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?

What?

are you seriously saying women wearing rings at work get preferential treatment?

take it up with HR. Or worst comes to the worst wear a ring.

i don’t have a ring. I’ve never noticed not getting the same treatment as my colleagues who do. We have single mums, single dads, married mums and married dads, I’ve never noticed a difference in treatment. If there were I’d support their grievance with HR. If anyone has childcare issues we all do our best to step in and cover, whatever their marital status.

I think my story shows why properly supporting improves outcomes.

I became a single parent when my DC were 25 months and 2 months old. He disappeared in a poof of thin air overnight never to be seen again. They are 10 and 8 now.

I was able to get a 2 bedroom council flat for £400 a month rent. My very affordable rent and stable benefits meant I was able to complete an OU undergraduate course which I completed in 3 years. I then completed a Masters part-time.

It also turned out my DC had a disability so could not access childcare but her disability benefit and carers allowance combined with affordable rent meant I could afford the extra time at home.

I was able to, all before my youngest DC was 5, spend some time volunteering to build up my CV.

When my youngest started year 1 I interviewed for my first proper career job and got it. I still have a UC top up but it is far less because of my salary AND it is only because of having a "severely disabled child". Again, the top up means I can work slightly less than full time and not worry about wrap around care. Most importantly, I have a career with prospects. I know that as my children age I will be able to support myself financially independently.

The two big factors that made it so I could get to this position was a 1) secure, affordable rent 2) a benefit safety net. The state supported me for a few years but that will make me financially independent and not stuck on minium wage jobs. If we support single mums properly we can reduce the long term cost. My neighbours are the other end of the scale, their youngest has just turned 18 and mum doesn't work, dad in a minimum wage job. They are completely up a creek financially.

I don't know who you are associating with being treated like that but I have never come across anyone even on mumsnet calling a fulltime working single mum 'benefit scum'.

So you'll forgive me if I don't recognise the picture you paint but you sound very bitter

My husband had life insurance, I still struggled, emotionally and financially. I was left with a baby to raise by myself.

Are you Jacob Rees-Mogg by any chance?

And there it is. You don't like what someone says so they're called bitter. LOL.

Jesus wept. You can't have a discussion without getting personal? Just because you think something another poster describes doesn’t happen, they're wrong? I mean my lived experience for the last 15 years as a single parent means nothing at all, does it?

Realistically, no modern welfare system can operate on the basis of making value judgements about deserving or underdeserving parents. There are too many hard cases.

Better to focus on the rights of the children not to grow up in poverty.

Our birthrate is quite low so we shouldn't really be worrying about creating incentives to have children alone - I'm not sure there are many incentives to do that even if the system was more generous than now - but we should be attempting to ensure through the tax and benefit system that the children of a single parent aren't massively worse off than those where the parents are still together.

Because the children have no say in what the parents decide.

Ermmm...no but you didn't need to start in the first place as its unnecessary. Those people who lump every single parent in the same basket and claim they're everything under the sun are idiots (but they aren't on this thread, as posts have been clear about who is being written about).

The same goes for everyone who insist that those saying 'take responsibility for your actions' are all the same 'victim blamers' when it's obvious there are rational, reasonable distinctions made about feckless parents (married or single by the way) and non feckless parents (who can be married or single), not just about 'being a single parent'. It should go without saying that those who've done excellently for their kids regardless are not being talked about.

What would you like - spoon fed?

Some single mums will out earn a low paid couple.

Some single mums get caught in the benefits trap. Same with couples.

Many couples would benefit from more childcare options, inc later pickups and weekends.

But really do children benefit from that?
Or is that verging on cruel to be in school / wrap around, 9am - 9pm at night?
Mon-Fri and wrap around at the weekend? Effectively pushed into a 7 day week for primary aged kids?

The only thing that's reasonable is better access to social housing for all.

Weird. Really weird response. Married women are allowed not to work, or to work full time. They are called 'working families', even if in receipt of benefits.

Single parents are just a burden on society, no matter how harsh they work or how much they earn. Even when not entitled to benefits.

I'm not a single parent but that doesn't mean I can't see the stigma and difficulty involved (if significantly reduced from a generation ago). People don't like to think it could happen to them so they kid themselves they wouldn't get into that situation. But there is always some luck involved, bad or good.

Weekend childcare is never going to happen (well unless you're in the nanny kind of tax bracket..) Outwith a repeat of WW2 or a sudden outbreak of communism I suppose.

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.

It's not so much what other people say because who cares, really? It's the fact that every time a woman decides to have a child there is a very real risk that she will be left with every single responsibility for it. Every time. That is a huge risk. For many women it works out ok but there are plenty of others for whom it does not - and the children suffer.

I applaud young women taking responsibility for ensuring that they do not have children because until the massive reform of CMS happens, the population can fall off a cliff. Why should women be responsible for propping up the population with all that entails, without the necessary safeguards? They shouldn't.

I think CMS reform will only ever happen when the government steps in as it belatedly realises that they will have no incoming people to do the necessary jobs. That's when it will happen.

I have children but I didn't have a particularly strong maternal urge to have them. I could quite easily have been one of the childfree and happy about it. If I would be of childbearing age in this time then I think I would have focused on myself and my wellbeing because the government just does not care - and I wouldn't have cared enough to 'do my bit'.

I don't disagree with the OP at all because however feckless a man is, any man, the government could have put in place a robust system to pay decent compensation to women for childbirth/bringing up the new adults - and recovered the money from the feckless twats. Pretty easy to do but then, I'm a woman and can quite see how to do this effectively - just like every other woman.

I’ve raised my dd on my own, she’s an adult now.

I was fortunate that I got some tax credits when she was small and it was before the time of UC. That money meant I could just about keep our heads above water.

I have def felt the stigma and snobbery aimed towards dd and I, I think some of it is aimed at single women generally who are viewed with suspicion.

when dd was a baby in a pram I pumped into my friends parents who made a comment about whether I’d considered giving her up for adoption 😳 it’s depressing people still think like this.

You do realise when a woman is pregnant is when domestic abuse is most common? You realise a lot of these men put on a mask until a woman is trapped? You have a very naive baby view of the world.

This, exactly this and this was exactly my story, down to the two much wanted kids. I went part time 6 years ago to be around more for the kids when me and their dad split, and despite doing an extra degree and gaining some excellent experience, I can't find a full time job anywhere let alone match the salary I was on.

Because of this, the kids have suffered as they don't have the same experiences and lifestyle as their peers and that makes me so sad. Their dad is useless, one of the may reasons I divorced him, and doesn't see supporting his kids as a priority. He is a health care professional, think dentist or similar so not some dosser, and was Mayor of our town and church warden before we split. On paper, he was perfect father material but living with him was soul destroying.

I personally don't want sympathy, I want an opportunity to earn a decent wage again or failing that something like the assisted places scheme to come back or more funding for kid's activities so at least the children can have a decent start in life despite their parents divorce. Social mobility is non existent anymore and I don't want my children defined by their mother's choice to leave their father.

I don't think it's advisable for a woman to have more children than she can realistically support by herself. It's just not worth the risk and you have to assume that the man will either turn abusive or go off with someone else. They are very poor quality now and don't take responsibilities seriously because they know the woman will just have to manage if he gets bored and buggers off.

I'd advise every woman to learn how to drive and to try and get savings together for an escape fund. Open a savings account with a separate bank to your partner. Don't marry for looks, body, money, superficial charm etc. Try to identify reliable qualities that point to a longer term prospect. Always have an eye on the back door though, as men can be crafty and hide who they really are quite well. Once you're tied down with children, it gets really complicated.

It should go without saying that those who've done excellently for their kids regardless are not being talked about

But posters generally make all encompassing 'single mums this' and 'single mums that' comments. I will not not point out, for example, that there is no such thing g as 'single mum benefit' which is often cited on here as a real thing. My prime identity for many years was 'single mum' but I worked, my children were well behaved, I didn't do porn or sell drugs to afford my brand new car. My poor kids spent a lot of time in childcare. People said stuff - not on here but in real life - sometimes just careless thinking out loud, but other times quite deliberately intending to pick at the fact of being a single mum. I've done more than excellently for my kids - better than many coupled parents - but if you say 'single mums.....' and the '......' doesn't apply to all of us, I have a right to point that out .

Single mum isn't catching. It's just shit happened. It's shit that can happen to anyone. Many people seem unable to understand that.

This is why women and men will never be equal when it comes to attitudes to sex. Women are left holding the baby way more often than men are, so women need to be far more cautious about who they have sex with.

Feminism enabled women to go out to work and accordingly the cost of things went up in proportion to the number of dual income households.

It’s very expensive to be a single income household. You often pay more tax (because a couple has two personal allowances) and yet receive no help whatsoever other than the single person discount on council tax. And politicians don’t care about you because it’s all about hardworking families.

Life needs to become manageable on a single income. But it won’t happen any time soon.

In respect of single mums, men need to be forced to pay for their kids. Wage deprivation and criminal sanction if need be. It’s insane that taxpayers are more on the hook thsn a child’s parent.

The government needs to do more to chase child maintenance payments. Take the money direct from their accounts, cancel
their passports?
We need to educate women about having children without being married and giving up their careers to work part time because their partner earns enough.
Perhaps some kind of register of men who owe maintenance to the mothers of their children? Of course some women won’t care and think they can change him and it will be different this time.

When you are in the early years of RL (2 incomes,no kids)Life pretty much goes on as before really. Holidays ,meals out ,Romance / sex.Fast forward a few years and Boom! Baby arrives.broken nights , pressure on finances ,lack of opportunity for closeness.Some men just cant hack it .Does anyone have a crystal ball to see which ones? There are at least some better chances now . My Great Aunt was a widow. and had 2 small DC .Lived in a room in a house, worked as a cleaner .Her NDN would complain that baby cried .My Aunt just asked her if she would like to stop babe crying! Society has always heralded the traditional family as the ultimate goal.Many married woman struggle with work an unhelpful men as seen on here.Often struggle on as choices are limited

Why are you victim blaming? Why not suggest instead that men need to up their game? How about we don't brush non-payment of maintenance under the carpet when it comes to our brothers, cousins, friends and colleagues? Men are out there openly saying they don't support their kids and society stands by, shuffles a bit, puts it's head down and carries on. We even come up with excuses - she earns more, she got the house, she won't let him see the kids - or say we don't know what goes on behind closed doors. We don't challenge shite men. We blame the women who fall for their charms. We will only see change when not supporting your children becomes as socially unacceptable as drink driving or smoking over a new born.

I'm not wanting to put a single ounce of blame onto the woman here, but has she tried reporting him to HMRC? That way the right info would get to CMS eventually?

I agree - I’m far more conscious of this since splitting up with ex

It really wouldn't. HMRC take no action at all in the majority of cases, just like the DWP don't take action on reports of benefit fraud. The reports are just logged for statistical reasons. The odd few "may" get actions taken, but the vast majority are just a statistic, like reporting minor crimes to the police.

That's what needs to change. CMS, HMRC, DWP, etc all need a lot of extra resources and alongside that, accountability to tackle these things.