Low income families- both parents could be forced to work to meet Labour's targets

[atlantis]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8250258.stm

What have Labour got against children having a parent at home instead of being latch key kids.?

WFTC hasn't been around in about 8 years, either.

Taxing low wage earners would be more helpful than tax credits, I agree with you there.

well they could have gone through the shame of applying for national assistance.......or be sent off to the workhouse in stead.

Your parents would have had Family Allowance, and access to the "updated" national assitance had they become sick or unemployed.

Yes - I know lets bring back poverty to the leve of the early 1900's - would be a barrel of laughs and a really good step forward for society

LMAO 'A little poverty...would be a good thing'

How on earth would people having less money stop them getting into debt?

Don't be daft.

I'm no fan of New Labour, but wanting less children to live in poverty and trying to look at how that can happen in honerable.

atlantis there's not you know, the village school Head refused to have anything to do with chldcare as she didn't want 'those sort' of aprents (ie working Mums).

As it is a Chyurch school she can do that.

But like 2shoes there is no care for my boys- so not going to be a real problem for us; childcare for SN kids costs mroe than they get in taxes so they'll point us towards out tiny allowance and run scared.

MadameCastafiore Sun 13-Sep-09 13:00:27 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"Sorry in my parents and grandparents day the government didn't throw money at you, you survived on what you earnt or you got a second job or god forbid you didn't have another child till you could actually afford to bring it up yourself - now everyone expects the government to give them a top up - WTF is it all about?"

How about reading a bit of social history instead, MadamCastafiore? Or even any novel/detective story etc etc set in the 20th or 19th centuries.

There were plenty of children brought up in poverty in previous generations. There was child neglect, there were feral children, there were children who got into crime, there were mums who had children by multiple fathers- the whole works. And fyi those countries without a social welfare system are rarely short of neglected children. The countries with the best records for child welfare and low levels of child neglect are the ones with least poverty and the best support systems. I rather think there are more uncared-for children in Brazil than in Sweden

'Sorry in my parents and grandparents day the government didn't throw money at you, you survived on what you earnt or you got a second job or god forbid you didn't have another child till you could actually afford to bring it up yourself - now everyone expects the government to give them a top up - WTF is it all about?

A little poverty and tightening our belts would be a good thing - would stop people getting into such debt and matbe change this 'I want it now' culture.

WFTC costs shit loads to administrate and really doesn't help the people who it was meant for - the very poor and socially deprived. '

I'm going to take that point by pint;we're poor as DH was made redundant but managed to find a part time job, I am a Carer.

1. My aprents lived in a council house with a very low rent, Dad had what was then called a 'family' wage; there are no council homes on workable rents availabble now unless you have no income whatsoever and the family wage is long gone.

1. We weren't poor when we had our last child, we are now becuase of redundancy. It's an incredibly naive thing to think the way your life is at one pioint is a cosntant- ours have beena ffected by disability, unemployment...... not things we'd have chosen to factor in.

1. We don't owe a penny to anyone, stop making such assumptions. We live to our means, and go without rather than get into debt and get really pissed off when people stereotype all poor people as debt ridden.

1. WTC's are the difference between food and starvation for us; they allow Dh to work part time which surely is better than not working at all?

Barry Hines' Kes is a good book to start with. Set in the idyllic 1960s, if I remember rightly. Or might be the 1970s.

in some ways i agree that if your kids are older at school al day and old eough to be a "latch key kid" why not, if it stops povarty in those families. I just cant see how it works when there is no jobs and trying to find a workplace that accepts if your kids are sick/school holidays ect.

)h and my dad's generation- where he was the youngest but one of a alrge family where Nan was invalid and Grandad pissed- and they used to either poach or steal their food if they wanted to eat, dad started working for a localdelivery company at 5 (FFS) and heb had his first shoes at 11. To say sorry for the fact he couldn't go to grammar even though he aced his 11+ as they couldn't aford the unforrm. Sounds fun, let's all go back now!

11 children in my grandfather's family and the only thing that saved them from the poorhouse after his father's death was his mother remarrying a 20 year younger alcoholic who beat her. Nice.

Yep, 16 in Dad's because they were all born pre NHS and Nan wanted to make sure some survived long enough to be adults (12 did in fact I think, though several then died in the war- Dad was born 1944 as 15th child).

Cory - I had read the article, although I understand why you might think that I thought that the article is about single parents on benefits.

It seems to me that the issue is about perception of family lives. Paid employment out of the home is a necessary part of most people's lives, and it is dangerous for people to assume that there is an entitlement to stay at home. There isn't.

See what you mean, but frankly as long as a family is not living on benefits/sending their children messages that it's ok not to work, I really think it should be up to the parents to decide at what income level parent no 2 should go out to work. S

Surely the children can learn about paid employement out of the home from parent no 1? Or are you saying there should be no SAHMs or SAHDs at all, even if there is a working parent in the same family?

I was brought up by a SAHM, and I've still got myself a job.

Any way, this is all theoretical, we all know there aren't enough jobs around and not enough affordable childcare.

Yes I'm a bit of a libertarian in these sorts of issues as well. But it's dangerous as a matter of public policy to allow people to think that there's an entitlement to stay at home. Upwards of 40% of marriages end in divorce, the extended family has largely broken down, all of which taken together leaves a lot of single parents (principally women) unskilled or deskilled living in poverty on benefits.

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of Cory'spost.

In times gone by we have been a dual job family and a single job one both ways around. It was our money and we had the right to choose to spend that how we wished- whether on holidays or one aprent being a SAHP.

Do you really mean that it should be a matter of public policy to tell adults that they cannot stay at home even if they can afford to do so, because of the risk of divorce? Should the government also be telling me what job I can do in that case? Forbid people to become actors or musicians because of the risk of unemployment? How far do you take it?

well I nearly got divorced because we were both working

Absolutely alwayslooking; we had 3 jobs between us at one stage, it became so ocmpetitive for the slightest it of time or if we both needed to do extra work etc that we hated each other for a while, if Dh ahdn't changed jobs at that point i'd now be a single mum.

we actually nearly split up when I was pg with DS3 just before going on Maternity leave I'd already found a house and put the deposit down), and then eventually split a year later - although the stress of the situation with work had gone the damage had already been done.

haven't we done this one already? (or very similar on the single parent bens vs working thread)

Go Expat/ Alwayslooking!

lol yes onepoint we have - infact there's a post of mine on the other thread that's rather jumbled.

As I read this thread, then poped back to the single parents one, started writing the post - but in my mind was still on this one.

Glanced up at the end and realised I'd been sending it in the wrong direction and so it's all a jumble

cory the article is saying if two parents working is a way out of poverty then the government should take steps to enable it. That sounds reasonable to me. If the family are not in poverty then it really doesn't matter who works or stays at home.

Not arguing with the article, wonderstuff, but with quattro's post of 13:49 suggesting that SAHMs are a bad idea because of the risk of divorce. (am assuming Quattro doesn't think divorce happens only to poor people)

We discussed a report on here a while ago (and I will try to find it and link to it) that discussed the issue of families living in what is currently classed as poverty, with one SAHP as a conscious choice and not because of lack of childcare or jobs or any other issue. Quite a large percentage of these families were failing to collect all the benefits they were entitled to, largely because it hadn't crossed their mind that they might be - they didn't feel unduly poor or that their children might be suffering, although clearly the government did and thought they needed more £££.

Completely agree that it is a risky strategy for mothers to work in case of divorce - lots of divorces I know were caused by undue stress due to both partners working and being overloaded