Single parenet benefits proposed to end when youngest child is 11 rahter than 16

[uwila]

Oh this will be popular round here.

here

I dont believe it is a right to be able to pick your kids up and stay at home if the only way to do this is to claim benefits and not work. SOmeone else has to pay for you to be able to do that. When I first went to work most of my money went on childcare and the single mums in my childs toddler groups had more disposable income than us.
However, it did mean that I was able to work my way up and earn far more now so am better off than they would be now.

I dont get the reason about not working as you'd be no better off. I would much rather contribute myself to me and my kids needs rather than rely on the state.

We manage it by dh working nights so we get zilch family time together and he is permantently knackered and unable to help at all with housework etc. THe alternative was one of us staying at home and claiming benefits but we can work so we do.

I appreciate I am not a single parent and it's easy to sit in judgement but as someone on mumsnet once said if they withdrew all benefits tomorrow I bet people would manage to get work somehow.

All of the above excludes people with diabled dependents or an impairment that stops them working. I would be more than happy to pay even more tax than I do now in order to add to their incomes.

Actually, Xenia's advice doesn't go far enough. Why not consider hooking, after all? If you do it properly, ie via an agency rather than the £20-hand-jobs-in-cars route, you can make good money and choose your own hours. If you call yourself a "personal therapist" you can pay your taxes properly as well.

Yes, arguably more honest than marriage and without all the downsides of living with a man.

Just read this post:

I would love to find a new man but because I am sick of being lonely not because I want his money, and like I said before, I have found that being a single mum does not actually seem to attract any men at all, so not sure how I am meant to find this husband to live off anyway.

Followed by this one.......

I've had a look at the job centre online...

Xenia, i feel so sorry for you.
You seem to be hell bent on making sure that all women have to be like you and we must all ditch our DH/DP because they are all bastards?
We are letting the side down just because we are not earning our own money and telling the men to F*k off!
You must have had a really bad time with your ex.
I bet you've not had a good lay for ages as you are forever spitting venom!
Give it a rest.
AB

ripeberry pmsl!

I hope Xenia does not give it a rest, not that she needs me defending her. I am happy to read her views, which on the whole I don't find particularly objectionable, even if she does not make it a point to pad up the phraseology to spare others' feelings. There is some truth behind it.

I don't think it is fair to attack her personal situation, particularly with her ex. I am sure there is a story there to tell, just that Xenia does not want to go there.

Oh please Xenia is just having a larf.

yes, cali, I do find her posts funny as well. She does bait.

Yes, if I were getting a lot more sex you'd probably see a lot less of me. I'm seeing someone next week but I'm not hopeful. We'll see.... laughing as I type and I don't seriously mean I don't like men. Many men are really nice.

Although dont' forget that every study every done has found married men have the best mental health and unmarried women and married women the worst and the worst health. Statistically marriage is not good for women even though we might convince ourselves otherwise.

that's like one of those 'lack of pirates are the cause of global warming' facts!

I'm sorry, maybe I'm missing something here, but can someone just explain, in simple language, WHY single parents should be treated more favourably than two parent families?? The fact is that in most two parent families, both parents have to work. They often get no tax credits etc and end up spending most of their income on childcare/mortgage/rent/bills/food and have bugger all left over as disposable income. How can it possibly be right for someone NOT working to be as well, or better, off? If a parent (single or in a relationship) wants to stay at home to look after their child, WHY should other people have to fund this? What if every parent wanted to stay at home to raise their children? WHO would pay for it? And as we've seen from the posts, what is a realistic age for children to be for it to be reasonable for parents to go back to work? Some people would say once the kids are in school, others aren't happy to go out to work even when their kids are 11, 14.......IMO the problem is fundamentally that there is not a big enough differential between the lowest paid jobs and being on benefits. If even the lowliest, unskilled job meant a person would be SIGNIFICANTLY better off than living on benefits, it would solve a lot of our problems.I really don't believe this is single parent bashing, if anything, the biggest bashing I've seen is of Xenia, whose crime seems to be that she's proved you can work and be economically independent while bringing up a large family successfully. Quite frankly I think a lot of you MNers are jealous!!

I don't think single parents should be treated more favourably, just that it should be taken into consideration that being a single parent means you have no partner to organise childcare with, rely on etc etc and so it is harder to find a suitable job.

We're treated more favourably because we have to put up with married working mothers, bleating on about how bloody easy our lives are. Honestly, my ears are bleeding now.

Sorry, did mean to put a wink after that.

NOB, it's blindingly obvious that on the whole being a one parent family is harder than being a 2 parent family, because there is only ONE of you, instead of TWO of you.

Does that help you with your confusion about the difference?

Very true, I mean you get people on here on about how they have gone back to work and there partners aren't helping with the housework etc etc and yeah thats not on BUT don't forget single mums have to do absolutly bloody everything, cook, clean, etc etc etc . I am not saying it cannot be done, just that it's not easy to do.

LOL at Hunkeydorey

I agree to some extent with NOB's observation that the differential between working and being on benefits is simply not high enough.

A lot of this (pitiful) envy of lone parents is to do with perceiving that we're financially better off than a low paid worker. And yeah, that is a problem of low pay. But when you point that out, people immediately talk about how employers will all move to India if you demand that they pay their workers a living wage.

Obviously the Government has concerns about this - single parents on benefits who don't seek work when their youngest is 11 which is why they seem to be going to require them to sign on every fortnight and presumably if they're presented with suitable jobs they may be required to take them or lose benefits (in those areas where there are any jobs at all). In general we have much fuller employment than we used to. It's a much healthier economony than I remember in the 60s and 70s with massive dole queues and many people wanting work and unable to get it (I remember the Labour Isn't Working election posters with the dole queue image) but sometimes it's necessary to go where the work is - some areas of teh country have a lot more job opportunities and chances for single mothers' chidlren to get jobs too than others. We always had this. My relatives in the 1840s or some of them came from Ireland to avoid starving to death to the NE where there was work. I moved to London because the better work was there and the Poles etc move here for the same reasons as did and do bushmen move where the best herds of animals roam. Perhaps we're all naturally nomads at the end of the day.

Obviously it's easier with 2 parents and two incomes of course as I know only too well. If the drains block I'm up the ladder. If the car needs oil I'm under the bonnet It's much harder. All the more reason to get work where you can outsrouce the duller bits to someone else and to ensure our chidlren aren't in the same position of finding child care etc expensive I suppose one answer is to try to ensure they get better paid work, the widening of their horizons.

I love this fantasy world where everyone who works can outsource the duller bits of their lives to someone else.

Most people most of the time,even where there are two incomes coming in, cannot afford to outsource the dull bits of their lives.

What they need to do is try to come up with a fab scheme whereby those that really genuinely need it get it, whereas those that play the system & are getting benefits because they are too lazy (I've seen articles in the paper where they pretty much admit that) to go to work.

"and tax people earning over above, oh i dunno, £80 k? to the absolute fecking hilt. cos no one needs that much, i'm sorry, unless you have 32 kids"

I don't really see why people should be excessively penalised for having done well while others can't be bothered to try? You don't get that amount of money for doing nothing, well not unless you're a genius and can do complicated tasks as others do simple ones.

I'm a single mother & have never had benefits other than child benefit & the tax credit things, even as a student purely because my parents didn't kick me out when I had my dd.It makes me mad that I have worked really really hard & done well for myself whereas I could have had more "free" money had I left & got a council house. I think it all boils down to wanting to do well. Nothing is impossible if you want to do it badly enough.

This thread is making me larf now.

I really want to shag George Clooney.

Well nothing is impossible if you want it badly enough. I'm going after him tonight, will give you all a progress report when I've nailed him.

I think I am gonna leave this now cos some peoples attitudes are beginning to piss me off.

I have only been a single mum for a year and it is the single most difficult thing I have ever done. Xp did pretty much bugger all when he was here but even so I still find it hard to be the only responsible adult here 24/7 that has to do everything.

I hate being a single mum, it's not what I wanted for me or my kids and to sit here and listen to other people say 'oh if you wanted to change it hard enough then you would' is just so infuriating and makes me feel so worthless to think that there are people out there that would look at me and my situation and just think I am not trying hard enough.

Hmmm wonder whether mums (or dads) stuck in crap relationships would agree that it's SO much more awful being a single parent? As for bleating on ....well there's been a great deal of that on this thread but still no answers to my questions.
My job is hard work. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes boring, sometimes stressful and not conducive to family life. I also get pretty pissed off with the stupendous childcare fees I have to pay. How about I lose my job tomorrow (better not hand my notice in cos then I'll be intentionally out of work, but I reckon I can think of something)- which of you lot want to pay to keep a roof over my head?