To think that being a single SAHM on benefits is not a 'lifestyle choice' but .........

[Littleredshoe]

basically scrounging ?

Surely being lucky enough to SAH with your children comes IF you can afford it? Either because you work part time, or have a partner who provides for you to do this.....

To just 'decide' that you 'prefer' not to work and live off benefits (when you are fit to work) is ridiculous and it makes me bl**dy angry that I pay tax to enable others to sit on their arses......

maybe I am ? But ......I bet there would be a lot less feckless teenage mothers if the 'right' to benefits and SAH was withdrawn.....

IF most single SAH parents were just deciding they would prefer not to work I think people would be justified in feeling angry. That's not the way it is though. At all.

how am i ill-informed? execs at banks which have basically failed according to their own capitalist model are awarding themselves huge bonuses composed entirely of taxpayers money. They are also refusing to cut mortgage rates to the same tax payers who bailed them out, even though that was part of the agreement. whether or not they have themselves contributed to the taxes in the firstplace, it doesn't entitle them to privately fritter away our cash in a self-congratulatory manner, does it?

Hi Angels, sorry you have got such a bashing on here. One is clearly not allowed to have an opinion which is different form the majority...!

sorry but I don't think it should be a RIGHT to stay at home with your children. actually I don't.

so, can we debate that ? without name calling /abuse? because I am entitled to my opinion

ys but not much of a debate though

KC " I beleive the parent of a pre-school age child should get assistance form teh state to stay at home and look after their child"

redshoes "I don;t.

there you go done the debate. Off for my dinner now.

Yes, I'd like to debate how I can have studied religiously until I was 24 and then worked religiously until I was 36 and now I'm treated like a piece of crap because I dared have a baby.

I have paid taxes (ALOT OF THEM - 40% for most of my career) but now I'm not worth the time of day, because I have a child??

You are either childless or very lucky. Littlredshoe... that's all I can say.

I would have agreed with you before I found myself in this position. My eyes are well and truly open now.

Am on certain benefits, so feel i can ask people this as well as myself

If those benefits werent there - would I/you work?

If i say yes - then benefits are a choice
If i say no - then i really do have absolutely have no other choice

littleredshoe;

well you have absolutely no right to judge - or assume.

Up to 5 years ago I worked in London, earning a very good wage and saved enough to pay off my mortgage and more. Got pregant and dumped by my partner when I was four months pregnant. Decided to sell my flat and buy a house and a bedsit in a cheaper area, used my savings to not work for 15 months after my son was born.

Use the rental income from the bedsit plus having a lodger in my house and being morgage free to enable me to work part time ever since.

So am a single parent, working part time and 'scrounging' off noone. But I can bet several people think I am!!

I am very fortunate to be in my position and god being a single parent is hard enough without being in the position that most are in - i.e being pennieless and having the choice of being called scroungers because they are on benefits or working full time in some shitty job that pays so little that would be better off on benefits, hardly seeing their kids and having to juggle so much childcare that they are exhausted...

It makes me so ANGRY that people judge single mothers who have almost always been unfortunate enough to have been dumped by some man.

Before judging someone, you should just imagine how you would cope in their situation. What would you do if it happened to you?

I paid my taxes for 16 years and earned my right to be a sahm on benefits so I bloody well will be!

Suck on that!

I didn't realise you had to earn the right to be on benefits. Is it something to aspire to then?

And if you ARE lucky enough, Littlredshoe, then I wonder what else is wrong in your life that you feel the need to come to an anonymous forum and be as agressive as this?

Is that it? Are you not playing anymore Angels? Littleredshoe?

Come OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN!

I can still see a speck of bile on your lip you know.

I've finally read the entire thread and have come to the conclusion (that someone pointed out hours ago) that the reason this thread and the other one have had such different responses is because the OP is implying that every single parent who stays at home does so with those motives (and the last sentence is deliberately provocative).

We all do what we feel is best for our children.

There are more than enough battles in the world without battling each other...

We are all doing our best.

'There are thousands of 2 parent families, both forced to work full time to survive' I also think more people could SAH if they wanted to. It IS a choice for both parents to work for alot of couples, as they want to maintain a certain lifestyle or keep up skills, they may not want to SAH whatsoever(not saying it is wrong, it is totally their choice).

For all those slagging of people depending on the Gov to support them, do you think it is OK to plan to have kids you cannot afford to then pay childcare for? Alot of single people may wonder why they should fund your lifestyle choice (to have kids and ask for childcare help).

'Surely being lucky enough to SAH with your children comes IF you can afford it? Either because you work part time, or have a partner who provides for you to do this.....'

what about carers then? i would love to work but no nursetry would touch ds1, rightky so

If i end up on benefits (if dh loses job as redundancy possibkle)- am I a scrounger?

Well, being a feckful WOHM (as opposed to a feckless SAHM ) I think I need to go to bed

the gov should pay parents to sah till the age of 4 imo

ok I had a meeting at home (yes I do do other stuff rather than sit on my arse all day since 8pm - just finished - did I miss anything spectacular in the last 100 posts.......or should I just leave everyone to slag everyone else off and get on with some more planning (yes more fecking lazy stuff that I do while my DS3 is still young..........)

squeakypop on Wed 05-Nov-08 19:56:24

"For most people, being in a stable relationship that enables them to stay at home is not a matter of luck. "

I haven't got the statistics but I would be surprised if those feckless partnerless-from-the-start women that we hear so much about really make up the majority of single women.

All the single women I know have either had their husbands walk out on them, been widowed or been in a marriage which really really could not survive (abusive, undermining, chronically unfaithful husbands).

Perhaps I just know unusual people- but my guess would be that there are more single mums who did not know they were going to be single when dc's were conceived than the other kind.

Ha ha trollopy!

is littlereddirtyangelonyourshoe shocked that we recognise the ol' changing-screenname-to-agree-with-onself chesnut

On a more serious note... my x abused me physically and verbally. So as bad as it feels to be judged by stupid people who don't understand the concept of operating at a loss each month and therefore having no choice but to be on benefits, it's still heaven compared with living with a controlling bully!

Judged by internet sprites and I haven't got a pot to piss in, but still no regrets,
so ......

aaah, not just me thinking that then Liffey.

Seriously, what utter tosh. I'm the main earner in my family, we both WOH f/t, we own (the mortgage on) our own home, we pay (lots) for childcare for 3 kids under 5...

...& if one of us disappeared tomorrow, the other would be a SAHP on benefits by Xmas.

& if I were left in those circumstances, I would definitely feel that that's the sort of crisis I'd paid in all these years FOR.

I'm a single mum by choice and I support both my children through working. But I am lucky enough to have a job with a reasonable salary/flexi hours plus have been on the housing ladder long enough to have amassed enough deposit on the sale of a flat to afford my current house without a huge mortgage. AND I have good childcare. I know I'm lucky but others may not be so. I have to say I do not begrudge benefits to single mums. I do begrudge benefits given to young single men who could quite easily get a job if they could be bothered or people who are working on the side or claiming to be sick when they are not. I actually work with people some of whom claim benefits and you see some real shysters and they are nearly always men or couples. Most single mothers I know do some form of paid employment even if it's only part time and they claim benefits to top it up.

The problem is that people watch shows like Trisha or Jeremy Kyle and see a lot of Vicky Pollards who have been wheeled out for our 'entertainment' and they assume that single mothers are like these women. Sorry for long post

I do wonder if people that hold these really poisonous feelings towards single stay at home mothers have actually found mothering really hard. It is as if they can not bear the idea that babies and children really do need to be cared for. Cut the bond, get the mother out and don't give them anything to help- it's incredibly harsh and that's what makes me wonder about the real motives.
As for the idea that people will want to make a 'career' out of benefits- (again a view often sucked up by the poisonous) but in the few cases where there may be something in this then surely these people need help rather than contempt. Self esteem would need to be pretty darn low to aim to be on benefits (rather than being on them because you want to care for your kids).
I speak from various points of experience. I was a teenage parent on benefits who certainly wasn't going to leave her (very ill) child to others to care for until utterly convinced it was ok for him (which wasn't until school) but I've studied and now work. I have also worked with incredibly needy and deprived families and honestly I feel lucky that I had the internal resources to believe I could go out and work when my child was ready- this does not make me a better person than those who don't have this but a luckier one. The idea of resenting those less lucky than me is laughable.

Goodpoint tryharder. ALthough my x is a bastard, he is paying about 40k a year in tax.

I would like to work evenings but at the moment I can't get a restaurant to employ me!! Have asked all the local ones. My Mum can't help me with childcare, as she's not strong enough. She's got asthma, epilepsy and osteoporosis, but yet people regularly ask me (and her) why she doesn't mind my children while I work! She's also 64!!

It's true about those shows. People are never nasty to me in real life, because I don't conform to preconceived notions of singlemotherhood. But that means that even with my advantages (a middle-class background) I am still struggling to get back on my feet.

With the recession, I wonder if littleangelswithdirtyshoes is just one P45 away from eating humble pie!!!!!