MSE News: Minister answers concerns on lone parent benefits

hobbledehoy.

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Absolutely terrific post moggylover and one which I wholly agree with. I could thank you ten times over!

I was a SAHM for five years and then worked part-time in menial jobs for a further ten because it suited the needs of the family. My husband was the main wage earner. And you're right, some of the work of being a SAHM I didn't like at all, but gritted my teeth and got on with it - bringing up my son was my duty and my job, as well as my pleasure.

Now I am old enough to have grandchildren (although I don't actually have any yet), my role will be to take the nice bits of childrearing and leave all the nitty-gritty not-so-nice bits to the parents. My job is done.

But if you are away from your children all day, then it is the childminder/nursery who does the job, as you say.

However, I do appreciate that single parents may not have the options available.

Hello,

It is good to hear that we (my wife & I) were not the only ones that bringing a family up was and still is a great responsibility, both financially and emotionally.

I would be the first male to admit (and I have done so to many), that for a SAHM life is damn hard work but very rewarding.

When we brought up our children (born early 80's) there was never a choice about which benefit we could get. It was simply Family Allowance. My wife worked full time until she was 35 when we decided to start a family.

It was never considered after they were born that my wife would ever work again. The children took priority.
She finished work when she was 5 months pregnant with our first (1980) and has never worked since. If the family needed an increase in money, it was my responsibility to earn it - pay rise or new employer.

We both had different responsibilities - hers to nurture the children, mine to provide for everyone. And between us, we provided mutual care in the evenings and at weekend.

The only drawback has been that neither daughters ever wanted to go beyond O levels even though they had the capabilities, freedom of choice and finance to go into higher education. They just wanted a family of their own to re-create their upbringing for their children.

When they married, they expected their husbands' to do what I did, and neither of them has worked since having our grandchildren. Both husbands work for their families and see it as a role just as time consuming as it is for the SAHM to bring up the children.

Oldernotwiser

hobbledehoy. wrote: »

Hello,

It is good to hear that we (my wife & I) were not the only ones that bringing a family up was and still is a great responsibility, both financially and emotionally.

I would be the first male to admit (and I have done so to many), that for a SAHM life is damn hard work but very rewarding.

When we brought up our children (born early 80's) there was never a choice about which benefit we could get. It was simply Family Allowance. My wife worked full time until she was 35 when we decided to start a family.

It was never considered after they were born that my wife would ever work again. The children took priority.
She finished work when she was 5 months pregnant with our first (1980) and has never worked since. If the family needed an increase in money, it was my responsibility to earn it - pay rise or new employer.

We both had different responsibilities - hers to nurture the children, mine to provide for everyone. And between us, we provided mutual care in the evenings and at weekend.

The only drawback has been that neither daughters ever wanted to go beyond O levels even though they had the capabilities, freedom of choice and finance to go into higher education. They just wanted a family of their own to re-create their upbringing for their children.

When they married, they expected their husbands' to do what I did, and neither of them has worked since having our grandchildren. Both husbands work for their families and see it as a role just as time consuming as it is for the SAHM to bring up the children.

I don't really see what this has got to do with lone parents - or life in this century, for that matter!

moggylover

FBaby wrote: »

moggylover, that's all very well, but why should tax payer substitute this 'supposed' better way of educating children? If you are so adament that you want to be at home to raise your children, you should be spending many years working very hard to save enough to be sure that you can afford to stay at home, even if you end up a single parent.


Oh I did FBaby, I worked very, very hard. I was offered a uni place at 16 and deferred that whilst I worked for two years on an ICI training scheme to get some secretarial qualifications so that my parents would not have to support the living costs for me to go to uni. I then worked as many hours as I could get in whatever jobs I could get during uni and because of my secretarial qualifications I could temp during holidays and even during term time if necessary. Then, of course, I had a lucrative little earner writing up lecture notes for those too idle to either attend lectures or make notes (this was during the 70's:eek:).

After leaving uni, I was employed in the Civil Service, at a non-junior level and regularly put in very long days (16 and 18 hours some of the time) and then very long train journeys home. It wasn't that well paid despite being a senior post and my line of work can be desperately depressing and frustrating and eventually I decided that I wanted to try something else so left the Service and went into secretarial work and on deciding that I wanted to leave home and buy my own home I also worked from 6.00pm until 2.00 am in a local hotel, and also worked day and evening shifts in the hotel at weekends. I also, from time to time, took contract work in the the matter I had trained for.

It could be argued that for at least 12 years of my life I worked two full time jobs and more, and paid in the relevant very large amounts of tax that that entailed. I was quite probably supporting some of the younger set on here through their education with my taxes at that time and thus if they had to support me for a few years when my children were small I'm afraid that is just hard luck. THAT is what our system is supposed to be about. Putting in, AND taking out when necessary and I am not even slightly ashamed of having had a need to take out: although I am not going to sit and share all of the reasons for that need with you.

As for your statement of the 'best bits', I had to laugh. As if you get to choose as a parent. You are right, as a working mum, i tell my kids that our evenings together are going to be spent playing puzzles and watching TV together, and they can forget about me cooking for them or washing their clothes, because as I work, I only have time left for the good part of bringing them up!

You were the one arguing quality over quantity;)

You do seem quite defensive about your role, which makes me wonder why? I have never said that being a SAH parent was a bad thing, heck, I would have certainly have done it if I could have afforded it, but I couldn't so had to work and make the best of the situation so my kids didn't suffer.

I'm not even slightly defensive about my role. I'm very confident of both my abilities in work and my abilities as a real, hands-on child rearer. Perhaps you did not mean to denigrate those of us that choose to rear our children ourselves in your last post, but the comments about SAHM's not being able to financially support their children certainly suggested that, and that you consider most of us would only do so because we weren't capable of well paid careers.

I made sure before having my children (by owning my home almost outright and having no debts, and everything in place) that I could afford them at the time that I had them without going to work. Had I not been able to do so I would not have had them. That meant that when the worst happened and my partner and I split I could manage very well on the benefits available to me (and that I had well earned the right to claim imo) to raise my children without them suffering in any way at all.

moggylover

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

That might of course be true for someone who had used (in thought or words) the term "benefit scrounger".

I didn't think you had meant it that way at all Older, but those of us on, or who have been on, benefits are so very used to being lumped together as chavs and scroungers that the very idea of children of benefits parents going to university seems very strange to see on MSE:D

moggylover

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

The difference being that reliable contraception and easy abortion were not nearly as readily available (or free) as they are these days.The late 60s and early 70s were a time when more young people were sexually active but contraception hadn't quite caught up.

I do beg to differ. The pill was free at our local Family Planning Clinic from the late 60's on, and my mother was on it:) You could also get the coil, the cap and condoms free from them.

There was as little excuse for them being pregnant then as there is today I'm afraid but it still happened. Perhaps some of them would not have got a great deal of sex education (although I got mine in the last year of junior school and it did include contraception to some degree) but I don't think they could have claimed "ignorance of how it happened" past the first time.

moggylover

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I can't speak for moggylover, but I don't think that society SHOULD subsidise this choice. I received no benefits (other than Child Benefit), neither did my husband, when I was a SAHM in the 80s and early 90s.

That is why a single parent will not probably have this choice and have to have childcare of one form or another.

I'm torn on this one merely because there are an element who have abused it. In France, they actively encourage being a SAHP by paying benefits to those men/women even within a relationship who choose to take a break from work to be a SAHP so that they can afford to do so, and I do believe that it should be something that society as a whole encourages and recognises the value of.

The problem being how we stop a small minority taking the mick. It isn't impossible imo, but I don't think it is something that Government even want to tackle. They all talk about wanting things to change, but never address them in ways that actually might achieve something because they always want a "quick fix" and I don't think there is one in this. The long view is never Governmentally friendly because they want the results to be seen during their tenure, and not 10 years later when they are possibly not there.

Indie_Kid

moggylover wrote: »

I'm torn on this one merely because there are an element who have abused it. In France, they actively encourage being a SAHP by paying benefits to those men/women even within a relationship who choose to take a break from work to be a SAHP so that they can afford to do so, and I do believe that it should be something that society as a whole encourages and recognises the value of.

Should society pay for a choice?

moggylover

sh1305 wrote: »

Should society pay for a choice?

If it is in the best interests of a well balanced and cohesive Society then most definitely yes.:)

ETA: actually, the alternative is to have a Country where the actual cost of living makes sense in relation to wages/incomes and then you wouldn't need both parents to be working just to make ends meet, nor to top up their income with a benefit.

flight747

Got question to ask the MP here:

Lone parent (single mum or father with a child/childrens) under 5 are being force into work (instead had to claiming on JSA or ESA when IS had stopped on a lone parent ground) but what about those single person who live alone without any child still claiming on IS without any age restrict - why they aren't force into work then ? That's sound a loser for lone parent with a child/childrens but a winner for a single person without a child who live alone.

Doesn't make any sense at all MP's !

flight747

janninew wrote: »

The school I work at has many girls every year getting pregnant. Something needs to be done to make them realise having a baby isn't the easy option just so they don't have to work. People may think this doesn't really happen, but it actually does, what can be done to stop it happening though? I think stopping benefits be given until the child reaches 16 years is a good start, but it doesn't stop these girls having another baby when their youngest reaches 5 years old.

The girls getting pregnant with their boyfriend are more likely trying to get a free council flat or house to rent because try to get out of the parents house! It not about Income Support or child ages until 16.