To think that the council should not be leaving a single mum, with her three children to kip down on her mothers floor

[ijustwanttoaskaquestion]

I am not entirely sure of all the details but i just feel that the situation my niece is being left in is not right, as in, i think something has gone wrong with her local council housing system.

So, she is 23 has three under three, her partner left her when she was pregnant with her third - he just disappeared. Hes a twunt apparently, well rid. They had a rented place but he didnt pay the rent so they were evicted. Because of this, the council told my neice she was "intentionally homeless" and woudlnt put her on the waiting list. Eventually she contacted her MP who contacted the council, as it was not my niece who was evicted but her partner who she now has nothing to do with. She was told she was a priority case and was given a password for the online bidding system. She since has her third child and informed the council - now, this is second hand, but apparently she was told this "we have changed the system now, you are now on the bottom of the list and you can expect to be living on your mother's floor for the next three to five years".

She has three children, she sleeps on the sofa and the children are sleeping in travel cots. Her mum basically lives in her bedroom, although why its like that i dont know - its a three bedroom housing association house, but there is the my neice, her mum, her brother living there - the third bedroom which was my nieces is a box room and apparently being used for storage.

This cannot be right?? Surely, leaving aside the fact that she was less than sensible to put herself in this situation by not sorting out contraception after the first child, there are still three children living in unacceptable conditions. Apparently, my niece is coping very well but it must be so hard for her.

She does not get on with her housing officer and feels she is prejudiced against her for getting the MP involved in the first instance, i cant say whether this is true or not.

What can she do?? Can she not rent privately and claim housing benefit? The council have told her they wont support her in this.

As i say, i don't know the full situation but wondered if anyone has any advice for organisations to approach etc - people to write too, appropriate thigns to write to the council to make sure her case is being handled properly.

I dont want to say where she lives in case she is a mnetter. But i know it varies from council to council. I just find it hard to believe that someone in her position wouldn't be on the priority housing list.

coldtits, I agree with you!

'So why is the pressure always on me? Why isn't it on him? '

NO SHIT!

My dad was here a couple of years ago, and dared to grouse about 'single mothers' to me.

I snapped, 'You know, until they go after the FATHERS first, then anything else is just straight up misogyny, and as the father of two daughters and four granddaughters I'm appalled at you.'

He shut up without another word.

Yep expat, drives me insane when people go on about single parents. No such thing, unless (a) child conceived through donor sperm/egg or (b) other parent dead. Mostly the "single" parent is the one who was prepared to stick around and actually raise the child, instead of buggering off. Agree with coldtits that if you abandon your child, you should be jailed.

I agree with so many of you about going after the fathers my dad never paid a penny, before CSA really got stuck in....isn't the "usual" excuse that the father has to fund there own place be that on their own or with a new partner and they get away with it so much? Childcare costs and upbringing costs should be shared as if the couple were in a relationship it takes 2 people to have a baby....the mother is often the one left paying the majority of costs and career wise is often harmed for having children its a sad society we live in.

Not sure putting the fathers in prison would help but there are plenty of jobs they should be "made" to do stuff that has to be done to keep society moving that would hopefully motivate them to get a better job......but sadly there are many that would/do turn to crime no easy answers, for those single parents do what you have to do for you and your fmailies. I have friends who are far worse of working that staying at home and they don't want to be staying at home! would prefer to be doing anything rather than being at home with virtually no money. no easy win situation!

OK then, when I'm queen of all the world, I'll not send the twats that desert their children to jail, but I'll pass a law saying that anyone who refuses to help bring up a child that they've brought into the world doesn't get to have any more children. People aren't allowed to have pets if they refuse to take care of them, why should they go and have themselves a shiny new baby when they've left their existing ones to be brought up in poverty by the parent (let's face it, usually the mother) who's been deserted.

I've no objection to my taxes being used to support children where they've got no other means of support, but I'm buggered if I want them to be used to support kids of a parent (sadly, usually the father) who's perfectly able to support them him/herself, but chooses not to.

Sorry GerbilMeasles what I meant was that the prisons are over-run already adding more people to the equation won't actually help!

Absent fathers/parents are always going to be a problem you don't need a license or any qualifications to have a child any tom dick or harry can do it (to a degree) and your right to have a pet you're "watched" closely....I think your right stopping constant offending absent parents from having more children would help but the "human rights" brigade won't like that....

Proper support/assistance is needed for people that don't have the education/intelligence/get caught out young when vunerable but remember some fathers get caught/tricked as well...

I'm not suggesting anyone here has done that but it does happen lots of people i went to school with had kids before they were 18 so they could get a council flat 80% of then are still on benefits - sad but true, but their parents were often uneducated/didn't give a flying monkeys and then it becomes a vicious circle....

If only more people wanted to change there lives like Clemosmam etc.... but you can't dictate how people live ..and we can't change what we don't know i.e. the future...

Absolutely agree butterscotch - suggestion of banging 'em in jail was a bit tongue in cheek, though I suspect you'd only need one or two well publicised convictions to bring most people into line. I do think that it's quite sad that it seems to be accepted that a parent can leave a child - and I know people make mistakes, and that there are a lot of daft kids out there. It just seems really odd to me that it's assumed that if a relationship between two adults ends, then it's OK for the relationship between the parent and child should end.

I know the problems of dependency (I was born and brought up in the town which, at the time, had the highest unemployment rate in the UK, and I suspect that things haven't changed much there) and maybe there's an element there of being treated as a child by the state and so being unable or unwilling to assume adult responsibilities.

Anyway, getting all a bit deep and meaningful (and waaaay off topic) so will leave it there for tonight.

We'd be better off split up and on benefits.

I think that is shit and it's mainly shit because it leads people to a cycle of poverty.

But it keeps them from asking questions, it keeps them in their place, doesn't it?

It does and it does that well so then they become 'those people' and something to debate about by Mr £20m David Cameron, who has NO clue and nor does anyone else where he is.

You think it's so good to be housed by the council/HA/whoever's taken on all those shitholes?

Okay, we live over temporary accommodation.

We've been here since 17 October.

We had 29 nights of nonstop partying, calling out the police, etc. until the gangs the psycho loser who was peddling drugs from there found out where he was staying, on remand, of course.

And the last guy was even worse.

And this is a village in the Scottish Highlands!

This isn't even an estate! There's no such thing out here!

We've had people kicking in this loser's door for weeks!

A week ago, I was awakened at 6AM by two men with Eastern European or Russian accents rapping on the door, asking if there were people in this flat.

I emailed a half-Russian friend, who told me this is what they do to make sure there are no children there, otherwise, they will bomb the target.

Now we have to look for another place to live and we never even got all the way unpacked before the trouble started.

FAce it: there's no such thing as an easy life.

Stop looking to the council or the government or relatives, etc. to shore things up.

My daughter has dyspraxia and multiple learning disabilities. She's beautiful. She's so tall and slim and comely I couldn't ever take her into Glasgow without someone passing me a card.

This girl is silly and trusting and naive and fool. That is why God made me her mother, because I am not.

She's already modelling away and I'm banking every single penny she earns. I'll guide her and protect her even if I die tomorrow. I'm stronger than that, I'm more enduring. I will never leave this Earth till she and all mine are done by and done by well.

YOU are that person to this girl!

So do it. Get her sorted out for birth control and then a private let.

brilliant post expat.

And I totally agree with your making the point numerous times, about birth control for this girl. Totally agree with you. Control of her fertility in her own hands is the main way out of her situation, everything else follows - even housing.

Have to say, it's late and i'm tired which explains why I read you last line in that post as "Get her sorted for birth control and then a private Jet" - Stready on I thought, lets not ask for too much!

LOL.

Well, I am insomniac and tired and not drunk so barring winning the double rollover Lotto that would be private let.

I don't need to read the Daily Mail thanks. I see enough "benefit entitlement" culture every day at work

Our adult DD got pregnant in an abusive relationship, and she moved back in with us. We lived in a 2 bedroom bungalow at the time (meaning one double bedroom, and one boxroom). When her baby was born, she initially was in the boxroom with herself and the baby. We were pregnant at the time, and once our baby was old enough to go into a separate bedroom (roughly 6 months old), we moved DD and her DS (about 11 mos at that time) into the double bedroom, we put our DS into the boxroom, and we moved to the living room, sleeping on a sofabed. We kept this arrangement for 2 years. Then we managed a council property swap with an older couple that had a 3 bedroom property who wanted to downsize. We moved to this property, and then we had our own bedroom, DD and her DS had their own bedroom, and our DS had a bedroom. We have since had another DS. DD and her DS have just recently moved into their own property (council flat which is quite nice) nearby. She has been living with us for 5 years, and on the advice of the council housing person, we wrote an eviction letter, saying she needed to be out by a certain date, as we needed her room for our new son when he turned 6 months old. She was fairly close to the top of the list anyway as she'd been on the list for years while living with us, so I'd say it only bumped her up a short distance. But she also got her flat because they wanted it filled immediately (within a week) and she was the first one on the list that could move into it within a week. We're thrilled that she could get into the flat, and while she does receive some benefits, she is working part time and looking to take uni courses when her DS is in school full time, so that she can eventually work ful time and get off benefits. So I don't feel badly that she is currently getting some benefits. We could have written that letter years ago and gotten her to the top of the list and got a flat and benefits, but we helped her out for five years first, as we figured there were others in more desperate need than she was at the time.

I do hate seeing the single mothers get all the stigma though - I'd like to see the absent parents get more stigma attached to them and see them hounded more to improve their support of their children.

Triggles - what a lovely mum you are.

Good luck to your DD as well, and her DS.

And agree with you - the whole single mum thing is typically misogynistic at a sociological level. The stigma needs to be with absent parents who do not support their families.

Cirrhosis - oh, probably not a lovely mum. She drove me crazy some days while she was living with us! And it really tested her relationship with us - it is not easy to live long-term with your adult child IMO. But you do what you have to do when it's family, don't you?

DH & I were discussing this, and I really wish they would simply TAKE the child support money from the absent parent, even if it means reducing their benefits, if they are not paying. Maybe if they induced harsher penalties and were stricter about going after them, people (both men and women) would be more careful about birth control. IMO if a man knew that CSA/government was going to be dogging his footsteps for the next 18 years for payments if he got some girl pregnant, he might stop and think "maybe I'll just use a condom, to be sure" as opposed to thinking "well, she says she's on the pill, I won't worry about it." I hate hearing the "oh, but the young girls go out and get pregnant to get benefits" nonsense... if the guy wore a condom or (god forbid) just said no to sex, it wouldn't happen. It takes two to tango, IMO, and they are BOTH to blame, not just the girl. But since she is the one carrying the baby, it's easy to pin the blame as the evidence is right there. Harder to nail down the other culprit. Just annoys me.

I so know I am going to be flamed for saying this, so am donning a hard hat, but whilst I agree that absent parents should support their children, since in the majority of cases, the DC were conceived after both parents agreed to have a child, and I believe, assumed they were going to remain in a relationship once their DC were born, what about the fathers who did not want children, the father's who used contraception, which failed (as condoms sometimes do, in fact aren't condoms one of the least reliable forms of contraception?)

What about these particular cases?
Where the father was never told the woman was pregnant, and didn't even realise until the child was born and CSA were writing him a lovely congratulations on becoming a father letter to remind him of his responsibility financially for the next 19 years possibly?

Or the situations where the father is informed very early on in the pregnancy, but makes it crystal clear to the mother at that point that No he does not want a child, or the responsibility of a child. He cannot afford one and does not wish to have DC with a woman he may have only had a very short liaison with?

In these cases, the man has no say whatsoever, and the woman has the right to continue with her pregnancy and bring this child into the world, which is fine if her choice affects only her, but unfortunately, as well as the father having no say whatsoever in whether he actually becomes a father, he is also now committed to handing over a portion of his salary for the next god knows how long.

I do agree that fathers should take responsibility and provide for their children, but it seems a tad unfair when this includes children, whom the father, whilst taking every precaution available to him, can be forced into acknowledging responsibility for.

I know this is probably a whole new thread, but having DC is not always a mutual desire, and I feel for the men who are made responsible for a child they had no choice but to become a father to IYSWIM.

In those particular cases, don'#t you think the contraception has failed the mother too? Why should she bear the brunt of a joint accident?

At the point at which you physically touch your genitals to a member of the opposite sex, you are risking a pregnancy, and everyone knows this.

Peronally I also feel that parents of both gender who have had children removed to foster care should also pay 50% of the child's upkeep.

'what about the fathers who did not want children, the father's who used contraception, which failed (as condoms sometimes do, in fact aren't condoms one of the least reliable forms of contraception?)'

What about them?

Sex = babies if you're not sterilised.

So there is a choice if a person, male or female, absolutely does not want children and is certain of that: they can get sterilised or say 'NO'. Not have sex.

Excepting rape, 'No' is always an option.

Otherwise, sex is always an act with potential consequences some might find negative.

I agree, cold.

coldtits I agree ref foster care except where the child has been abused/the mother was vunerable/raped.... there are some exceptions to all rules xx

Ye, there has to be exceptions to all rules, but I think we still need to have rules. I don't count rape as sex tbh, it's an act of violence that results in sex.

i agree - if a person absolutely doesnt want to risk having a baby (say they aren't in a long term relationship and don't know other person well) then on't have sex. guaranteed not to get pregnant that way... it's not that complicated

sparklefrog
I've debated this question countless times on tinternets. It boils down to 2 main points -
1- consent to sex is consent to potential pregnancy. When a person of either gender has sexual intercourse, they are aware that a pregnancy may result. If they do not wish a pregnancy to result they may choose to utilise contraception and take their chances - or abstain.
2- children need to be maintained. If the present parent is unable to do so on their own, either the absent parent or the state must do so. Why should the state maintain children when they have biological parents living and able to do so? Why do I pay to maintain the children of X, conceived when X penetrated Y and ejaculated, because X doesn't want to?

It's unfortunate (for them) that men's reproductive choice ends at the choice to have sex or not, but it's a fact of biology. Women have the option to terminate an unwanted pg, so they have more options than men, but that's because men don't get pg. If you think that's unfair then talk to mother nature about it.