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?

The majority of single mums who are receiving benefits and housing do not make the effort to do a degree through the OU and volunteer for experience. They don’t take the opportunities available to earn for themselves because they end up no better off and it’s easier not to.

Support needs to be given to all young people to help them understand healthy relationships and the reality and responsibility of parenthood. It should be socially unacceptable to conceive a child when you’re not already in work and the expectation for everyone except very high earners should be returning to work after maternity leave. Provide the support through heavily subsidised or free childcare so parents know that what they earn is what they have to live on, without constant top ups from the government.

Well I’m single and I’m a mum, when I have my children I’m on my own.

i didn’t grow up in a single parent family , however have always been fiercely independent / proud when it comes to money etc and therefore when I split from ex life didn’t change too catastrophically - yes , have had to be more careful of course !.
I think perhaps instilling this into girls is a good thing - PSHe lessons ?

I agree. It shouldn’t be an option to not pay for your child, and there should be a reasonable minimum contribution - the cost of keeping a child isn’t cheaper because the absent parent cba to work! When my kids were little CM was counted as income for WTC, but the appetite to enforce payment has never been there so that was stopped because it was forcing kids into poverty.

it should be treat with the same seriousness as tax evasion.

I think it’s worrying the way things are going at the moment. A few minutes on twitter and you’ll be bombarded with anti-abortion rhetoric, Musk & his cultists promoting ‘trad wife’ ideals, criticism of ‘DEI hires’ which is just another excuse to exclude women and make workplaces for white men only. They increasingly want women erased from public life and constantly pregnant.

Nothing about men who don’t support their kids. In fact Musk himself, the richest man in the world, fought for his CM case (with Grimes I think?) to be heard in Texas so he could pay the minimum amount possible! He is idolised for having kids all over the place with random women - yet if posts by his ex’s are true, has very little input in raising them.

All of this with the rise of scum like Tate, treating women as chattel, being welcomed and platformed - it’s all very depressing. It would’ve been political suicide to be seen with someone like Tate not that long ago - now they’re clamouring for a photo with him, just WTF? These are the voices our young people are hearing, daily.

Growing up in the 90s I could never have envisaged we’d be in this state just a few decades later. Trying to raise strong, independent daughters must be increasingly difficult with this noxious background noise. It’s no wonder women are choosing to have less children.

Sorry for the side-rant OP, I’m just really concerned by it all. Gilead doesn’t seem so far fetched these days.

If you are in a long term stable relationship and are financially secure and then life throws a huge curve ball at you. Yes you should be helped.

If you knowingly procreate without a stable relationship or financial security, no you do not deserve help. We have contraception, there is no excuse.

Does the child ‘deserve’ help?

Yes from the parents. Too many feckless people have children without thinking of all it entails. On the flip side people who could make excellent parents are held back due to concern for the future.

This! And also @lemmein you are forgetting that some girls/women are brought up with no frame of reference of what’s stable relationship is, they have nothing to base it off. Some women make decisions that make sense at the time, some do it because they never had a family and want to create one. Some women grow up in dire circumstances so anything that is not as dire seems like a good thing to them. Some accept those dire circumstances as normal. It’s not rocket science. These people deserve help, without a doubt.

If the father (or it might be mother) is unwilling to have the children 50/50, then in addition to maintenance he/she should pay half of nursery fees+ school club fees, so the parent that is actually doing the parenting work is also able to work.

Why are we talking about 'single mothers' as if they are one homogeneous group? Single mothers come in all shapes and forms just as married mothers do, if not more.

I had a career as a single mum, and that with no help at all from family, a useless ex who paid no maintenance and to start with two kids under 5.

It was hard, tiring, but rewarding too. I had to be super organised, instill rules, and keep going. My kids learn a lot from that attitude and that has helped them tremendously. They were fantastic kids, excelling at school, and both did their A levels whilst working some evenings and weekends.

Work was very hard and the the worse were the times we went through the threats of redundancies but again, I had to make it work. Kids did have to go to nursery and schools with some sicknesses. Yes I felt guilty when I'd pick them up and they had a fever, but it was worth it for the outcome. I found people around me very supportive.

I completely agree.

i think you meant to tag @Bogusdecisions

Not all jobs are suitable for 50/50. More importantly, neither are all children.

How do you envision we force people to pay? The CMS has written off millions. To make people pay, you need a court process. There needs to be enough of a through process for cases to be heard quickly. They'd have to create prison space and then what happens? They don't pay so it starts again? Or we let people la guish in prison at a cost to the tax payer?

I did 🤣 @Bogusdecisions I definitely meant to tag you thank you at @lemmein

The UK has the second most expensive childcare costs in the World. It’s a national disgrace. Nursery places cost up to £2500 per month in London. In Germany, it’s €250 per month. So up to TEN TIMES more expensive in the UK.

That will just perpetuate the problem. We need to change then mindset.

Growing up in dire circumstances means you know life can be bad. Why would you not want to sort yourself out first rather than continue the pattern.

Try missing a month or 2 council tax payments. Thats how it should be dealt with - exactly how non-payment of tax is treat.

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.

In all honesty I don’t recognise this at all. I’m a single mum, my kids have a good relationship with their dad. I’m in a professional job, well respected for what I do, my kids are well cared for. No one has expressed negative views to me about being a single parent. We don’t all have the same experiences for many reasons.

@Bogusdecisions did you ever hear of the saying “those in the shithouse don’t smell the shit”? When people don’t know different…they don’t know different!!!

It's lovely to see the 'looking down upon single mothers' sentiment is alive and well on MN. 🙄
What I do not believe, though, is that I need additional support purely because I'm a single Mother/solo parent.
I made the choices I made and I live with the consequences. I'm very low down on the socioeconomic scale and there are some complexities within my family unit, as both my daughters are AuDHD (as am I) and I am physically disabled; in the absence of any living relatives in this country, we are quite isolated and socially disenfranchised, but...
I teach my daughters to aim high, work hard, be kind but take no shit, and there are PLENTY of free or very low cost opportunities for them in our area of North Somerset, so I push them to get out of their comfort zones and experience different things (mega tough for any AuDHD child, but it's my job to prep them for the world they'll inhabit as adults).
I don't really give a fuck whether people look down as a single Mum: I'm a bloody good parent, all things being considered.
I also don't think it's helpful to be all "Oh, poor me, I'm a single Mum" in my approach, as life may be a struggle, but we all struggle within our sphere.

Disagree. I think they know that life could be different. Look around or even the internet.

@Bogusdecisions but I’m not talking about physical things. I’m talking about relationships and abuse etc. people can live in lovely houses, look cared for and still be in shit abusive relationships.

Agree. They still won't think that is the norm though. If anything they would idealise how 'perfect' life could be.

I think people generally don’t say these things to people’s faces but the sentiment is definitely there on social media. For women anyway. Obviously men raising kids alone are applauded.

And also those that live in actual poverty and surrounded by it in a lot of ways. They don’t see how they can change it. It’s not as easy as you think

It's much easier for society to ignore the massive burden that single mothers shoulder than to support us adequately. Better to pretend that our parenting workload doesn't exist and force us into full-time work as well- effectively doing two jobs- and call us lazy if we can't cope than to actually acknowledge what we do.

This was highlighted for me when I was dating a childless man in a senior management position- so one of society's "good guys" - a hardworking high earner. Our evening texts: Him: " Wow, that was a big meeting, just relaxing in front of the TV with a takeaway, what are you up to?"
Me: "Well, I finished working on site, rushed to pick up DS2 from after school club, then we pelted over to pick DS1 up after his after school club, then we rushed back and I quickly made dinner from scratch to shove down them, then I've dropped a carful of kids off at evening activity, now I'm doing the weekly shop before I pick them up again".
Him: ...."Wow!"

I haven't RTFT yet, but presumably it's full of posters telling us we're feckless and lazy, as per 🙄