes are often poorer for children.

Wow that is literally awful. Not only not providing for children properly but also huge tax dodging. Surely the gov needs to get a rocket up their arse about this?

And yes, I work. Very hard. And am fortunate to be in a job where I can work round my DC’s challenges.

Quite obviously the death of one parent is an exceptional circumstance which is not really the same I don't think.

I have a lot of sympathy but I think you are fighting the wrong battle. The problems are certainly more pressing for single parents but actually affect all families. Housing is a mess and is market driven and views properties as assets not homes, right to buy seemed a great concept but decimated the social housing stock. As a result the majority of rented accommodation is private and is seen as a source of profit. Childcare is privatised and priced commercially. Successive governments have allowed this to continue and in some cases incentivised it.
Add in to this the basic fact that it is women who get pregnant and have maternity leave and the problem grows.
To really put this right we need legislative change to supply at low/no cost childcare which is flexible enough to cover all working patterns. More legislative change to exponentially increase the amount of social housing stock. More legislative change to increase taxation enough to pay for all this. More legislative change to make NMW a level where no family unit working reasonably full time needs benefit top ups while employers can pay dividends to shareholders.
We need societal change to stop stigma towards single parents, people who live in council housing, to stop assumptions that the woman will be the default child care.
There are countries which have this kind of society, it is possible, but sadly I doubt it will happen here anytime soon.

I've said for a long time that companies should be incentivised (tax breaks etc.) to have on-site creches or their own/joint local creches where a literal on-site one is impractical, say down the street or within a mile etc, and childcare should be free for the staff.

It would also mean cutting down time driving to different places and cut out excuses when people pretend their child is ill.

The support should be from the father. We need to put more pressure on men to step up in these situations. Child maintenance is an absolute joke. If you can't have your child 50/50 then you should be forced to pay a realistic amount that includes childcare and housing.

Ermmm.....every time there is a post about single parents, there are multiple posters who tell us we need to take responsibility for having had children with these men. Every time. Without fail. The point is, single parents take responsibility all day, every day. And we are vilified, called names, our children are assumed to be trouble, stupid, somehow lesser than the children whose parents stayed together. We are called 'greedy' if we dare ask for maintenance. If we earn well, we are called names for expecting maintenance from a lesser earning ex. If we earn well, people giggle about only fans or mention 'dealing' within our earshot. Or things like 'how can she afford that if we own a car or a house or something considered expensive.

We are expected to work full time, any complexity around availability of childcare, time it takes to travel, availability of transport, children being in different settings (childcare and school), lack of availability of space in breakfast and after school clubs ....just ignored, shoulders shrugged, like we have magic powers to just make it work. Our employers put us on observation when two children fall ill in quick succession and then pass it on to us. We're supposed to have family and friends who will just drop their responsibilities at a seconds notice to help us out. We're supposed to attend breakfast meetings, go the extra mile after working hours to get promoted and therefore lessen our dependency on the state all when childcare closes early and opens late again the next morning. Concessions, sympathy, empathy afforded together parents ignored when you're single.

We're assumed to be non-working, part-time working and on benefits. They look down their noses, make assumptions. Some people have no issue calling us benefit scum even when we don't claim anything. Our children are pitied when in childcare whilst we work. Comments about being the first to be dropped off and the last to be picked up not so innocently dropped within our ear shot.

I could go on. Do I need to?

The govt needs a rocket up it's arse for ALL aspects of the black economy, tax evasion, benefit fraud, and CMS avoidance. Successive governments have lost the plot and are too scared to start imposing new laws/rules about transparency of peoples' finances - they're too frightened of the media who'll, as usual, whip up all kinds of hysteria about lack of privacy etc. But when evasion, avoidance and fraud throughout the black economy, plus other low level crimes, is growing massively, hard decisions need to be made.

I agree. We need lots of new incentives to get organisations to transition into a more modern/flexible workplace.

yes, you're right. There is probably a lot of missing tax going undeclared in this type of situation. When I was asking CMS about what they could do to investigate my ex partner and his undeclared income and child support avoidance, they said that they didn't have the resources to do anything beyond a search of accounts that were declared to them. I guess anything more would be costly at the taxpayer's expense.

I'm afraid, I think we need to make it less easy to be single mums.

Unpalatable as it is, it doesn't do anyone any good, not the mums, the children or society at large.

Obviously there are some people who end up in that situation through desperately sad circumstances, bit women do need to take responsibility and pick better father for their children.

It also need to be harder for men to walk away, but in many situations the women, having realised they have picked an unsuitable father, want him to go.

Like it or not, the single most important decision a woman will ever make is who will be the father of her children. Not being allowed to say/teach that is harming everyone.

Nah. Not always. Women absolutely have children with men they already know are lazy wankers/deadbeats/whatever.
It's ridiculous to pretend they were all good decent and kind and changed completely after a baby (so they have three!!)
A lot of people make terrible choices.

Anyway, the first thing to do is force men to pay for their children. Garnish wages, make it an offence punishable by prison not to pay. That would make a big difference.

Loads of this is just expectations of women not specifically single mums.
Plenty of women out there feel the pressure to work full time manage all the childcare and travel and family admin and they are married.

And ultimately yes BOTH parties need to take responsibility for a shit situation - men for walking away and not taking responsibility, and women for desperately having a second, third child after the dad was shit with baby no. 1

ODFOD. Someone living alonecwith the responsibility for providing for children has every right to call themselves a single parent.

No. This is not pressure on women. Women who work with a ring on their fingers are afforded empathy and understanding when they struggle to make it work. Single parents do not get the same courtesy.

It's stupid short term thinking. HMRC are the same. Companies House are the same. DVLA are the same, etc. None can be bothered with what they call "the small stuff", but there's usually a pattern of behaviour, and someone involved in cash in hand tax evasion is almost certainly also defrauding benefits in some way and probably has no valid road tax or MOT on their car either, not to mention filing false company accounts to Companies House. The government needs to give all those agencies a kick up the arse and massively increase their resources as well as giving them more powers. There'll be a high up front cost but the returns in future years will be enormous.

No I don’t think the government should be doing more financially, but I do think that the fathers need to be held more accountable and that more needs to be done to ensure they pay maintenance.

Single parents are in fact fortunate in that maintenance isn’t taken into account when they claim UC which IMO it should be.

Also, what about women who are single parents through sperm donation? Should the government be doing more for them as well? After all being a single parent is literally a choice they have made, and shouldn’t be compared to a woman who has become a single parent by virtue of having lost her husband or having escaped an abusive relationship.

My ex was fab. Until he wasn't. See, you judged me there because I have 3 kids. You assume he was shit from day 1 of parenting. He wasn't. That came at the point he had no use for me anymore.

Are you kidding?! No we aren't 🙄

The bloody opposite is true, people assume you shouldn't be struggling because you have a husband to rely on!

I agree that some women, not most, but some have children to men they knew to be unsuitable fathers, however, there is nuance still.

For example, the two mothers I know who had children to unsuitable men, one had her mother walk out on her when she was three years old. When she was seven her stepmother decided she no longer wanted to be a stepmother so her father abandoned them to the care of their grandmother. When she was thirteen her grandmother died and her seventeen-year-old sister had to raise her.

She had kids with the first man who came along because all she ever wanted was someone who was hers and would not leave her.

My other friend became pregnant to a one-night stand two days after the unexpected death of her dad. She was drunk, grieving and just wanted comfort. She was too wrapped up in her grief to realise she hadn't had a period until it was too late to abort.

They're both great mums. Did they make the right choice? No. Could anyone blame them for the situation they found themselves in? Imo, no. And the children are definitely not to blame. At the end of the day it is the children who suffer most from the lack of support these women face.

But of course, you don't mean single mums like that, do you?

I think it depends on why the Mum is single. I also think that if people (men and women) choose to have children then the prime default should be that the kids are the responsibility of the parents. Only when that hasn't worked should the state get involved. And sadly, although not personally, I do recognise the multiple kids with multiple dads scenario.

Yep it's the same thing. [Confused]

There are 2 of you. There is one of me. But you want empathy and understanding when you can't make the childcare work. You think you deserve that. By contrast, I'm called benefit scum and told I'm a greedy, entitled bitch expecting the ex to pay maintenance and the state to pay benefits. And I'm still called all that when I work full time.