"Single mothers with secondary school children should seek work" - BBC news this am.

[mumblechum]

What does everyone think? Apparently 70% of single parents already work, and a third of those who don't have a good reason not to, eg have a child with a disability.

My first response (have always worked at least pt) is "of course they should, the lazy buggers", but a 12 year old child can't really be left to fend for themselves EVERY day after school, can they, and I don't suppose you could get a childminder to look after them for just 1.5 hours a day.

My own experience is that my ds (year 7) does need a fair bit of tlc still, especially with all the upheaval of changing schools, more work, making new friends etc.

What do you reckon?

Good for you!!

Have just seen the time and the state of my kitchen, so night night all

God it makes me so cross that it's left to the mothers to chase down the feckless fathers

And I totally take your point about it being imperative for the benefit system to make work pay. That's the whole problem though - they keep making all these piecemeal changes that only serve to make headlines but don't actually fix the fact that there's no cohesive system.

only read op but i think i 12 year old is perfectly capable of looking after themselves after school

Oh well the NSPCC disagrees with you SEA.

They may be perfectly capable of physically looking after themselves, but should one really leave them to it 5 days a week? Most people would call that neglect, I think. (The NSPCC almost certainly would.) At 15, if you wouldn't leave them alone, most people would call that paranoid parenting.

Personally I think it should be left up to the parent and the child to decide. (With the parent having the casting vote.)

hmm i thought the nspcc guideline was 11

nope disagree think children should be taught to be self sufficient by 10 at the latest

I think you need to consider the children as individuals.

Five years ago I would have agreed with you. But since then, I've got to know my DS better. And if he's self-sufficient by the time he's 10, I'll be delighted and will bask in the glory of what a Good Mother I've been to get him to that stage. But if he isn't, I won't be amazed.

I think there's a real harshness about our attitudes to children nowadays, and I realise I've been guilty of it with my DS. I've been trying to make him do stuff he just can't do, before he's ready to do it. Mostly because I've bought into this self-sufficiency, independence, self-esteem, self-confidence stuff.

Sometimes, that doesn't work for children with a certain character and/ or certain background. I've been doing it for 8 years and my DS is lacking in confidence and self esteem. So it's not working for him.

Ive just seen this, but will this new law not make some people have another child iykwim? Say they were being made to seek employment because their youngest was twelve then maybe they would have another bambino to get out of it!

It's just ludicrous, there will be people in low-paid jobs who are working just to pay the childminder. If all lone parents said (in an unlikely scenario) that they could not logistically manage to work full-time and provide adequate care for their under-12s (and TBH I think teens NEED parental influence more as peer pressure becomes greater), if those children were taken into care, the state would still be paying to look after them and with a much lower standard of care.

Perhaps the Govt should create part-time term time only job schemes. In the current scenario I don't see how LPs can be forced to do this.

But saadia, to a degree if no attempts are made to make the benefit system work, then many other tax payers are just working to pay their childminders and others to mind their own!

littlebella, great post.
a twelve year old may well be perfectly capable of looking after themselves, but I tdon't think that moves the argument much further.
a twelve year old needs emotional support at the end of the day. she needs helpo with her homework. taking to sports practice. helping with her music or instrument pratice. taking to see friends.
or are all those things only for children with two parents or with welloff parents.
the poor kids, well they can fend for themselves presumably

I see the conversation has moved on. I agree with lots that's been said about the inadequacies of the benefit system and CSA, along with the shortage of flexible jobs/affordable childcare.

For those reasons I think that any government move to actually force LP parents to return to work is flawed. Encouragement is one thing, putting pressure on LPs is another.

I think LPs have some powerful arguments to justify why it is difficult to return to work when children are older (see above).

However I don't think one of those arguments is the fact that it's impossible to leave the average 12 year old alone for a short time or that a 12 year old will feel 'abandoned' if they go to holiday playschemes or courses. By the time children of LPs are in secondary school, so many of their peers will be coming home alone or going to holiday courses that it is as normal as having a parent constantly at home. Another thing, for every 14 year old who is emotionally unready to be left by a LP, I bet there's another who's crying out for new trainers, mobile phones, etc just like his/her friends have got - and all those things cost money to buy.

harpsi - but in lots of families, where both parents work to pay the mortgage, not rich parents, just normal parents, this is what is happening.

yes I know tigermoth.
I still think it is wrong to take away the choice of LP. I mean they are hardly living a life of luxury on benefits.
the declared policy is that this will be extended in a few years time to families where the youngest child is seven.
nasty.

I think it should be part of a much wider debate about how we balance work and children and that's part of the problem with all this LP hounding crap. Focusing on LP's claiming benefits, is a sure-fire way of getting hard working partnered WOHM's who don't have any choice about staying at home and who might like to, in a state of righteous indignation (and yes, even envy) of LP's who have the right to be SAHMs when they look at their own lives and wonder why the hell they have to pay taxes for other women to have the priviledge they can't afford, of being home with their kids.

So instead of asking how all parents, lone or otherwise, can balance their need to both work and emotionally sustain their children, we're encouraged to resent and attack each other. Clever.

If you're living on benefits so that you can be there to see your kids after school, can you afford music lessons?

Spot on littlebella. It's almost machievellian isn't it?

I sort of agree with the Governments stance on this, getting "paid" to stay at home until your child is 16 is far to long imho. I think 12 is a more reasonable age and the reduction to aged 7 a few years later is fine as long as they hold up the promise of after school clubs.

Children need to see that paying the bills, buying new things etc is about working for the money to do it and not just handed to you. Maybe thats part of the reason 16 years have kids so early. Claiming IS, Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefit, Family Allowance and Tax Credits mean that LP actually get more than somebody who works full time on the minimum wage - how can that be fair?

Married/co-habiting women dont get these benefits and most have to work to support their children and dont have the luxury of choice. This reform goes some way to balancing this out. Maybe the money saved could go towards letting everybody have a better maternity policy / subsidised childcare until the child starts school.

After aged 5, children are at school all day anyway so no real reason why LP cant work - there are hundreds of childminders/play schemes etc to cover school holidays.

At the end of the day, if you choose to have children you should accept the responsibility and provide for them. Benefits should be there as a stop gap if your circumstances change but not there as a lifesytle choice.

the thing about the fathers didnt even cross my mind tbh.why?

because i forgot that 3 of my children have fathers elsewhere.my xp,father of my eldest 2,works full time,and has never paid a penny in maintenance.i have phoned the CSA so many times in the 7 years since we split but have never had a single letter from them.
and xh,the father of ds2,had never done an honest days work in his life anyway,he is probalby still on benefits(assuming he's still alive)but i have never heard from the csa regarding him,either.

when i was a single mum of 3,the only way i would have been better off working would have been if i was getting maintenance,otherwise i would have actually been worse off working,financially speaking.

it's always the mothers who get all the crap.i think somebody needs to explain to the government that usually,there is a man involved in the production of these children somewhere along the line.how can they force LP's out to work when they arent forcing fathers to pay for their offspring?

Oh God forbid that they should start attacking irresponsible fathers the same way they do responsible mothers. It wouldn't be politically popular. There are too many of them. The percentage of lone parents with kids over 11 who don't work, is low. The percentage of non-resident parents who pay either nothing at all or a laughably tiny amount which then allows them to imagine they're discharging their responsibilities, is quite high. They've got a much louder voice and the media would be on their side.

Absent fathers should seek work to pay for their childrens upbringing. How is it that lone mothers should bring up children and be attacked for not working outside the home, whilst absent fathers not contributing and not working seem to slope of into ablivion and never get a mention, or penalised for allowing the rest of society to pay for their children?

We are all (regardless of single or married) continually critised for not spending enough time with our children, yet told we should leave our children with another paid person to look after whilst we go to "work"

I admire any mum or dad who stays at home and brings up the next generation, yet it is classed as second rate and not proper work - why? it is one of the most important jobs to carry out.

As for going out to work to show our children that it is right and proper to pay the bills, what about the absent parent doing this and showing the children that they are not the equivelent to a disgaurded christmas present. Why can't the absent parent work and pay the bills? This would show the children that it is a responsability to have children. Yet it seems it is always the resident parent whom is slated.....

here here, Ivykate!!! My DS's father hasn't paid a penny towards his son in 6 years and conveniently went unemployed 6 years ago too. But like you say, he is not hounded to find work to support his child!! Feckin' w@nker!

This is the sad result of Femimism, women have never got equality.

The state has stepped in, destroying family life, providing for lone parents and therefore giving some men an excuse not to pay for their kids, and now when the state realises that the bill is getting bigger, they turn around and punish the women.

Very sad in my humble opinion.

there never will be equality,unless men start having babies!

is anyone in the government going to provide adequate pension, etc, provision for part time workers and ensure that employers do not treat LPs as poorly paid slaves?

I doubt it. Even the average 'full time' job can go on until 6 or so surely- and then you have to get home. Does the government really want 12 yos alone until about 7pm every night- presumably out on the street where they will cause another nuisance (blame the parents...)

I've been trying to get a helping hand in the evenings with my boys as I'm a lone parent 3 nights a week and am shattered. It's practically impossible. You have to get an FT nanny and add on overtime. Not something most people can afford let alone most LPs.

some of you....do you know how much benefit is?

(drum roll....)

£55.00 a week.

life of luxury no?

in an ideal world all LPs would work. i was always brought up (maybe the one good thing about my upbringing) to work. it was carved in stone..you worked for a living. benefit was NOT an option. i never once considered living on benefits, and yet i had to after two redundancies and i began to understand the difficulties lone parents face. here i was, ten years experience and unable to get a job mainly because many employers are not flexible with hours.

as for the people who dont want to work and never will, (and in my experience there arent many), i think i am allowed to say that people like that, who truly believe benefits are a way of life, must be lacking in intelligence and couldnt hold down a job anyway.

stop lumping single parents in with them. there's plenty teenage layabouts who will NEVER work. if they want to force single parents into work (am assuming of course that most single parents are female) then why not force all men who have no medical reason not to, into work also. they're claiming dole, they're claiming from tax payers. so they have to go for interviews, not really hard to fail one if you feel like it.

the villification of lone parents astounds me. we do a bloody hard job and we arent allowed to complain. we get no sympathy and hardly any understanding at times. if we do ever dare to complain, its our own fault for being a lone parent. rubbish, most of us didnt try to be, or ask to be. we try to bring children up ourselves, we get stamped on at every turn. if we were to leave the kids with hubby, we would still be the bitch and him the hero.

where is the empthasis on men in any of this? sort out the bloody useless csa for a start i would have thought.

£55 a week for a single person,£90 ish a week for a couple,and around £35 a week per child.and about £15 a week family premium.

basically,you get enough to live onb,but not for extras or luxurys.