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?

Well said, but wait for the howls of anguish that women used to be taxed on their husbands etc. That was decades ago! Time to get over it. A modern tax system could tax households as a household, not on the husband as a husband/wife jointly. The benefit system is based on household income, and so should the tax system. It would get rid of a lot of problems and actually simplify things.

Then we need to do what Gordon Brown tried (and failed) to merge/link the tax and benefits systems so that both are based on the same dataset to reduce the duplication/triplication of effort in different govt departments.

The government needs to be brave to start to solve our societal and economic problems. Signs aren't good though as they don't seem to have a clue.

There's also some that don't care or don't think about the future.
They are just in it for the sex, both the man and the woman.

I've said this before that income tax allowances should be per household rather than individually.
However older women shot me down saying that would be a return to the days of women not having a tax allowance.

It seems nuts to me that benefits are calculated on household income but tax and child benefit are individual.

@beAsensible1no because people aren’t neatly packaged like that. We may all be single parents but our situations are vastly different (as I put in the OP!) People would never suggest married couples with children shack up with another couple with children when they’re bitching about mortgage payments, instead people say that the system should change. So why should single mums be expected to pick up for systemic failings? The benefit system is not fit for purpose, it excludes people who want to try something different in order to retrain, gain different skills, or start a new career. It wants women on the tills in Tesco for life, earning just enough to survive (just, and using food banks) but not enough to enjoy life. Just one endless slog of work, parenting and logging onto your bloody journal every day.
The rest of the population in low paid jobs could change career, retrain, find a different job or maybe take time out to volunteer in a field they actually want to work in. UC doesn’t allow for any of that.

They kind of do this in Ireland, I’m taxed less as a single parent who rents.

@PassingStrangeras we live in a country with free access to abortion, who in the hell is having children because they ‘like sex’?? Honestly explain your answer, there are 4000 easier ways to have sex and deal with the consequences than to have an unwanted child who you then have to raise for 18 years?

Again it doesn’t take long before the old ‘single parent= sex obsessed hedonistic’ rhetoric comes out, oh no, hide your ugly, boring husband, she’s on the prowl.

I think, and don't shoot me, that women can sometimes be their own worst enemy (and I include myself in this in some ways).

I'm a single mum, doing great (although knackered), and it's because I believed the fairytale, then my ex turned into a cheating, drug-taking tosser (warning to any woman with a partner who goes on TRT - it magnifies every fault.)

I'm doing OK because whilst I gave up a lot, I didn't entirely give up my work, and I had the kids late enough that I was established (and owned my own home before I met ex). And because even though I have almost sole care, I fought for decent maintenance, and don't interact with him at all beyond a shared calendar for visitation requests

My single mother friends who are doing less well, are the ones who had kids young, or who gave up work entirely, and especially those who still bend over backwards for their ex and let them get in their head, or who didn't fight for maintenance and shared custody - or all of the above because they snowball together.

I don't necessarily want more childcare - my kids only have one parent, and I want them to have as much of me as they can because of that. I would have appreciated a tax break maybe - the UK is unusual in not giving parents any tax break for having kids.

Edit - what I mean to say is, women are too nice. We give up too much, we need to put ourselves first more.

OP YABU if by 'do more' you mean taxpayers should pay more to help single mothers just by virtue of the fact they are single mothers. The system is already at breaking point and the lack of personal responsibility and accountability in this country is insane. Your view that we collectively help women so they can leave unhappy marriages for example- sorry but no, it's not my responsibility to subsidise you so you can leave the crappy partner you decided to have kids with without it impacting your lifestyle, career, kids etc. Regardless of how you became a single mother, it's really not the job of the state to ensure you and your kids have the same opportunities as what you perceive two parent families to have. Life isn't fair and sometimes it's obviously out of your control eg partner passing away, cheating on you etc but that's life and we already have a very generous benefits system. Some people don't ever end up having kids because they don't meet the right partner in time and wisely decide not to settle for someone who won't make a good dad. Should we also subsidise them to have kids on their own?

Should we also subsidise them to have kids on their own?

Tbf, we probably should given that the population (and therefore the number of taxpayers to support the elderly and retired) is rapidly declining to the point we are up shit creek, especially now we've pissed off all the foreign people who, for some unfathomable reason, wanted to come here and pay tax.

@UpsideDownChairswith respect, and I do respect you, it is because you are in a position of power (which you earned) that you can keep those boundaries with your ex. If you have to keep your ex sweet so he will pay you or have the kids one evening so you can work in a pub, then it’s very different. I actually know some women still having sex with their ex/ children’s dads to get enough money to survive. So much for our ‘generous’ benefits system eh @lilydragon

That is something people seem to forget when they're banging about feckless (read slutty) women having kids they cannot afford. Those kids are future taxpayers. They're also potential nurses and carers, all of which we are desperately short of, a fact which is not being helped by the birth rate falling below the rate of replacement.

@lilydragonhow much personal experience of claiming benefits do you have? My amount without wages is £995 per month, two children, and out of that I would have to pay a mortgage and all other bills. That in no way makes up for a whole other person’s wages.

Why should you care?
Well women won’t leave abusive relationships. More children will be abused or go to sleep wondering if their mum will be killed in the night. More women will bring unsuitable men into the home just to get another wage. Why? That’s not very smart is it? Because they have to, in order to put food on the table.
I am flat broke each month. I don’t have savings. I earn 30K. I get £176 UC. It’s shit. So why didn’t I just stay with an abusive man? Is that what you’re suggesting.

Or did you think that UC paid more if you prove abuse? If so bless your heart

I've got two who were in this position- one 30 years ago and one quite recently. Both were financially OK due to benefit awards, both were OK for childcare due to grandparents. One never bothered to attempt to find work, one had a cleaning job in the evenings. I would say my friends who have live in partners had and have it handed.

One child grew up to have a child at 18 who is college qualified for a lit of things but never actually stuck to a job. The other, we'll, we'll wait and see.

@Whatevershallidowithmylifeits actually impossible to not find work anymore unless you are disabled. UC mandates job searches and you can be sanctioned. I know people who have been sanctioned. You have to meet the AET which is around £900 per month. HTH

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

See this is the stereotypical shite we are having to deal with all the bloody time.

Majority of single mums who are receiving benefits are also working. Many of them already have degrees. Not everyone is suited to higher level study, even assuming they had the time to dedicate to it, what with being a single parent and out at work at least part time. You can't volunteer for experience if you have no one to help you with childcare (I volunteered for a year - but my mum did the childcare and the picking up and dropping off at school for me, I couldn't have done it otherwise). And actually, the DWP has something to say about volunteering when you should be working,I think. As for we don't take opportunities to earn for ourselves, the statistics would suggest otherwise. We are not all stupid and incapable of higher level study, nor are we destined to remain in minimum wage roles just because we're single mums. And without exception, every single mum I've ever come across has worked and was desperate to get off the tax credits so as not to be beholden to the state (and idiots who think they're better than us as they're tax payers. I mean, it's not like single mums are exempt for paying tax, is it?!).

Maybe stop and think a bit. Single parenthood is not just for 15 year olds. Women of all ages are widowed or lose a partner. Many are abused, controlled and beaten. Others (sticks own hand in air) cannot continue in a long term relationship because our husbands have had affairs and no longer want to be with us. This happens to people of all ages, all social classes, all levels of work experience, all levels of health and well being.

This. All of this.

The current one- well there must be some way round it, or she's lying to them. The older one, well that was a long time ago. Appreciate it sounded like single mum bashing but that wasn't intentional having been raised in a single parent household.

@PickledpoppetpickleI’m sorry but your lived experience of your relationship breakdown/ career/ education is actually wrong because half of MN ‘know someone’ who earn £4000 in benefits and never have to search for work and they palm the kids off all the time. You get 85% of all childcare don’t you know and UC always pay this on time and definitely don’t quibble the shit out of it and only pay you a third.
You know Leanne down the road, well she had five kids by Steve who beat her and turned up to the wedding up on pills with a prostitute on his arm. She gets everything paid for, but when she’s a bit skint she just moves a local builder in. Then she gets his wages AND she gets her plastering done. Puh these single mums have it so good.

You forgot the single mum benefits she also gets on top of the £4000 and free plastering.

And the goat, you forgot the goat. I'm sill waiting for my goat. I hope it comes before the grass needs cutting else I'll have to shag the gardener again.

@Frequencyyeah it’s crazy some months, like Spring when you have to get the guttering done, the hall needs doing and I wanted someone to karcher the patio. I’m exhausted, probs pregnant again too. What am I like? Defo just selling pitchers of my feet next year

oh dear! those 'pitchers' will sell themselves! I forgot the goat. Mine didn't survive the winter storms. I'll need a new one. I wonder if I could get an 80 inch screen TV to go with it?

I agree with @ Porcelainpig
It should be affordable to live separately or as a single person and it isn't.
I ended up being a single parent, was married planned kids, nothing I could have done differently. I had a good job, worked full-time but even so with no help from the Dad, financially it was more than difficult. Even now years later I have never got back to owning my own house. Wages are too low to get a mortgage as a single person unless you have a very well paid job even as a professional.

I am a single parent doing a degree. Yes I get less in uc and have to fund our life with my student loan but it works. I could have carried on doing a fairly low paid job forever that I enjoyed. But when the child maintenance and benefits stopped I would have been stuck financially. This way I will be financially better off in the future.

It's all well and good that UC pay up to 85% of childcare costs but that's useless when there are no places. I have to limit my work hours to do the school run as there are no childminders collecting from my DS's school since the lockdowns, there's no after school club and it's not as simple as move school as anyone who has experience of school places will know. Plus DS has SEN that are best met at his current school. I do what I can and it annoys me that mums in my position are labelled as lazy, scroungers etc. But my ex (who has opted out of our family) just pays £10 per week per child and is let off scott free. I'm the bad guy.