to think that if single parents get benefits to SAH then so should co-hab parents?

[angelswithdirtyfaces]

If its ok for single parents to choose to SAH (on benefits) then parents co-haibiting should have this choice too?

I accept the fact that prehaps single SAHM's have little money to live on ....but that is a whole differemt debate. Yet you say they choose to live with very little money.

What you think and what you have experiance is not the same as others.

Have you ever been a single parent surviving on benifit?

Have you ever been beaten black and blue and gone to hospital and then arrived at a womans refgue with nothing but your dc and the clothes on your back?

Have you lived with a dh screwing everyone that is female, then your dc asking why daddy is with such and such is this normal to have affairs?

Single parents, mostly female get a rough deal and will jump on your back to defend themselves against your judgments about "some" scrongers.

This is to make sure you realise that they didn't choice the life they have and that 98% of single female parents are not scrounging on the state and please stop using them as an excuse or a high light.

Single parents would ask could you walk in their shoes for a mile before you write about tip toeing around these subjects.

I don't have the choice to stay at home. I have no choices. I don't have the choice to work more specifically.

Your bitterness and antipathy towards single mothers is incomprehensible. You think I'm a nut?

Ivvv

I think SOME choose to SAH and accept the fact they will only get benefits.

angels - what will you do when your husband leaves you with 4 children. Will you be able to get a job that pays you enough to cover all their childcare? What will you do when one of them is ill? What if they are distressed by the break up of their family and need you around?

Perhaps you will have to 'choose' to SAH.

ANgels: you really do seem to be persistently, stupidly fixated on the marital status of mothers. What's your viewpoint on single fathers who SAH? Or, indeed, coupled fathers who SAH? Should they get more or less money than women who do?

Now there is a debate to be had about whether or not the government should pay some sort of Carer Allowance to every household where there is a child under 5, which could be spent either on paid childcare or on providing for one parent to SAH (funny how the govt is basically prepared to subsidise the paying of low wages to (mostly) women to look after other people's children but not their own).

Basically, few salaries are high enough to support a dependent adult as well as dependent children, hence SAHPs are usually impoverished, regardless of marital status. YOu are perhaps more hung up than most on the traditional slave-economy of parenting (men earn money for working set hours, women work 24/7 in return for food and shelter).

How can you claim to want healthy debate when you shut your ears to ALL reason??

If you want to leave your husband, go ahead, I don't care.

You say you can't work now because you can't afford the childcare, well, HELLO! that is the reason many single mothers can't work.

IF you had come on to this board and said that the role of motherhood should be acknowledged and rewarded (or, at least, not penalised) then you would have got a better debate going.

In one way, if I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt (and you don't really deserve that because you have been extremely offensive) then I think that unmarried mothers in co-habiting relationships definitely deserve some financial protection. BEcause in those circumstances, the man feathers his nest, and the woman ends up with no salary, pension, savings if they split. BUt. That is a worst case scenario.

I wouldn't be up in arms if some measures were put in place to use some tax money to protect women in these circumstances.

AT the end of the day, you don't sound very happy. You have four children and a husband and you're focusing on single mothers and the benefits they receive!!

I have no idea. But what I do know is I would'nt make a descion to SAH, just because I could. I would do everything i could to re-train or get a job with the view to full participating in the job market.

What about the parents who are in a relationship that are forced to leave their young children in child care 10 - 12 hour days? Do their Dc need them any less? Or is this something that only single parent families experience?

Exactly beansmum. Angels, If you can't afford to work now, with a husband's salary going into the bank every month, then how hard would it be for you to work if your husband left you??

Just think about it.

There is no 'choice' about SAH for me.

This is the stupidest thread on MN

And who would look after your children while you re-trained? That'd be about £3,000 a month you'd have to pay out in childcare while you re-trained. Plus, you'd need another £2,000 a month to run a household of 5 (you and your children).

Where do you get that money from when you're not working?

You are living in cloud cuckoo land.

I'll be joining you then Are you ok Liffey?

Solidgoldbrass , that carer allowance is a good idea. So many women out there who put their children first or their partner's tea/ironing etc etc, and then at the end of their lives have no pension. A carer allowance would also pay 'stamp' or whatever the term is in the UK.

Angels: what is it that you want to do with your life? Because it seems to me that you have a big stick up your arse over not being able to have something you want yet you are maybe not sure what it is.
If you are a SAH and want to work, sort out a part time job for yourself at least. IF your DH works away and earns good money, the family unit can afford some childcare for you.
If you want to be a single SAH then you can get benefits if your relationship breaks up.

Other people's lives do not actually affect you that much. Struggling single mothers are not to blame for your domestic issues. Leave them alone.

In what way am I weird Angels?

I have a blissfully happy life. Thank you so much for your concern.

Since my DH is helping to support those single parents who choose to SAH then it is very much to do with me.

Is your life OK?

Yupp solid. This 'lady' does not seem like she is in a happy marriage.

Ahhh so sweet - caring. prehaps looking at your own lives is more appropriate.

Such good arguements to support your views.

My life is fabulous actually.

My DD is sound asleep after a busy day and a walk in the park, with a leaf fight. I have a hot water bottle, a glass of fair trade organic rum, a bar of chocolate, and I am relaxing.

I don't feel the need to pick faults with others and their circumstances, I am not a mean spirited, bitter, evidently deeply unhappy person.

Angels, my life is getting better, bit by bit.

I left a mean abusive man with just a rucksack and two children. LIKE YOU I can't afford to work because the childcare would cost more than I could earn.

I don't have a husband's salary going into the bank every month. That gives me fewer choices or options than you. Comprendes??

But when my children are in school I'll rejoin workforce. In the mean time, I am content and my priorities are my children's healthy, happiness and developement. So far so good. I am not the sort of person who thinks life owes me. You were so wrong (on the other thread).

In rl, I have lots of friends, almost all of them married to high earners, and luckily everybody is extremely kind, understanding and supportive. I have never in 15 months encountered even a sniff of the begrudgery and resentment that clearly envelops you.

I don't believe that you are blissfully happy. MY ARSE as Jim Royle would have said!

AA I am so happy for you as long as it is not a choice to SAH on taxpayer's money!

Its hard bloody work, I might add - but everything worth having is.

My beautiful DD is flowering into a confident child - a huge change from the traumatised 2 yr old I was left with by her father. She loves me, and I love her, and I would sooner go without material goods and the improved status that gets attached to WOH, in order to spend these few short years looking after her and helping her flourish.

And I'm sure lots of parents in a couple who have to work would LOVE that to. But as long as you're ok - no worries.

angels, how can YOU of all people talk about providing reasoned arguments. Your arguments and statements so far are weak and totally unsupported by any factual evidence - only your narrow minded opinion.

You just sound really silly tbh. IMO "blissfully happy" people don't spend as much time as you have on this thread just trying to wind people up.