AIBU to think this was an inappropriate use of benefits/child maintenance?

[ForRareKoala]

My mother lived on benefits/child maintenance from high income ex from age 0-13 while I was a child and from what I can gather was receiving about £2.5k a month total (I calculated this just now though it was probably even more in the past). We lived in a paid off house bought by my father so no mortgage.

Despite this there was never enough heating, not enough food so we were underweight (not drastically, but noticeable enough for regular comments) and I didn't notice it but my sister pointed out we both had far worse clothes than most people.

I think most the money went into her private pension which allowed her to retire very early and on (admittedly small) luxuries for herself. Even just little things such as her having a deep bath everyday while we had a short shower every other day kind of sucked.

I've spoke about this with my aunt (closest relative) who says the money "wasn't just for us", but AIBU to think that with this this much coming in we should have had a childhood where we didn't have to worry about the absolute basics?

It did in the past

What a selfish and neglectful twat.

It pisses me off that she gets to retire early on the tax person’s dime.

Neglect her like she neglected you.

There’s no excuse for your kids being hungry - not least if you’re well off.

There is some confusion in your posts OP, something is missing

How long ago was this because the benefits system has changed a lot for single parents. When my kids were small, maintenance was counted as income for benefits purposes- it changed around 2010.

Universal Credit won’t have been around then either so if you are using a modern day calculator to estimate this your numbers could be a long way out.

Even so, she should have let you shower daily.

Child maintenance doesn't count now but it did back then, for income support, working tax credits, childcare element of child tax credit, housing benefit and for council tax support. All were reduced by child maintenance.

As a pp said it even counted when the non resident parent failed to pay it. The amount he should have paid was deducted, whether he paid it or not.

So your sums are completely wrong OP.

I wonder why you're mulling this over now. It sounds like it was a tough time for you all. I hope you're ok.

It definitely used to. If the OP is now an adult, the calculation and what was counted has drastically changed.

It does sound like she neglected to care for you properly, sadly some parents prioritise themselves. I'll be honest and say that I was probably neglected in some ways too, it certainly opened my eyes when I realised home more normal and loving families functioned.

Oh and the maximum you can put into a pension now if you have no income is £2880 a year. I don't know what it was back then but it would have been less than that, possibly even half. So your mum wouldn't have been putting much by. When she was working, any pension contributions she made from her wage would still have counted as income, with a 55% taper and tax credits reduced accordingly. It's only universal credit that disregards completely money paid into a pension, and your mum never claimed that.

Was you actually missing meals and hungry. Are you remembering right because I was like a little stick figure as a kid and so are my kids and we all ate plenty its just in the genes.

Doesnt matter how much she received.

Dod you feel loved?

Did you have enough to eat or did you always want more food and wasn't allowed it?

Was the house always cold?

Did you have cleaned clothes?

As others have said, child maintenance used to affect benefits. It changed because this system meant NRPs could stop paying and the family could be left struggling for months until the income was recalculated.

It sounds like your upbringing wasn’t ideal but I’m guessing living with the alcoholic father would have been worse. Easy for him to turn things around now his kids are older I guess. Being a single parent is extremely hard work and it’s hard to budget when you are in constant overwhelm. But there isn’t an excuse for neglect

Yanbu. She was neglectful. Child maintenance is to make sure the childs needs are provided for not the receiving parents in your case your mother. Your needs was not provided for and she banked it for her own needs. I had a similarly selfish mother. No expenses spared for her and her boyfriends needs amd wants but us kids had cheapest everything (yes my mum got alot in child maintenance with her ex paying the mortgage of a house she was living in with us and her boyfriend and neither her or her boyfriend worked).

I don't think the amount if child maintenance matters. You were neglected and that wasn't acceptable. There are many parents who struggle to make ends meet but they still ensure their child is appropriately fed and clothed. Your father also failed you, throwing money at your mum doesn't absolve him of ensuring his children are taken care of.

Think you have got the numbers wrong and your aunt is a stirer.

Who is feeding you the numbers? How do you know what your father paid your mother when you were 0-13 years old. You already know that the information about benefits cannot be correct because that benefit didn't exist in the right time period.

I'm sorry your parents both failed to prioritise their children, but it sounds as though someone (your aunt or your father) is now adding insult to injury by trying to stir things up with exaggerated stories about your mother having plenty of money. I'd be very surprised if your father, who wasn't married to your mother and only with her a couple of years, bought her a house outright and paid more maintenance than he was forced to.

Positive. It wasn't worth it if you had an unreliable ex, as you would have no IS or CTB (or free school meals/anything else) and then he could decide not to pay it. Child maintenance were taking about 17 years to get around to chasing non payers and in the meantime, you'd end up having to pay an entire year's council tax in one go or have bailiffs around costing a couple of thousand on top shortly after he decided to pull the 'You don't deserve my money/I was too busy, stop bitching or you won't get a penny' stunt for the second time in a year.

Other thing that happened was if you did receive benefits and there was a resentful new girlfriend/mother in law/sister, it took no more than a phone call claiming that you had a boyfriend/cash in hand job/thousands in maintenance you weren't declaring (and you weren't seeing a penny of because they were imaginary) and the first you'd know of it was when there wasn't any money in your bank account or the post office staff had been instructed to seize your payment book.

Only thing that was reliable was child benefit. Assuming he didn't put in a duplicate claim out of spite, that is.

If she received maintenance, she didn't get benefits and if she received benefits, she wouldn't have received reliable maintenance anything like you'd been led to believe.

You can’t rely on the current calculators.

the child suppprt agency which was the government agency designed to get men to pay child maintenance was only set up in 1993.

child maintenance was deducted pound for pound from benefits as the original aim was to make fathers pay for children that the state as having to support.

now child maintenance does not affect your benefits but then it absolutely did and was intended to. The money was for the state not the children or the mother.

there was no free or funded early years at all, this wasn’t introduced until 1998.

you should have had access to food and you should have been allowed to shower.

but if your mum had pre school children she would not have had any access to subsidized/free childcare and any child maintenance would have been taken out of her benefits.

No she wasn't (because as we have all said, she couldn't) and no there aren't.

In 2010- income support was about £70 a week. Child benefit was £13 for eldest child and I think around £11 for second child.
child tax was around £50 a week.
Realistically your mom was getting around £1000 a month -

Cost of living in 2010 was a lot lower but others were still recovering from the 2008 crash too so money didn’t stretch as far as you might think.

That's hundreds more than the actual UC amounts

A single person allowance is £400 then £339 for the first child and £292 for the second?

Mmm. I had two older half siblings. My half brother (as a kid) once said to my mum that “you have everything and we have nothing”. My mum maintains to this day that our dad went over and above with maintenance to his ex wife. Obviously both things cannot be true. I expect the real truth is somewhere in the middle, and/or my dad was actually spending a lot of money on himself rather than supporting all of his children. No one really knows the truth other than the parents involved and even then may be in denial about what is a reasonable amount of support. My ex doesn’t pay child maintenance but seems to think that having the kids every other weekend is equivalent to paying anything.

That calculator isn’t even accurate on today’s figures.

I’m a single mum of two children with a mortgaged house and this is what I would get (plus child benefit) if I didn’t work (I get much less than this because of my salary). This is taken from this month’s UC statement so about as accurate as you can get.

You’re talking about the time frame from 1997-2010. Benefits were far from generous coming out of a Tory government at that time. While benefit reform did lift many children out of poverty, no one was receiving £1,000s from the state at that time. Your mum was left with two small children and no income, money will have been very tight - I couldn’t grudge her having a bath tbh and showering every other day isn’t a huge deal, young children don’t need a daily shower unless they’re doing something particularly mucky.

No child should need to worry about the basics, too many do because of poverty levels, and child poverty was much worse at the turn of the millennium. You’re comparing current benefit levels and rules, it was very very different when you were a child. Your mum simply won’t have been living a life of luxury on benefits/maintenance at that time. It may be that she didn’t prioritise as well as she could, but it sounds like money was tight. You seem to be favouring your alcoholic dad, who walked out on a woman leaving her with small children and blaming your mum for your living circumstances without considering the pressures she will have been under at a time when the social safety net was much less than it is now.