The rise of single parent families

[speedymama]

BBC website have a story on the increasing numbers of single parent households and it is being discussed on the Have Your Say forum. My mouth fell open when I read some postings and I thought I would share them here. Please note that as usual, there is no mention of the fathers.

"The problem here is that many girls don't have the morals or self-respect to keep their legs shut. This lack of morals and lack of respect then permiates into the world at large - which is what causes the problem.

The stark fact is that in 21st century britain, becoming a single parent is clearly the best career option open to a large number of teenage girls.

"Of course it matters. Social decay courtesy of poor parenting and a weak Government.

If you are not in a committed relationship, don't have children.

If you are intent on being a single parent career sponger, don't have children as an economy enhancer.

I'm fed up with paying for other peoples social mistakes. Come on Britain!!"

Colditz that the council would probably only charge £250 makes things worse - the flat is worth £550 a month on the rental market.

If I were single or in an unhappy relationship I would swap with her, given the choice. But I like where we live, many of the HA/Council flats that come up are in really unsafe areas. As long as DH and I are together and willing to work we are unlikely to be given priority.

I do not resent my neighbour at all though it must sound that way. She has one 12 yr old ds who is very polite and well cared for btw.

It is just that I can see why people feel it unfair that they work long hours and have nothing to show for it while others choose a life on benefits.

And I agree that the benefit system forms a poverty trap. Working on minimum wage is not worthwhile if it means losing so much in the way of entitlements.

The government should not be giving people incentives to lie about relationships. Benefits claiments should certainly never be forced to discuss their personal sex lives

You are allowed to ask to go into a private room if you don't want to discuss your affairs in the main room. Their is a notice at the council offices and Job Centre.

Upwind, interesting comment about council & HA houses being in unsafe areas.

I wonder why that is? I hear people say they wouldn't walk across xxxxxx estate at night.

There is a massive segregation thingy going on in this country, haves & have nots and it seems to be getting worse & worse.

I remember someone saying that if all of the parents who cared got together and got involved with a local failing school, they could sort it out. I really agree with this.

It's the opinions of peple like that which make me feel crap about being a single mum.

They totally seem to forget that alot of single mums were in a stable relationship when they had all of their kids and it went tits up after.

Not surprised there was no mention of the absent fathers, there never is.

You are only better off on benefits if you are cheating the system which hundreds of people are.

i don't care what they thing, Nuttymuffins, because when I am running the NHS, I will find out peoples' opinions on things and dish out enemas accordingly

what annoys me most about these types of postings (the OP) is that peolpe who are single because their DP / DH left tham after 6 years toegther, or whose aptrners died, must feel awful as there is never any distinction drawn. I remember reading (may nto be a current statistic) that most single aprents were in fact in stable marriages or relationships when babya rrived- mosta re not 16 year old benefits dependent types. Some are of course and some like it that way, many don' though and labelling them isn;t going to help their self esteem and help them relaise they deserve better is it?

my friend has 5 kids by 2 dads, she left dh1 because he came back from armed service with severe psychiatric problems and if she hadnt SS were going to remove her kids. her marriage to dh2 broke up in the usual sad way. She is on a student loan now, but was on benefits for a while before she could get over to the point where she couldt ake on the extra.

)(Apologies for typing btw, arthritis playing up tonight).

climbingrose was a victim of domestic abuse. a dmittedly her first posts domnt make that clear, but fgs dont lets create a situation where mums have to worry about whether they could be a woh single mother before they can legitimately leave their partners .

What goes into creating kids who think there is nothing mroe for them? You do have to wonder. Self esteem shoudl let you thik you are entitled to ask mroe for life (and understand that you have to earn it). I'm not sayng let them just get ahead with it, but perhaps some understanding is called for?

FWIW as well, we were on benefots for a while( DH lost his job whilst I was heavily PG and on minimum maternity leave) and we were constantly slated- quizzed by benefits office, given abuse by poeple working for SWEB (they took 3 payments on DD by mistake, the fact we couldnt then afford to eat was our fault apparenlty). its not an easy ride, by any means.

I aslo have reservations about a system where forming a stable relatinship (surely the optimal way if all is well tor aise a child, but not the only successful happy and loving way) is going to result ina drop in income and stability. I have no idea hw to remedy that, bt it seems rather disingenuous (I think thats what the word means)

Theya re unsafe because the way the system works, alkies, released criminals, people who wont work are housed in the same areas as people who are there for no fault of their own (famillies with sn kids often end up on benefits, mothers with kids whose partners ran off or who had to escape them because of abuse). there are 2 types of people who end up on benefits: the unlucky (ill, disabled, abandoned, les well apid) and the nes who dont care. tjose who dont care ruin it for the rest.

Its all so fucking sad though isn't it. It's just not right. Society is creating more & more people who just don't care, through bad parenting, giving girls like the one I know a choice, not educating people about stuff.

But if our system taught people that working is good in schools and that having a one night stand and ending up with a baby isn't the right way to go, they would be sued.

I sort of think, (but I only have my sisters story to go on, 16, pregnant 28 years ago. Got a flat straight away, been on benefits up until he was 18, had to get a job, now has ME), that if it wasn't an option, then people wouldn't take that choice. Dreadful thing to say, but it's anonymous on here, but the best thing for her to have done would have been to have her son adopted. He has followed pretty much the same choices.

Take Mhamai, for instance, I am sure she wouldn't mind me using her as an example. She gave up a child 20 years ago, what a fantasticly unselfish thing to do.

I dunno

i'm annoyed at some of the comments here. I work full time and I'm a single mum to three primary aged children. my ex fucked around on me then abandoned us and doesn't contribute anything. he's an unemployed alcoholic on incapacity benefit. i work forty hours a week. when i get home from picking up teh children from after-school, i supervise homework x 3, baths x 3, cook tea, make tomorrows lunches, do all the stuff that other parents manage to share with a partner, presuming that he isn't working late etc. it isn't an easy ride being a working single parent and it isn't easy being on benefits either. we're blamed for every ill of society.

i have no problem at ALL in paying taxes that support a single parent who is trying to better life for her and her children by going to college of being there in the first couple of years of her childs life, because she doesn't have anyone to share the 'burden' with.

I know what you mean UCM but adoption is not always the right way to go. FIL wa adopted and it ahs been fab for him, but it doesn't always work. Plus you cant make people give up their babies- look at those poor Irish women (I know it happened here too, but it seems better publicised there) who never got over it. i think teach self respect, contraception, responsibility, but remember that there will always be the unlucky one ones (and manya re) whose contraceoption fails, or whose 'just the once' was once too many, and for them there needs to be be backup. I'd have intensive programs of education for young mums teaching them about how to avoid fuure pg before theya re ready, how to teach self esteem to their kids, helping them realise that actually they have access to things like Access courses and university.

I've known people have benefits stopped because they're at FE college and therefore unable to work, but the FE system offers no financial support for mature students. Hoqw does that support poele in turning their lives around? give ADDITIONAL benefits to young mums and any unemployed poeple who take ocurses- parenting for parents, things like direct training or access for anyone on benefits. give them the ability to build a future. Not all will take it, but lots will. you only have to look at the amture students at our Uni to realise how many women out there want the chance, but have had to wait. Well lets give it to them.

climbingrosie I am sorry, I misunderstood your choice about being a single mum or I wouldn't have posted as I did. I didn't realise that you counted that as a choice! If you had posted nothing, I would have thought you were just like nutty, colditz etc and trying to make the best of the situation you found yourself in as it turns out you are.

BTW my firnsd I mentioned with 5 kids and no partner (one of her kids is asd as well) is on the same uni course as me, and gets the same income from student loans / grants as me with 3 kids and a working DH! Not saying i want a drop for me but surely she should be valued for making the effort and get money that is enough? She had to give up working P/T as she couldnt juggle pick ups and Uni, so they ive on a pittance. She's done such a fab job- ds1 got 10 GCSE's at A- and they're all great kids. Why does she ahve to subsist now, just when she's trying to become self supporting? (DH1 in a psychiatric unit so no maintenance, dh2 refusing as he wants her to sell their house and give him all the mney as he has put the 5 other houses he owns in aprtners name and is claiming poverty)

Colditz, - when you are running the nhs, can you give me a job ??

She sounds like a saint tbh PC. There are so many people out there who want a go at 'life' but don't get a chance as they are labelled with the 'ones that don't'. Wrong wrong wrong!!!!!

Murderously angry over this as I am trying to stay off here as I have my Father coming in the morning and my house isn't done.

ha far from a saint, unless you count semi stalking my next door neighbour as s aintly

But yes know what you mean

Have just arrived on this thread so haven't read the whole thing through. Therefore am not here to judge, or to push any particular viewpoint but just to make one observation: does anyone else find the 'single parent' phrase has very negative connotations? Every child starts life with two parents. There is only an extremely small minority of children who are in the tragic position of genuinely having lost a parent through death. I just think it would be more helpful and accurate to refer to these families as maybe 'absent parent'. I just feel there;s a danger sometimes of losing sight of the fact that both parents should take responsibility, emotionally, socially , financially and in every other way for their child.

Agree with whoever pointed out that most single parents are not teenagers thinking of it as a career choice (and don't get me started on how much needs to be done on teaching teenagers, particularly female ones, that there are possibilities other than a choice between benefits, shelf-stacking and going on Big Brother).
But I would like to know what all these right-wing mother-bashers actually advocate doing? Forced abortions? Forced adoptions? Forcing mothers into domestic service in the homes of the wealthy (oh, and perhaps providing sexual services as well to stop the husbands Haveing Affairs...)

Probably the wrong thing to say, but adoption may be the way to go.

I am pissed right now, but I think you are totally wrong about society as whole

Perhaps Madamez, but I am too tired an my k/board is tooooooooooooooooooooo wet at the minute

Colditz - can i ask how you got the figure of £257.69 for a single parent on benefits, what does it include? I am single parent of 2 on benefit and get £135 a week plus child benefit which is about £30 a week now I think so dont quite understand it unless it is taking housing and council tax benefit into account somehow.

Although as of next week dp will be moving in and we will be worse off. Especially as my baby is due on monday but as ive been on IS till now I am not entitled to any sort of maternity pay and not quite sure how we're going to manage but we dont have alot of choice.

expat- I have a post-grad degree. I was in line for a shining career. Then I had DD and it all went out of the window. I would do anything to be a SAHM with her. Ive TOTALLY changed my perspective about mothers and parenting. I get zero respect from society for this path Ive chosen, and no pay either. Luckily Im not a single mum, IM married, so life is MUCH easier for me than for a single mother. But if Dh and I split up, I would definitely go onto benefits in order to stay at home with my daughter, rather than use my advanced degree.

It has nothing to do with the cost of childcare. I have happily made a choice, and women are so lucky that the UK is a government that allows us this choice.

Colditz, brilliant posts by the way.