benefit changes??????????

[mummylou85]

Just wondering if anyone else is worried about changes in income support. I think by 2010 the age will be brought down to 7 if not found job benefits be stopped then if not found job it's job seekers? what do you all think of these changes. i'm happy towork but I have no family to look after my daughter? so in sept i'm goingback to finish my course in child care but what if I don't get job out of there. my daughter only 3 now but it's hard out there to get jobs these days especially to fit around children.

I know on job seekers you have to go on many courses, what if these are not child friendly but you have to go you get no money.

staying on benefits is not long term thing for me, I have worked payed taxes in past. but is anyone worried about future, in past didnt matter on what job i did and hours but now fitting it around my daughter. I really scared about job seekers are they child friendly. I stress about everything i'm sorry, but I think these changes take away your rights on how to parent I really think these changes in benefits wont work and i'm worried. i am stresser though x

right off to bed again

Interesting thread. I have just started claiming IS, my son is 6 months old. I asked the lady in the Jobcentre all about this a few days ago, it was my only question. Because it does worry me.

Her response was, that if after your child is 7 (or 12 or whatever it is at the mo) you have to go onto JSA, you can specify when you are available for work and they will have to accept that. So if you say you can only work in term times and can't get childcare in between, they will have to only consider work for you that fits the bill. I asked about home education and what I would do then, and she was more vague. She said that they are sensitive to individual circumstances
We'll see!

Thought I'd add my twopence worth.

Sorry I simply don't accept that single parents with no family support can't work. I've been a single parent for 6 years and have worked every day. Many of my friends get little to no help and they work.

Its all about compromise. The job I am doing now is a bit boring for me BUT it gives me the flexibility I need to take care of the kids. Some of my other friends will do compressed hours or part time only.

I've had to occasionally rely upon friends to have my kids and have also had to say "No i can't" a few times when work have asked me to do something I can't because of the kids. But we get by.

The old "I've got children so I can't possibly work for the next 16 years" argument is simply poppycock.

As Vick says, as long as they aren't expecting a 9-5 job when you can't get childcare then I think its a fair compromise.

it's so individual and to a large extent it depends what you start off with when you become a single parent - if you are living in a remote area and you don't drive and so on then your prospects of employment are slim to none

I don't know why I'm arguing about this when I've no experience of being on benefits, apart from a disastrous couple of months when I was awarded £25 a week because of a mistake about a maintenance agreement (he'd left the country and we had no address for him yet somehow I was supposed to enforce it). I don't even claim Tax Credits because the whole benefits thing scares me rigid. I can just imagine having to pay it all back the following tax year or something.

I think in some ways I've been very lucky in terms of being able to make friends, knowing how to drive, having opportunities. There's just a very unfeeling sort of vein running through this thread, doesn't take into account the emotional impact upon the children of their parents breaking up. It's a bit cruel to suggest that it's the same thing as having two working parents, but presumably they both come home from work sometimes.

Perhaps it's just all stirred up some upsetting memories.

"The old "I've got children so I can't possibly work for the next 16 years" argument is simply poppycock"

I agree but it will carry on being quoted for years.

Whilst working and having children can be a juggle its far from impossible (unless the child is disabled and childcare isnt pratical for their needs). Having a child should mean that you are financially responsble for the child not the state.

IS is extremely generous and even capped to age 7, its still 6 more years than other mums on maternity leave get.

Children who grow up within a working household in the main go onto work themselves, therefore this new scheme will go someway to breaking the generation after generation cycle that we currently have.

As for the comments "how could x turn out if in breakfast/afterschool club" - how ridiculous. In the main its no different than being at school bar no lessons and more play. At 7 children will have developed some independence.

The reform is a good start but it could still be capped further and perhaps will if the economy continues as it is as there will simply not be enough funds to support people via benefits. There is already a bill in motion that will see benefit claimants having to "work" for their benefits like the US system plus other changes so the change to age 7 is the first of many.

Why are single mothers getting stick about this yet again?

For the record, I'm a single working parent. I work part time and DS goes to nursery. I'm also on my own without close family or friends nearby. In other words, it's bloody hard work.

However, I'm lucky enough to have a family friendly employer which has flexi-time and allows for part-time/compressed working hours. Plus a sympathetic line manager and an XP who has DS for part of the week (although that arrangement will need to change when he goes to school). Oh, and I couldn't do ANY of this without claiming tax credits.

Also, I live in a council flat (warm, clean and comfortable) in an OK but not fabulous area so rent is cheap.

Once he attends school it will all be different as well - there are holidays and school hours to content with. How many jobs allow you to have time off for that? If you are lucky enough to have a sympathetic, family friendly employer then great! But there aren't many of those about.

And the kind of jobs that do allow for flexible working and fit around child care often don't often pay very well.

My point, I guess being that if you are on your own without any family/friends around for childcare and limited options for working then it's really just not that easy!

FWIW I agree people should work, it makes for a good role model. But why have a pop at people who are in a position where it's genuinely very difficult, if not impossible?

These folk have often come from a position of vulnerability - domestic abuse, homelessness etc.

Of course these people make for easy targets so I really shouldn't be surprised!

PS Nothing wrong with people doing voluntary work for benefits either, as long as it is compatible with childcare commitments.

Right, triple post so I will shut up now.

thanks for making the point about vulnerability - it's simply not a level playing field out there and we're not all equally emotionally resilient

but I'm v pro-work for mums in general, nothing would terrify me more than the idea of being financially dependent on a man and having the very roof over my head subject to the success or failure of a relationship

I agree MitchyInge (great name btw).

I'd hate to be financially dependent on a man for my existence ever again. It's not a good position to be in, IME.

I think a few of us are missing the point.

Being a single parent with/without a job isn't equivalent to being a married parent with/without a job.

It carries a whole different set of restirctions, responsibilities and pressures, which are not immediately obvious to those not availed of experience.

Often, indeed usually I believe, in a marriage, the home related work is shared; a single parent carries all of this, and yes, there might be less washing if there's only one of you, but the bins still need putting out, the property maintained, the rooms cleaned, bills paid, shopping done, cooking done, car fixed and washed...I could go on, but all the things a husband would normally do, have to be done by you as well as your things.

This is just one aspect. If you have a medical appointment you don't have the luxury of asking your husband to take an hour off to drop the children at school - it's you or no one, and often you just don't go, because you've no one to share responsibility for the children.

It's all very well to say 'Well, ask a friend' but that's not the same - some single parents don't have many friends, as they never get out, socially - another issue that arises when you are alone.

And if you ask a friend, that generally means you will have to reciprocate the favour for that friend, which is sometimes just impossible - I have couple friends who expect to swap childcare and don't have a clue how little spare energy or time or resources I have. If I can't return the favour I don't ask it.

It's just not as simple as it seems.
It's a bit like saying 'Oh, I want to buy this house, but it's got two bedrooms, can I have it half price?' It just doesn't work that way iyswim.

Last sentence was meant to be 'there's only one of me, can I have it half price'

Rent needs paying as well if you are single or a couple
It isn't higher for couples yet often they have two incomes

This sort of thing is why it's different.

Agree with everything happymummyofone and niceguy2 said.

Im a single parent. I work, i also have no support network. You just get on with it the best you can.

Well put JaneSeymour.

I really think some people don't understand how it is when you really don't have any friends/family around who you can leave DCs with.

Just hypothesising here, but what about a situation with a single mum who's had to move herself and the children away from an abusive ex to a new area where she has to start again more or less from scratch? It does happen.

For example, you can't just pop out to the shops for a pint of milk, you have to take the DCs with you. And what happens if you find out you've run out of milk when you've just got them off to sleep?

Just little things like that are what makes it harder to be a single parent.

I realise that's going slightly off at a tangent, however.

not dissimilar to my situation janos, I'm lucky that I've been wired in such a way as to make friends relatively easily, and great work opportunities have landed in my lap - but some people are seriously disadvantaged

I do think there should be lots and lots of support for parents to get into work though

'I'd hate to be financially dependent on a man for my existence ever again.' People relying on two incomes to survive (ie most working couples) are also dependent on their partner.

"For example, you can't just pop out to the shops for a pint of milk, you have to take the DCs with you. And what happens if you find out you've run out of milk when you've just got them off to sleep?"

oh god so true - I think that was the thing I found hardest when we split up. The amount of times they had toast for breakfast and I had no coffee and it was a dash to the shop first thing in the morning before school for milk was awful.

Now I generally tend to have too much milk in (although not so much that it goes off) as I buy 4 pints of milk every time I pop to the shop for something.

I read a report that in the new proposals, lone parents would be encouraged to work rather than train/seek education and that their would be 'no need' for the lone parent to insist on school term time only as extended schools would be in action.

Jelly is right, I am married and although I work (only PT due to not being able to afford childcare) I am financially dependant on DH to pay the mortgage.

Financial independence is not a luxury I can afford.

I see how it works both ways, the working parent is financially dependent on the other for childcare?

Yes indeed, MitchyInge, but it is rarely seen in this light. Like when couples calculate that the woman cannot afford to work because childcare costs would eat up her entire salary...because of course it's only women who are responsible for paying for childcare.

yes I've never understood that way of looking at, surely in this partnership type approach to it all the childcare comes half from one wage and half from another?

"Like when couples calculate that the woman cannot afford to work because childcare costs would eat up her entire salary...because of course it's only women who are responsible for paying for childcare."

ermm well yes if the man is working and his salary pays for all of the bills/mortgage/food etc. and the woman gets a job that only covers the cost of childcare - how is the man supposed to pay any of those childcare costs without compromising the household budget???

This is why I ended up working night shifts and totally fucking up my health and relationship - because we couldn't afford for me to work "normal" hours because of childcare costs.

Oh yes, I see what you mean about the working couple thing. I've always worked myself.

But at least you know that if the worst happened and you were working, then you could still earn your own money, IYSWIM?

And of course if I didn't have the extra support of tax credits then I wouldn't be able to work as childcare costs would be prohibitive.

"oh god so true - I think that was the thing I found hardest when we split up. The amount of times they had toast for breakfast and I had no coffee and it was a dash to the shop first thing in the morning before school for milk was awful."

Ah yes the milk dash. Now I make sure I ALWAYS have milk in!