Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

How is the support as a single mom in the UK

29 replies

mangomangodurian · 03/11/2022 02:28

Dear RAD FEMS, (sorry I'm very bad at writing and maybe could compose this thought better, it might seem all over the place but anyway) I live in the US and am 7 months pregnant and am learning what benefits and resources are available for moms. It's not great here. We don't have a paid maternity leave at all. You can get food stamps, I think for me and my child(once they are born)we can get $500 a month in food credit . Then they have a temporary assistance program that gives you some cash but for three years max then you can't use it the rest of your life. There is also something called the child tax credit which most families qualify for where the government sends you payments of $300 a month every year. Anyway I have a boyfriend, don't really know what I'd do without him. I trust my boyfriend pretty well, but involving a man in your child's life is a pretty big deal and I understand so many women are pressured into involving less than optimal men into a parental position out of poverty and fear that their child and themselves will not be taken care of. Well then there is the court which says that a bio father is entitled to his offspring which I find interesting considering all men have to do is cum then that I guess entitles them to be a parent I guess? When women are doing all the actual work of carrying a child, laboring, then breastfeeding all while doing serious bonding with the child the whole time. I just find it a strange thing like it might be a kind of patriarchal construct, that fatherhood is a right, just by cumming. Anyway You definitely need a support system here family/friends/or husband/Boyfriend. But interestingly in the US at least we normally get kicked out of our parents house as soon as we graduate highschool so we don't have a very strong family support system, compared to many other places(maybe most places) in the world. It is very expensive to rent for min wage workers and college is ridiculously expensive, as though you should even have to go to college to be able to have a decent quality of life. The whole situation just makes me question a lot lately. I read that most mammal and primate fathers aren't even involved in the care of their children at all. They don't even know who their kids are which can work to the advantage of offspring and their mothers as a male wouldn't kill a baby if he thinks it could possible be his. I think I also here over and over again this idea of a single male being the provider, as though the earth doesn't provide if we let it and males possess some special power that keeps us all alive,. Do you think males have colonized parenthood? Trying to assert there supposed importance in this area. To have automatic control of us and our children. To leech off of us. For automatic affection/maybe dinner and sex from a woman and a sense purpose and affection from having a child. Because it seems pretty rigged that way, custody laws/father rights, legal marriage of a man and woman and it's incentives, societal/ church tradition, the cost of living.... too many factors that are making me wonder. I see hippy/ liberal men on the internet that say stuff like WE are about to go into labor, they will even want to deliver the baby like they are trying so hard to be involved and seem progressive, what if we don't need males to be involved or put in equal work(because they never can) we just need our basic needs met and respected societally so we do not have to become so dependent on individual males and so we can simply take care of, protect and raise our children. Biscuit I'm not trying to say males can't be amazing people who we would want to be around help with kids, I just think that should be a earned right not an automatic one just from cumming haha

OP posts:
mangomangodurian · 07/11/2022 13:52

PomegranateOfPersephone · 06/11/2022 19:30

The facts of motherhood are and have always been OP that in order to care for our babies we are dependent on others. That would have been the support of our tribe when we were gatherer/hunters, or in modern days of the baby’s father or our parents or the state, there is really no getting around this that I can see.

In the UK I think many parents will put a roof over their children’s heads into their early twenties. Either that or young people enter into house shares. Rent is ridiculously high at the moment.

Yeah, I know. I my culture is just very hyper individualistic so moms are expected to figure it out themselves or rely on a man

OP posts:
JanieAllen · 07/11/2022 15:15

statutory maternity benefit is £27 per week ... so not good if you are self employed

PomegranateOfPersephone · 07/11/2022 15:18

How long do you get it for now JanieAllen?

IwantToRetire · 07/11/2022 15:48

In case no one has seen it there is quite a lot of info on Pregnant the Screwed. pregnantthenscrewed.com/

They recently held marches in a number of cities round the UK and got a fair bit of publicity.

They do have a advice line and some published research.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page