Would you mind your teenager spending time with friends whose parents do not work?

[TickingKey46]

Would you be bothered if one of your children spent a lot of time with a friend who's parents didn't work? The child's often at their house, nice couple but choise not to work.
A lot of my family have said they don't think it sends the right message to my teenager. Ive always been very live and let live. But I'm just not sure what to say to my child as they have asked me before if either the parents work?

No my family arnt terrible people! They just want to make sure my kids know the value of working.
I myself claim a small amount of benefits even though I work full time.something I havnt really mentioned to my own kids.
I think one of them has some caring responsibilities for a family member but its deffo minimul hours.

I feel like this can’t be real. You can’t just choose not to work and claim benefits
If this is real, it seems more likely that they haven’t discussed the inner workings of their family set up / health and disabilities with your teenager or you.

if your teenager asked if they work, you just say no? Surely any follow up questions are easily answered. What would be difficult there?
some people are unable to for various reasons, unfortunately that often leads to less disposable income, some people - your family included - can be a bit judgemental about that.
it’s not the fault or choice or responsibility of your friend - who is a child - either way so don’t worry about it.

But surely these parents aren’t extolling the virtues of not working to your DC? I had many friends from different backgrounds when I was a child, and I have no idea what their parents did for a living. They never discussed it with me.

Do your family members work?

You work.

Your son will take his values from you, not some friend's parents that he probably doesn't even think about that much.

Why do your family think their world view is so fragile it can't survive knowing other people live differently?

But I'm just not sure what to say to my child as they have asked me before if either the parents work?

Well you could start by finding out why they don't work. You thinking that they choose not to is ill-informed.

Perhaps if you worked harder to provide for your children it would in-still the values of working hard, instead of control their friendships to teach them that.

Oh so now they are carers? Youre not making any sense. How do they choose not to work? Not every disability is visible so maybe they can’t work but don’t want to share that with you.

If they are good people I’d be happy there are adults around all the time, especially when I think what we got up to as teenagers when parents were not around.

Now if young children were having a sleepover then I’d want to know who they were staying with but this is teenagers.

How would you feel if your child said their friend isn’t allowed to play with them because they’ve found out you receive some benefits. Surely this works both ways.

You would think a single mum on benefits would be wary of judging people based purely on things like this!

Ha ha I work full time!! I also don't think i judged them,i just asked a question.

I can’t imagine having an opinion on this or indeed how I’d police it.

on the plus side; there’s always an adult around in that house so maybe safer than teens in an empty all afternoon

Oh come on. You say they have a very different set of values to you.
Surely some judgement went into that statement.

What benefits exactly are they entitled to , especially since neither of those benefits are sickness benefits?

There are probably only two questions I ask myself when my child is at a friends house.

1. Is the house safe and people responsible/trustworthy.
2. Does my child enjoy spending time with their friend and are they spending time doing things that won’t harm them.

If it’s yes to the above I don’t care if their parents are out of work/on benefits/working full time.
There will be more of a back story to their not working, you can’t easily just say ‘I’m not going to work anymore’ and get long term benefits, if your deemed capable of working you have to be searching for a job etc

Unless you know them very well, you won't know why they don't or can't work. I wouldn't make any assumptions and that is what I'd be teaching your child.

When I was 15 my best friend (still to this day) had two separated non-working parents. To this day, she has grown up to be the hardest working person I know and she fought to do better for herself. She’s also always been extremely responsible and careful with money because she grew up with so little. She was a good influence over me and I paid little attention to what her parents were doing tbh, if anything seeing how her mum lived put me off ever considering that kind of lifestyle.

If they are actively choosing a life on benefits and doing the minimum to appease the job centre then I wouldn't want impressionable kids round there too often.

I remember my daughter’s friend saying her mum was lucky because she didn’t have to work. And it wasn’t in a her dad earnt alot of money so she didn’t need too way.

My daughter is ND and makes a beeline for others like her. In alot of cases they have non ideal / challenging home lives however I just have to trust she keeps the values I try and I still in her.

They are both on benefits because they choose not to work?

I don't think that's how the benefits system operates. How do you know there aren't legitimate reasons why they don't /can't work?

The OP said one of them is a carer but then minimised that roll. Isn’t that what people do to stay at home mums? But says she is not judgmental. Yeah right. When I was a kid, negative role models had the greatest impact on me and how I DIDNT want to be when I grew up ie a judgmental cf type.

You’re making A LOT of assumptions here…

I'd be more worried about relatives teaching your son narcissistic&toxic behaviours/attitudes.

His friends house is a far better, normal choice and I'd rather send my children to their friends house than a toxic family members house...any day.

I know people like to go on and on about benefits being too generous but in my experience with the people who are on them, at best, it's enough to live, just, it's certainly not living the high life.

So, assuming they are good people who behave in ways that mean the environment is pleasant and safe, I'd have no concerns.

It may well be that there's a larger conversation to be had with your DD over time around ambitioun and working and how choices you make re work can impact the options and choices you can make re other things - from where you live to the holidays you take to the hobbies you take up. But that doesn't have to be a conversation about judging people, it's about awareness of choices and their impacts.

I'm sure when my DV were young, people thought I didn't work, as I was at every school run, volunteered to help with swimming and made it to all my DDs dance performances.

The truth was that I worked nights. I did that so I didn't have to pay child care and could be there for those things.

Now though, my children are older and I don't work, that's because I'm now disabled! I wonder if I'd have come under judgement for either of these situations?

Yeah. Realistically next to nobody under retirement age is getting enough benefits to live off them permanently without another source of income unless either (i) they genuinely need them or (ii) they are actively deceiving the government.

I would think it obvious that there should be no problem in children visiting a family in group (i) and that it would probably be highly unwise to allow them to get mixed up with a family in group (ii).