If I vote Tory, would I be shooting myself in the foot, as a lone parent?

[BertieBotts]

Just that really. I am musing. Never voted before and never been interested in politics (though I am fascinated by it all now) so I am feeling a bit blind with all this! I keep changing my mind about who to vote for.

I want to go back to college either this or next September rather than getting a job just yet. DS is 18 months. Do you think that I would be able to do this under a conservative government, or will I be forced to work? Thinking childcare costs etc. I can't find anything in any of the manifestos about it - does anyone know what the other parties have said or are likely to do?

sorry about typos, Im getting tired

I'm really very puzzled as to why all these single mothers think they're going to be demonised by a Tory government. If you think you come into the category of people who aren't doing the right thing, you must have a pretty low opinion of yourselves and the job you're doing bringing up your children alone. It's ridiculous to think DC is talking about single parents in that context.

FWIW, I think people will find that staying at home to look after children will be valued much more highly by a Tory government. It's Labour that has downgraded single mothers who want to look after their own children to the status of spongers.

Wrong gaelicsheep. I'm sure the tories love stay at home mums. So long as they're married

That's utter crap and scaremongering.

How can it be crap when they are rewarding married couples with extra cash?? I think that says it all about anyone that doesn't fit into their idea of a family.

I needed that money when I was on my own with a child far more than I do now that Im married.

As a single parent I would never vote Tory. I am worried about what will happen under a Conservative government. However, I do find the current system frustrating as I want to go to back to work ( I have dts who are under 2) and recently wanted to get some advice from the job centre, yet I am not allowed an appointment with a lone parent advisor until I am claiming job seekers allowance. It seems bizarre to me that I am being encouraged to claim more benefit so I can get help. Surely I should be able to get help to stop me having to claim more benefits.

clown7, you need to go back and speak to someone else. You are entitled to see a lone parent advisor whenever you so wish if you are on income support. Though in my job centre you have to use their internal phones to make an appointment with them though they may be sat just 2 desks away .
Their website states that you are entitled to see them'...if you are bringing up children as a lone parent, if your youngest child is under 16 years old and you are not working, or you are working less than 16 hours per week.'

gaelicsheep, in one of the debates, the second one I think, DC actually said something along the lines of 'people who do the right thing, get married before they have children, work hard and save etc, etc'.

I heard him.

Yes, Wubblybubbly you are correct.

Disclaimer - I did not run away from this thread - I went out and had fun instead.

beyond me how anyone can think that the tory twunts will do anything but help out the rich.

so if your a rich highly influential single parent - go for it.

@smallishsheep:

sam, when you come back, can I ask what you percieve the benefits of HE to be?

As that is not on topic here, can I suggest that you check out the Home Ed discussion? People there would be delighted to answer any questions you have.

Yes, but the point is that no one can know why someone ends up being a single parent. They may be married and have their partner run off, they may be widowed, etc. There's no way of separating the wilful single parents from the unintended ones, which is why I very much doubt they would even try.

The Married Couples tax thing is a whole different issue. Currently a couple loses out massively in the tax system if one isn't working and claiming their allowance. Now I'm a litt about why that's only being addressed for married couples, and in a pointlessly miniscule way, but it has nothing to do with what they do or don't think of single parents.

No one can know why marriages might end, also - there is a possibility and a strong one, I believe, that the favouring of married parents over single parents (financially, socially etc etc) is going to result in people staying in abusive marriages more than they already do.

the stigma of being a single parent is huge enough without it being furthered by this nonsense the tories want to propagate.

In fact I'd go as far as to say Labour has brought the scale of the stigma RIGHT down, since coming into power.
It seems to me to be very much less awful to admit to being single than it used to be. This is quite apart from the financial side of it being less bad, they've done that too.

I agree Sam. My mum was a single parent to me and my older brothers from when my birth dad walked out on us all when she was pregnant with me, until she married my dad (stepdad in reality, but dad to me ) in 1992. She has told me, and tbh, I remember, how she was treated by teachers in particular. I was born in 1983, and we were truly poor. Tbh, I don't think youngsters nowadays can really comprehend growing up in a house with no phone, no heating, no double glazing, and my mum thanking her stars for free school dinners so she could get away with giving us just sandwiches when we came home. There was no such thing as extra snacks or treats, we had minimal toys. She went to bed when we did to save on electricity. I was dressed completely in my brothers handmedowns, which by the time I wore them were at least 3rd hand. She worked part time in a green grocers from when we were all very young, and we all had our own front door key.

By comparison, I don't feel the same judgement that she must have done. I can thankfully feed my children. It can't be underestimated how much of a life line tax credits are, just knowing that the money will be there in my bank every week is a safety net of sorts. I don't feel my dd suffers any kind of judgement at school for the fact that she has an absent father.

Of course, this also has it's downsides. My heart breaks for the thought of the burden my mum must have carried when we were young. Nowadays, if it's more acceptable to be a single parent that is also because, unfortunately, it is more acceptable for the other parent to walk away. My mum doesn't speak of my dad, but from my understanding, I think it was a domestic violence situation Back then I imagine it was far harder to walk away from that kind of thing. Nowadays the safety nets exist that allow many families to leave that behind.

It worries me no end that Cameron wants charities to play a bigger part in, for example, childrens centres and mental health. I have suffered bad antenatal depression in both my pregnancies, and PND after my son, and access to the relevant services was quick and all I had to do was show up at my GP and ask for help. It was literally a week before my first appointment. In mental health especially I think quick turnarounds are vital, and certainly the man I saw helped me big time when I thought I was truly losing it. But mental health is not a priority to the tories. It can be no coincidence that those more likely to suffer from mental health problems are those from lower socio economic backgrounds

SamFox - I seriously doubt that anyone is going to stay in an abusive marriage for the sake of £300 a year! If finances are going to sway them (which I seriously doubt, then they'd be significantly better off being a single parent.

Surely the dichotomy in the tax proposals is married v unmarried and living together, not married v single?

I maintain that many single parents must have a pretty low opinion of themselves to still feel so got at all the time.

Gaelicsheep what nonsense. With due respect I don't think you actually have very much idea what it is like to be a single parent.

Most of us feel got at because we are. The media is full of stereotypes, usually bad ones, the CSA is frankly shite and the men who were supposed to be being good fathers to our children have often buggered off without a glance back.

Plus the tories want to make us even more stigmatised by bigging up marriage and rewarding it.

It isn't the money, necessarily, that would be likely to make someone stay - it is the thought of being an undesirable, someone undeserving of reward, someone lesser in society. My point is that the tories' policies are created to advance that stigma, if not directly then very much indirectly.

Can you not see past the dosh in this situation? I hope my point is clearer now.

and this, 'I maintain that many single parents must have a pretty low opinion of themselves to still feel so got at all the time. ' is one of the most offensive comments I have seen on MN for a very long time.

And it generalises, and it hurts. Can anyone be proud of saying such an awful thing? It would be so bad if it didn't miss the point so completely.

I genuinely don't know anyone who doesn't think that single parents do a great job under difficult circumstances. Unless I live in an incredibly enlightened part of the country, which I doubt very much, I think the perception of being persecuted comes from inside not outside. Sorry if that's offensive.

Gaelicsheep, I am not having a go at you, I think you are trying to be kind, however, one only needs to read some comments on this site to see the prejudice held and blame attributed to single parents, let alone a Conservative party. Some people have even touched on social eugenics if you read closely!!

The conservatives? Take a look at comments made by Iaian Duncan Smith [to name only one example], he even said that single parents on benefits [tax credits which full time workers can get ] are leading the country/alludes to - down ''the road of hell''. Seriously!

I don't feel persecuted, I feel got at and blammed and quite frankly at times, rubbish, but only when I hear and read comments such as thise made by the conservatives and people around in the media etc. I know that my children are great, I work in the public sector and do a great job etc etc-it is not my paranoia.

It is a simple case of discrimnation from what I can see. SP's are an easy target and scapegoat. Imagine if other diiferent sorts of families were spoken about like this [try substituting ''single parent'' for ''a something else/other sort of parent'' and you will see what I mean.

No I shall not be voting for a party whose members believe my two amazing children [as young as 4] are leading the country down the road to hell. It makes me cry.

The thing is that I really and truly haven't heard that kind of thing in recent years. Yes there used to be talk about feckless single mothers on benefits etc. etc., but I don't hear that any more. Perhaps it's because I see my parents less often and consequently very rarely spend a moment of boredom browsing their Daily Mail.

As I said earlier, if any of the parties have been getting at single parents recently I would say it was Labour, who seem only to see value in parents who pay for childcare while going out to work for a pittance.

I'm obviously hopelessly out of touch.

"No I shall not be voting for a party whose members believe my two amazing children [as young as 4] are leading the country down the road to hell. It makes me cry. "

I hate to burst your bubble, but i'm a single parent actually and a full paid up member of the conservative party and attend a lot of their get togethers and functions and not once have I ever over heard anyone putting down single parents.

Now shit parents however is always a good topic of conversation, the difference is quite obvious because a shit parent expects everyone else to look after them and their children, drags up the child instead of bringing it up, lets it fend for itself and doesn't give it the confidence and love you would expect from a good parent.

Atlantis, believe what you like.

But, do not tell me that hurtful words do not make my cry and do not tell me they do not exist.

And, a parent who does not have sufficient income to support their children does not make them a bad parent. It makes them a vulnerable parent in need of support.

Gaelicsheep, yes, I think you have hit on the issue which is not that you are unkind but that you are as you say, hopelessly out of touch!

As a single parent the amount of grief from the children's father is enough to make anyone feel persecuted.

That's only the personal side of it.
I understand what you are saying about the image of single parents having improved in recent years - possibly thanks to labour - but the reality, I mean the real things that happen, the real comments from people in the street are far from gone.

You only need to read the daily mail to understand how much of the population still views us.