Absent fathers to be made into scape goats

[ivykaty44]

absent fathers

as a single mother who has lived without maintenence for periods of time and at times struggled to make ends meet I still think it is awful to suggest making a group of people stigmatised.

there are good NoneResidentParents and there are useless NRP, it isn't just absent fathers but sometimes absent mothers. What sort of country do we live in thuogh where we would want to stigmatise a whole group of people.

Better to keep the CSA free and make it work rather than the clerical mess it is at the moment.

Okay - my situation (if I'm allowed, just by way of making a point) My partner works full time. he pays around £600 maintenace to his ex. she works 12 hours a week, term time only on minimum wage and so earns under £300 a month. Of course this is topped up massively in benefits.

He also has his DD living with us for half of the week. She is a teenager and at school.

So there is no arguement there that the mother is contributing any finacial benefit surely?

When my DSD was at primary school, her mother stayed home with her. Didn't work for 10 years (thus rendering herself pretty incapable of having a decent career and meaning that DP would forever have to support her)

What did he gain financially here please? Considering that childcare for the first 5 years would have cost around £800 a month then around £300 a month for the next 5... then nothing at all from when DSD started secondary??

Some quick mathes.. Working partner saves £48,000 for the first 5 years of child's life, £18,000 for the next 5. Thats a saving of £66,000 based on one child... hmm... and in return they must support a child plus a whole other aldut forever.... not a great deal is it.

How does he pay bills and buy clothes and put a roof over their heads on £200 a month please?
There are no childcare costs in the holidays... she's a teenager!

And as for your comments about how having a stay at home partner means that the one at work never needs to leave work for appointments with the child etc... first of all hundreds of working parents amnage it and secondly it is exactly this fact that means men are getting the promotions and pay rises becuas they have a woman at home to do the drudge. If more women refused to do this then there would be less need to spend years after a divorce feeling bitter that your ex isn't supporting you financially and crucially get more women to the top of the corporate ladder.

Oh how I do begrudge supporting someone who has one teenage daughter who lives with us half of the week and has no desire to support herself. if she doesnt want ot be in poverty in old age she could always get off of her fat backside, no?

mary I am unclear from your posts about whether you have other children in your household other than your 12-year-old DSD. If you don't, I will forgive you for not having a realistic picture about childcare.

For a woman with a 9-5 mon-fri job (like me), I have worked out that it costs about £55,000 in childcare from the time until the age where that child no longer needs any form of day care (£110,000 in my case because I have twins). Obviously the bigger costs accrue in the early years, but even for a single primary-school-aged child you are talking about £4000 per year to cover wraparound care and holidays. This is simply prohibitive for a lot of people on ordinary salaries (let's remember that the average full-time salary in this country is about £25,000 p.a. gross), whether they are single parents or married or LPs. LPs may have more help with costs through WTC but they don't have a partner who can pull up the slack for childcare.

The figure that lone parents can claim toward childcare is up to 70%. This applies only at NMW level and is cut as soon as you start earning more. You only start coming out on top again once you earn more than £30,000 (so that will be about 25% of the population only then).

I earn twice NMW and after paying childcare I am left with less than someone on benefits. In my case I consider it worth it but if a NMW earner is losing out both financially and on time with their child, is it? Is the child winning if they see less of their parent and have less money available?

Of course, if you happen to have one of these NMW that operates shifts patterns or weekends, you're unlikely to be able to find childcare that will fit anyway. Most LPs I know who work are relying massively on family help to carry out childcare, partly because they cannot find appropriate childcare and partly because they couldn't afford it even if they did.

And anyway, we've already agreed that even once DSD is 18 we will continue to pay the same maintenance as we know that otherwise her mother will most likely turn to her for financial support and we would prefer for her to go to university than to work. Also, it would be heart breaking for DSD to see her mum in poverty so, unless she remarries, we'll be supporting her for a long time to come.
What's the alternative? He promised that 'with all my worldly goods I share with you' or whatever. He's oblidged to make sure she's okay, I guess he just thought that she'd want to do it for herself. Ah well, kids are meal tickets for many people. she's not the first and she won't be the last!

marycorporate - children need care (24/7), in the sense of requiring an adult presence, just as much as they need money. There is no hierarchy between the two. That is why they have two parents - one to care and one to provide.

I have a 5 year old of my own and kinship of a 3 year old, plus as I say the 12 year old for half of the month. And I work full time plus 2 evenings from home. I am by no means naive about the cost of raising children.

"Is the child winning if they see less of their parent and have less money available?" Of course they are, because with hte right attitude the parent isn't going to be on NMW for long, where as with benefits we all know it's a trap. I know that my DSd carries around a lot of guilt and worry for her mum's finances as she is bitterly aware of what mum sacrifced on the alter of motherhood for her. And sadly unaware that if she didnt exist her mother would actually have to work for a living.

"That is why they have two parents - one to care and one to provide" I wasn't aware of this! It is news to me that this is fact.

What about two parents to care and provide between them?

They need 'an adult' there 24/7, not a parent. Whether you personally think its best that the adult is a parent or not is a different arguement but the fact is, they won't die without mum or dad there, however they would die without money, therefore the financial providers role is more important.

I don't think your argument is anything to do with residency, lone parents or maintenance mary. It's becoming pretty clear that all this is about three things:

1. money
2. your opinion that WOHMs are superior to SAHMs
3. benefit scroungers.

Not the same thing at all.

If the parents want to share the care and the provision between them, that is absolutely fine of course. But you cannot get away from the fact that children require a 24/7 adult presence ie if one parent is providing,the other one is caring.

You can also outsource care - but you still require it!

I am a WOHM mother who took 6 weeks of maternity leave.

Despite this, I think there is something badly wrong with a society that says a mother paying someone else to look after their child is superior to a mother staying at home to care for her own child. It should be down to choice and ALL roles should be respected since none of them are possible without the other. They have a symbiotic relationship. You can earn all the money you like but if there is no one there to care for your child (for 'free' or otherwise), you're still shafted.

IsItReally yes. It has a directly calculable value IMO, though that's not reflective of its 'true' worth IYSWIM.

One thing that a SAHP provides that professional childcare simply cannot (apart from nannies), is someone available to care for an ill child so that the working parent does not require time off work. This is why when mothers do work often they have to take jobs that will balance with their caring commitments, since it always them who will have to take a day off to care for a sick child.

Also, it is accepted by the government that a 12 year old child requires some childcare. While there is no legal age decreeing when a child can be left home alone, NSPCC guidelines are quite clear that they consider it inappropriate for a child under 15 to be left for anything more than a few hours. If you did leave your child alone and something happened, you can be prosecuted for neglect. Unlikely, maybe. Possible, yes. This is why you can claim WTC for childcare up to the age of 15.

I'm sure many people are capable of earning more than £50 a day istiteally

My arguement is slightly off course, fair enough, but it came from being annoyed that so many fathers are stigmatised for leaving relationships they're not happy in and then further villianised for not continuing to support their ex wives when the ex wife isn't supporting herself.
If we're talking about supporting the child then of course, any man who can't do that is worthless. But when a mother isn't able to support their child financially, it's fine because after all she 'enabled' her husband to go to work..
Err, no.

"One thing that a SAHP provides that professional childcare simply cannot (apart from nannies), is someone available to care for an ill child so that the working parent does not require time off work. This is why when mothers do work often they have to take jobs that will balance with their caring commitments, since it always them who will have to take a day off to care for a sick child" This simply has to change. This is why such an oputrageous number of large corporate firms, not to mention the government are run by men.
So you're going to stay at home, or get a job that's beneath your capabilities so that your husband never has to have his pretty head worried with the reality of parenting... to the detriment of your own future financial stability. Mental.

No 12 years old round here have childminders. The government have lots of bollocks 'suggestions' for us. If they really beleived it they would make it law.

The direct costs of WOH are usually more than the cost of childcare. Transport and clothing are often quite substantial extra costs, as are lunches out.

"so many fathers are stigmatised for leaving relationships they're not happy in and then further villianised for not continuing to support their ex wives when the ex wife isn't supporting herself"

What are you on about, hardly any fathers are stigmatised, that's why most of them don't bother to pay. It's mothers who leave relationships they aren't happy in, who continue to shoulder the responsiblity of bringing up their children, who are stigmatised, not mothers. Men are very rarely stigmatised vis a vis their relationships, unless of course, they claim benefits or they are extrememly young parents - and they're such a small minority that they're hardly worth talking about.

sorry that should say not fathers, obv

I think indirect costs of bringing up children are substantially more than the direct costs of working outside the home Bonsoir.

But Bonsoir those costs are being covered by the working parent anyway aren't they? Strange point to make. If anything that's a further arguement for putting children in to childcare being less of a financial burden to having them at home with mum.

Yes Isitreally I agree wiht you, I know married couples who do have the arrangement of 50 50 care where both have downshifted their careers so that they can both work and both look after the kids and be fulfilled. But they are far worse off than those couples who choose one partner to be the main wage earner, because the workplace is structred to benefit those who have someone at home who does the wifework. Those couples are pioneers and absolutely admirable but Marycorporate is right about one thing, we need masses more couples to join them so that they are not disadvantaged and discouraged by the fact that they would be better off with one of them at home full time.