Stay at home mums on benefits

[Jenny2998]

I am 21,single, and am currently bringing up my 2 children ( 8months, and 3 years) on benefits.

I made the decision to be at home with my kids because i feel it is incredibly important during the first years of their lives.

i don't like being on benefit, but currently cannot find any way around it - i have been trying unsuccessfully to find work at home for the past 3 years. i am keen to become a childminder so that i can support my family, but in the flat we live in at the moment that is just not possble.

so, until the situation changes one way or another i will remain on benefits. The most important thing to me is my children, and i am all too aware that if i did choose to go out to work and miss out on their childhoods, that i would never get this time back.

so, am i to be condemned as a scrounger just because i want the best for my kids? what are your thoughts?

Maybe you can babysit a couple kids at home. I totally understand your situation. It is very hard to raise any number of children on your own. The benefits out there are there to help people in need. Yor kids are still young and would require childcare for you to work. Sometimes it does not pay to work if your money only pays for the care of your children. I feel as long as a person is not planning to live off benefits because they dont feel like working its okay to collect them. I feel our kids are the most important people in our lives and we have to do what we think is best. There are many people having kid after kid just to stay on benefits I feel that is wrong especially to all the tax payers. But you dont sound like one of them. You sound like someone who would like to fully support them on your own but is having a rough time right now. My family and I collected food stamps for abot 1 year after my first 2 kids were born. I did not want to put them in day care so young. I always worked my whole life and so had my husband we just had a little financial problem because I did not work. When I went back to work I stopped the benefits. As long as a person does not abuse the system you should be able to collect benefits if you qualify.

Just to clarify, JBR. I am 21, not 26

I agree with SueW, sobernow! I never thought I would live to see the day where Radio 4 made me angry or depressed on such a regular basis that I would switch to Radio 2...

Listening to Woman's Hour during my maternity leave has cured me completely of getting riled by the SAHM vs working mother debate. The endless droning on about it and constant re-hashing of boring stereotypes just left me thinking "who cares?".