I haven't worked since I was pg with my first child (now 4.5). I did have a couple of jobs before this after I left uni but in customer service/admin roles, ok but not my dream job or anything. tbh don't know what my dram job would be. We now have a 2.5 yr old aswell. For the past couple of yrs, since we moved to another area my dp has struggled to find work. He had a temp job last yr but it ended after a few mths as he was no longer required. Now, out of desperation and to prevent dp being put on another pointless new Deal course we decided (or was it dp that decided?!) that I should be the one to sign on and look for work. I am not totally against this but tbh I don't really want to work full time or weekends/strange hrs because of the dcs. However, the job centre have said that because I have dp around to look after them I can't be too picky, if i was a single parent I could be more choosy. The thing is, i know I would still have to do alot of the things to do with the dc, I have had to take them to the job centre for intance, something he never had to do when he was signing on. He says he is still looking for work but tbh the pressure is on me. If my dd was at school I would feel better about it but tbh I resent the fact that single parents and people with partners can work part time and I could be forced into a full time job and miss out on time with my dd. Because of this and the fact that although I have school/uni qualifications, I have had no training since I left uni, haven't got much experience (apart from admin roles) and don't really know what I want to do I feel stuck in a rut and get quite stressed and despondent about it. My family don't help, I know they look down on my dp for not having a job (I haven't admitted he lost his last one) and they probably would more so if I ended up working full time and supporting the family. Sorry to sound like I'm moaning, I will work for my family's sake if I have to, I just don't know where to go from here. I have applied for jobs, had one interview which I didn't get and plenty of rejections. Does anyone know if I would be allowed to work pt and have tax credits to top up? that seems like a reasonable option to me and then hopefully dp could get a pt job to fit in around the dcs?