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Original poster

in defence of working mothers

184 replies

edam · 29/09/2004 23:43

I've been shocked by a couple of threads recently where people have been vitriolic about working mothers. All the usual, lazy, stupid comments about 'why have children if you aren't going to bring them up yourself' etc. etc.
And you know what? It makes me very angry. I have to work to feed my son and keep a roof over his head. Anyone lucky enough to be in a position where they don't have to do that should be damn grateful, not smug and superior.
I really need my sleep after a tough couple of days at work but I'm so incensed about this I'm on here instead.

OP posts:
lilsmum · 01/10/2004 21:58

sofiamies, i agree, i too have a choice but my choice is to work even though i would love to be with dd all the time and it does madden me because i have a friend who is on income support and she is "on" more money than me and dp (counting getting her rent paid etc)

custardo... the problem today is no nobody in this country with kids would end up homeless and penniless etc because of benefits, also put it this way, we rent our house and our rent is very expensive we did look into moving maybe getting a council house or housing association house but we would be on the "list" forever because we pay our rent... i know what i am saying is starting a whole new debate and i am not against single parents that have no other choice but to live on benefits it is couples who could work that get my back up when there are plenty of people struggling and working just to pay their rent and bills.

rant over...... sorry xx

MrsDoolittle · 01/10/2004 22:05

I don't really undrestand this thread. I work full-time but I really don't feel I have to justify it to anyone. Neither do I need to know why anyone else does what they do.
We are all different. We all have different pressures and we would all behave differently in any circumstances.
Why do we need to judge each other? We care about the welfare of our children or why would we sign up to this forum?? What else matters?

cab · 01/10/2004 22:05

But sofia - how can she do it in partnership with her husband when he's with you? Or are none of the children his? It takes two you know.

MeanBean · 01/10/2004 22:42

SofiaAmes, are you saying that only mothers who have husbands or partners have the moral right to be a SAHM? So lone parents don't have that right? And only mothers who don't receive tax credits have the right to be SAHMs?

nightowl · 01/10/2004 23:54

i kind of took it that way aswell...sorry but it was not my fault my partner ran away and left me...and also not my fault i got made redundant...so do people object to "paying for me"? what am i surposed to live on if i dont claim benefits...as far as im concerned ive earned them in the last ten years of breaking my back for a shitty company. some of us arent blessed with a good partner unfortunately and so have no option but to do what we do.

nikkim · 02/10/2004 00:15

Just as one row calms down another erupts!

nikkim · 02/10/2004 00:26

although just have re read sofias message and it has made me a tad . I am sure she didn't mean her final stamement to come out quite the way it has!

I am a single SAHM, (actually was have recently bought a house with my partner) who did live on benefits for a while. I didn't want to as I have always worked as a teacher but my exh drove me to a nervous breakdown and then kindly kicked us out onto the street. I just wasn't capable of working and felt that in order to build myself up and be a good mum I needed to be at home and if that meant claming benefits so be it.

I can see why people get worked up about single mothers living on benefits as rags like the daily mail are all to happy to trot out examples of mothers with seventeen children by twenty too different families who have just climbed tot he top of the housing list to get a mansion in surrey - but most of us are not like that. U can also understand as someone who would like more children but can't afford them how frustrating it must be to see people endlessly reproducing children with little thought to the cost to the state. I work with families who do have lots of children and do claim state benefits and while their lifestyle isn't one I agree with ( more because I feel for the children than am concerned about their living off the state)I can assure you their lives aren't as easy as the press portray.

nightowl · 02/10/2004 00:34

i agree with what you say nikkim...there are people male or female that spend their lives scrounging...i just hate to people judging when they dont know the circumstances of an individual....im not argueing with anyone..perhaps sofia didnt quite mean it to come out like that?

KateandtheGirls · 02/10/2004 01:26

Sofia said: "That doesn't mean that SAHM aren't productive members of society. I think that they do are performing a role, but only if they do so in partnership with their partner or family."

Huh??????

As a single SAHM that doesn't sit very well with me. My husband and I had a great partnership, but when he was murdered that partnership kind of ended. So now I don't have a productive role in society?

KateandtheGirls · 02/10/2004 01:27

I hope as, nightowl said, that she didn't mean it to come out like that.

Tortington · 02/10/2004 10:53

i know its long but read it anyway!
if i quit my job tomorrow and jut lived of dh's wage - we would find it a struggle to pay bills and eat and stay warm - the benefits system will not take into account the debts we have accumilated over the years whilst we were at university, or when we got our house reposessed and ended up owing the bank £16 grand - they not gonna give me more benefits.

maybe my kids wouldnt actually starve - we could eat 10p beans and 20p bread if i decided to be a stay at home mum - i have no idea how we would be able to afford £5 per day dinner money. i could be a presence for my children 24hours a day - however our family would have no quality of life and maybe even there would be a relationship breakdown becuase of financial pessure and i would indeed end up a single parent.

so what choice is this? the choice between managing and juggling or no quality of life for the 5 members of our family. this is in reality no choice - its like saying you have a choice to get eaten by phiranah or sharks -it absolutley suits certain sections of society to bring out the "council scum" propaganda. the housing association i work for - if you go an get yourself pregnant it aint gonna help you get a house any faster - there simply aint any houses so those people who have 2 or 3 children will come before you- older people - people with mental health needs - so in actual fact you will have to get pregnant three times living with our parents and look after all these children in your parents house - just so you can get a council house? nahhhhhh really i would rather work a 9-5 at macdonalds earning minimum wage desperate to earn a silver star for my name badge - than to bring up 3 children for a minumum of 4 years - so i could get a council house - it just doesnt add up. at macdonalds i would get promoted and i would get a pension. with kids and recieving benefits you are socially static.

i have a friend who has 5 children - 2 of which are disabled, she lives in a housing association house. the benefits she claims is equal to the wage i earn now - we have sat down at worked it out - her rent paid, council tax all the benefits she gets euals my wage and i have orked so very very hard for over 10 years to get where i am. am i bitter twisted and jealous - no - why? well i will tell you. there is no way i could look after 5 children i am not mentally strong enough to deal with all the social serivces departments involved in claiming for 2 disabled children. now our quality of life is about on a par - we can afford the same things but in ten years time she will have only one disabled child ( she will have her for the rest of her life) and not a lot of benefits systems helping her out - she will have no qualifications and a life time of .......no work experience what has she got then at the tender age of 46? certainly not the pension i will have when i retire - she has nt got the dreams for retirement that i have - she never plans for the future for herself - she knows she cant, she certainly will not be on a 20k+ equivelant at 45 when the kids have left - but i still will - my career will hopefully have grown and i may be on more money even.

you cannot draw lifetime parallells between those working and those claiming benefits. you cannot lump everyone together discounting their circumstances and believing the hype the tory press like you to see.

Tanzie · 02/10/2004 11:36

Well said!

MeanBean · 02/10/2004 11:57

Hear hear Custardo. Why do people still choose to believe these old myths?

Original poster
edam · 02/10/2004 12:03

Agree Custardo, very eloquent post.
Sofia, would you rather withdraw benefits from single parents, and leave their children to starve? Who would you be punishing? Innocent children. Just because you disapprove of their parents. Well hey, some people may disapprove of you ? there are lots of people out there only too happy to judge others ? but that wouldn't make it right to chuck you and your children out on the street.

OP posts:
Original poster
edam · 02/10/2004 12:13

And my mother, my sister and I did live on benefits for a while, after my mother was made redundant, had surgery that went badly and left her too ill to work for a year. Our house was repossessed. Do you think we should have been left to starve?

My mother had another period on benefits years later after a nervous breakdown (brought on by overwork, ironically enough). And I can tell you that surviving on benefits as a single adult is the stuff of nightmares. If I hadn't been able to help out, she would have been stranded in London with no means of getting back home, for instance, let alone getting something to eat, after the stupid, cruel man in the post office took her benefits book away. Turned out her local office had put a notice on the book because the figures needed adjusting (upwards, as it happened). Local office wouldn't have left her stranded but stupid rules in London are different. Can you imagine how frightening that was? Can you imagine having to rely on a system that treats people with such casual cruelty and disdain? Can you imagine not being able to eat hot food because your cooker has broken down and you've got no money to fix it and no prospect of being able to fix it? Or living without heating in the middle of winter, up north where it is really cold, because there is no money to fix the boiler when it breaks down? Do you understand how expensive it is to be poor? You can't afford to MOT your very elderly car, so you have to use the bus to go to the supermarket 5 miles away. Bus fares eat up 10 per cent of your weekly benefits. That's just one example. Poor people pay more for worse food because they have to use local shops that charge more than big, out of town, supermarkets. And white bread stuffed full of preservatives is cheaper than a healthy wholemeal loaf. Multiply that by everything you need to survive and you have a desperate situation. Try handling all that when you are very vulnerable with mental illness. And then see how smug you feel.

OP posts:
WideWebWitch · 02/10/2004 12:15

Good post custardo.

lilsmum · 02/10/2004 12:27

i agree there are some circumstances which leave no choice but to claim benefits, and i understand what everyone is saying but what i was saying before was not against genuine people... i know of a number of young people that could work but choose not to (couples) and also people who claim income support saying they are single mothers when they have a live in partner who works... frauding the system. this is what annoys me!! and as far as what was said about not being able to mot an old car, heating probs etc we suffer from those things and we both work these things are not just problems for people on benefits there are plenty of working couples who are in the same situation and it is very frustrating when a) you cant afford to pay your bills and afford to live really when you work as much as possible and b) even though you do this you feel like a hamster on a wheel and dont even get to see your kids or spend time together as a family.
there has been some times for dp and i when we have ran out of milk for our 8 mth old baby and nappies even though we both work as hard and as many hours as we can.

Hulababy · 02/10/2004 12:32

Posted this on the Media request thread, but it is defeintly apt here. There seems to be so much debate and arguing over SAHM v working mums (or whatever terms you prefer to use) which are not very supportive of each other and jsut don't seem to be in the spirit of MN either

BUT please remember:

Let's face it. Being a mum is fantatsic, wondeful and darn hardwork - whether you have a FT "out of the house" job, a PT one or you are a SAHM. It isn't some competition., We are all got at by media reports at sometime or other anyway. You're damned if you do, damned if you do. No one is treated any better or any worse than the media than the other IMHO and IME of reading/watching media stuff.

roisin · 02/10/2004 12:58

Hear, hear!

In my RL most of the mums I know are SAHM mums, or only work part-time like me. I really like the fact that on mumsnet I get to 'meet' people in very different circumstances to mine; and have the opportunity to discover that in other areas of life we have a great deal in common, and a great deal to learn from each other.

SofiaAmes · 03/10/2004 00:19

Sorry guys, didn't mean to sound so harsh. All of you are describing the kind of situations that benefits are supposed to cover. ie hard times for whatever reason, whether it be from an unwise decision you made, or through no fault of your own. I was really mostly referring to the types of people like my dh's ex's who choose not to work. She has 6 children by 5 different fathers (last 2 are twins hence the appearance of her actually sticking around for more than one child). Cab, she left my dh, not the other way around. And has also left each of the other fathers of her children. I was really trying to say that working because you need the money is a choice. There are people out there like my dh's ex's who have made the choice never to work. That is not the same thing as someone who doesn't work because they have disabled children (actually they are working, it's just at home with their children). Or someone who collects benefits at some period in their life because they need a little help. Dh's ex's have never worked and will never work. Maybe if they, able bodied young women, were at work and not collecting benefits, there would be enough money and resources left over to give edam's mother the help that she should have gotten.

SofiaAmes · 03/10/2004 00:24

Sorry, I am a little sensitive at the moment...I barely earn more than my childcare costs, dh is at college, but isn't entitled to any help because he's too old (43) and we own our house. My parents are loaning us money on a monthly basis to cover the shortfall. And we got a call from dh's dd yesterday to say that she had lost her winter coat and her mum (dh's ex) wasn't going to let her out to play until dh promised to buy her another....I haven't yet bought any winter coats for my 2 as I can't afford them at the moment (in fact dd will have ds's hand me down).

essbee · 03/10/2004 00:25

Message withdrawn

nightowl · 03/10/2004 02:39

i can understand where you are coming from sofia as it used to really get me down that i was earning less than some picked up on benefits..my neighbour has not worked for nine years...well that is her choice...but she would come and scrounge off me when i was heavily pregnant and working all the hours i could...now that i do object to. its people like her that give people on benefits a bad name. its not that she wants to be at home with her child...its that she is too lazy to work...she doesnt even bother to clean her house. thanks for clearing up the misunderstanding by the way

KateandtheGirls · 03/10/2004 04:59

Well do you agree, Sofia, that it is wrong to say that women shouldn't SAHMs unless they have a supportive husband?

sis · 03/10/2004 15:27

Sofia, I have a boys coat for a 5 year old - it is one of those three-in-one coats with a yellow waterproof outer coats and a nice warm inner coat. Your son would be very welcome to it if you think it would fit.

BTW, just being nosey here, what is your husband studying?