Fed up of my cousins comments about benefits and UC

[glassor2]

I’m a single mum of two kids, ages 13 and 5. My older son has a relationship with his dad, but my younger son’s dad moved away a couple of years ago and doesn’t see him often-usually once or twice a year. He doesn’t provide any financial support, and since he moves around for work (he used to live in Canada and now lives in Australia), it has been challenging to get child maintenance to chase him.

I work 3-4 days a week (sometimes more if there’s overtime available) and receive a top up from UC. My mum occasionally helps with child care, but she also has a full time job. It can be difficult handling everything on my own, but I manage.

Anyway, I have a family member I'm quite close to, and she often makes comments, not aimed at me, but towards people who claim UC. For example, she mentioned that it's unfair for her to pay almost £300 a month in tax while others can work part time and avoid paying anything (I don’t earn enough to pay tax) and that she has to pay more to subsidise the people that don't. She even told the entire family that she pays almost £400 a month, including national insurance, which made things awkward and nobody knew what to say.

From what I know, she doesn't earn a huge wage, so I can see why it would be frustrating for her to have to pay that much. It's a lot of money. However, it's not our fault, and if she's upset, her anger should be directed at the government, not at those who are rightfully claiming.

Everyone’s situation is different, and some people need help. I never chose to be a single parent, and I can't control the fact that my ex chose to leave and decided not to support his child financially. I'm doing my best, just like many others on UC are.

I don't think she's intentionally trying to upset me, but she is.

AIBU? How do I tackle this?

Very true, 40k earner here but still have to claim UC to just about survive as a single mother. Should be a decent wage but the cost of 'affordable housing' and childcare means I literally have no choice.

@sameoldme this is what many don't realise. Really annoys me.

This is the position one of my friends is in. She has significant MH problems but has been refused PIP so doesn’t get any extra element for disability. She pays £550 pm for a private bedsit and UC cover £400 of that, plus a personal allowance of £380 a month. She works part time as a carer and her take home pay is less than £500 a month. So less than £700 left for bills, food, travel to work and everything else.

I’m sorry :(

I also forgot to mention the fact that the same people who whinge about the benefits bill also seem to whinge about single mothers as though they spontaneously get pregnant themselves 😂 if there was half as much rage about useless men not paying to support their children adequately, the world would be a better place ❤️ I for one absolutely applaud you for what you’re doing and think you deserve every penny of support x

@LakieLady thank you for bringing this up too - so many people already in a poor situation using a fair old chunk of money that is needed for food and utilities simply to make sure the rent gets paid because housing allowance is so way off the mark unless in a very cheap area or social housing - and even in social housing some of the rents these days are borderline close to the housing allowance and occasionally more

I assume you’re supportive of all other benefit payments too then? Because if we don’t want old people to be poor we also probably don’t want children growing up in poverty.

This.

The LHA for my area is £620pm. The cheapest 1 bed flat I found is £725pm. Even rooms in shared houses are more than £620. You get even less if you are under 35 and expected to house share.

@XenoBitch I love in Bath-lha here on a 1 bed flat is I believe £740. I defy you to get anything remotely ok under £1000 , even if you move somewhere close enough to have friends or family in the surrounding 12 miles it being under £880 . - unless of course you can get social housing - so when people put LTB unless you are coming out with a lot of equity or a very good salary, for many it’s really not that straight forward and hence decisions are made that don’t seem logical. I am 63 , people just say , get an over 55 flat, again in this area and surrounding you can be number 83 on the list. If you are in a secure situation I don’t think many realise how precarious it is for others not in their fortunate position

🤣🤣🤣

I don't want people HAVING children if they are in poverty.
You can prevent having a child. You can't prevent ageing.

I slog my guts out working full time, but I also get UC because I'm a single parent and have 2 kids in full time nursery. I'm single because my ex was violent, and he pays the bare minimum in CM, which is less than a quarter of their nursery bill every month.

It's easy to judge, but I'm not sure you'd like to swap places with a single parent if you had the opportunity.

So how does that work then. What do you expect a parent to do whose circumstances changes? Do you want forced abortion based on salary?

So people who have children who then become poor (loss of a spouse, redundancy, life changing illness etc) should do what? Send em to the work house? We could argue that modern medicine has meant that people are now living MUCH longer lives (& pension age only slightly catching up to this) so why should working age folk fund this through our NI contributions given they can’t help aging anymore than some people can’t change their financial circumstances after having children? (Just to be clear, I don’t actually believe this but it makes as much sense as your point about preventing pregnancy).

I also think its naive (and I’m being generous there because stupid is not a nice word) to assume that every woman who becomes pregnant does so with their consent.

And while we’re at it, the whole ‘poor people shouldn’t have children’ argument sounds dangerously close to eugenics. And while you’re of course entitled to your opinion, I’m equally entitled to think it’s disgusting.

Also, a further point occurred to me after I hit send.

Your argument is that old people should have protected pensions because they can’t help being old. So let’s run with this. Let’s assume we have a woman who has assessed her options and decided that a life on benefits sounds absolutely delightful (which it’s not) and has frivolously decided to get knocked up at the first opportunity she can. So a baby is born. Has that baby decided to be born into poverty? Have they had any power or choice in what family they’re born into? Of course they haven’t, they’re as helpless to their circumstances as an older person is to aging. Actually no, they’re not are they? Because people have opportunity to save and prepare for retirement. So helpless baby in poverty deserves support from the state to ensure that they don’t starve and have a roof over their head. Because most sensible people realise that the societal cost of a child in poverty is HUGE (in terms of health and ability to grow into a productive tax paying adult).

Have you honestly considered any of this or is it just more funsies to keep on the benefits are bad/people are scroungers bandwagon? I get it, people tend to like this as they seem to prefer to think that their own circumstances are down to their own hard work and that a big ol’ chunk of it isn’t down to dumb fucking luck.

My DD was 7 when my circumstances changed...what would you have wanted me to do with her then?

Send her out to bring home to bring home to money.

Joking obviously 😃

Send her up the chimneys? Or maybe ask an elderly couple to adopt her - she’d be warm at least 😂 sorry - the whole thing is so bloody ridiculous. Not everyone thinks like that I promise xx

Without knowing why your circumstances changed, I couldn't answer but very few kids in poverty were born into a solvent household and had an unavoidable change of circumstances.
Even the change in circumstances situations are usually poor choices and flippant attitudes to relationships and having kids.
There should be a plan in place for extreme circumstances such as spousal death but the sheer amount of single parents tells you something needs fixed.
There are even baby banks. People are deliberately bringing kids into the world when they can't even afford the basics.

Wow your a peach.

I personally think there should be a minimum standard of compassion before someone is allowed to have children, but here we are 🤷🏼‍♀️

Why do I imagine this poster has a shrine to Margaret thatcher? 😂 They’ve also appear to be ignoring my post about why it’s children who are born into poverty through no fault of their own are any less worthy of help than pensioners. Presumably because there isn’t a logical counter argument and they just want to keep that little self righteous hate flame burning bright.

Who are these people that think benefits are great? They're not. You barely get anything. I know because I was a high earner who became disabled suddenly - and let's not forget it's the only minority you don't have to be born into - and suddenly needed them. Also, anyone whining, about needing support... well child benefit is also help from the state. If we're taking away measly PIP and UC, let's also take away SMP and nursery funding. And child benefit. But I would never begrudge that. It seems it's only income support people have a problem with.

Attitudes like yours just make life harder for single mothers. Child maintenance payments would lift a significant amount of children out of poverty. Yet many men - and it is mostly men, about 90% of single parent families in the UK are headed by women - are allowed to dodge child maintenance payments. This broken system could easily be fixed if there were enough political will. But views like yours feed the stigma, which kills off any chance of building the social support needed for change. You’re part of the problem.

They can have children but not expect someone else to fund them, it’s not really a ‘disgusting’ opinion or even controversial.

I think they should invent an insurance policy that all of us women can pay to in case your husband falls over and lands dick First into a woman half his age
And they should make men pay the premiums for it upon fertilising us
I wonder if Axa or direct Line would go for it based on the current Data available for risk Analysis

And has one of your children for a father abroad who makes no financial contribution?
Fwiw I pay a hell of a lot more in tax than than but have enough intelligence to realise that everyone has a different situation.

The OP does not sound like she has a particularly easy life.