MSE News: Minister answers concerns on lone parent benefits

Sixer

FBaby wrote: »

You did misinterpreted my comments. I think the choices you have made to delay having children until you were well educated and able to afford your with partner to SAH to bring up your children were very good ones. I don't see anything wrong with this at all. However, I believe that the moment you rely on another source to financially support your family, you lose that choice. It shouldn't be for the parent to decide whether they have a right to stay at home just because THEY believe it is better for their children. There is a difference between a choice that -might- be better for children (-might- because research is certainly not supporting one or the other) and be imposed something that will make children suffer. No, growing up with a single working mother does not in itself make the children suffer. My father was brought up by a working single mum and didn't suffer. I did too and again, didn't suffer. In my case, i would even say that it had benefited me, but of course, not having the experience the other side, it can only be a supposition.

I don't know how many single parents on benefits trully genuinely believe that bringing up their children on minimal financial support is better than if they went to work (as you seem to do) and how many are convincing themselves of it because they prefer this lifestyle, but I feel that relying on benefits to support your choice is just not equitable in light of all the working parents who don't have that choice.

I think this post - although perhaps not deliberately - actually gets to the crux of the matter.

We live in a society today in which people have more choices than they have ever had before - think the Middle Ages and serfdom. As the centuries have gone on, working people have gradually gained more and more control over their lives. This is a GOOD thing.

However, the last fifty or so years have seen that change coming at an unprecedented rate - largely due to accelerated scientific and technological advances. This means that the financial environment hasn't been able to keep up because of the sheer speed of change. When change is gradual, it's a lot easier for financial arrangements to change at an appropriate pace and keep up.

What we need to do is to find a way to maintain choice and control at the same time as developing sustainable financial arrangements to back it up. I don't have the answers to this, but I am quite sure that attacking one another's choices isn't going to provide them.

DaisyFlower

moggylover wrote: »

The quality over quantity argument is, as far as I am concerned, a get out for those who were unwilling to take the rough with the smooth where parenting is concerned.

The fact is that the working parent may be capable of giving quite a nice time when there (much as divorced partners without care often do) but if they are unwilling to do ALL of the slog as well then they are truly lacking the right committment to having children. To me it is a little like a friend I once had who wanted a horse to ride, but none of the work of cleaning it out or feeding it:(.

I know plenty of women who work and have children and who are far too worn out and grumpy to be of any use whatsoever to their children when they are around as well and who also complain of "no time for themselves" and so I am afraid that old sop doesn't work for me at all.

I had worked (often two jobs amassing some 16 hours a day, plus weekend shifts) for many years to provide a decent home and to have the basics that were (to my mind) necessary before having my children, and was in a committed relationship (or at least I thought so) before having them (at 37 btw). I had done the career bit, I had also chucked the career and done something different, and then I had escaped to the Country and chainsawed trees, chopped wood, worked on farms for a complete change of scenery and hard work holds no fear for me whatsoever.

However, I believe that any job/career choice will have bits you like and bits you just drudge through and that if you are REALLY good at that job, and truly committed and hard working then you will get your head down and do both, not just nit pick for the best bits. The same should be true for parenting, and anyone who only wants the "best bits" cannot ever truly claim all of the honour for how well the child turns out because quite honestly the child minder, the nanny, the nursery school, the school have all spent far more time with the child during its development and are therefore far more entitled to claim the glory as all you have done is paid someone else to raise them and guide them:(

As someone who is well educated and highly qualified I am always sickened by the attempts of those who are unwilling to truly give of themselves wholly to their kids for a wee while to make it seem as if it is only because most SAHM's are of inferior intellect and that they will be unable to find decent jobs once they wish to return to the jobs market. In truth, if you are as good as you think you are, then the job will eventually be there. Maybe you will not have time to make it quite so high up the ladder as you might had you worked through your children's infancy, but if you are unwilling to make any sacrifices to your own ambition for your children then you really should not be having them.

In exchange for that sacrifice, you will get the reward of having truly shared yourself with your child during the most important period of their development and the child will have shared their important moments with you. I don't believe that any money in the World, or any job I could have had, would have made up for missing the first steps of either of my children, and I would have been devastated if my childs first word had been the name of his childminder (as a neighbours child's was) or had he cried for the childminder who had him for the majority of his waking hours (as said neighbours child did) when over-tired or ill!

As I previously stated, you will also have learnt management and relationship skills that are sadly lacking in businesses nowadays and that should be considered valuable and sought after.

I remained a SAHM rather longer than I had intended to. I envisaged staying at home full time until the youngest went to school, and then working part-time within school hours. As it was, life did not go according to plan, and it was some while after that before I was able to return to working (and that I do from my own home and around the needs of my family) but within a few short months I was contracting enough work to be back almost to higher rate taxy level (and will be in that bracket this year) so the suggestion about SAHM's never being able to support their children financially is really a very sad attempt to denigrate those who choose to be real parents 24/7.

So parents who are home 24/7 are real parents and those that leave their childrens side are not - what a load of rubbish!! I assume then that you dont let your children go to school, or parties, or activities unless you are with them then?

Society should not pay for peoples lifestyle choices and beliefs - thats up to the individual. Stay home with your children but only if you can afford to do so with no state assistance. If not, then financially supporting those children is a very important part of parenting.

I also dont want my son to grow up to believe he has to work most days in order that his wife can stay home and not contribute - why should he have to just because of his sex? I want him to know that you can parent and work and do both fine - it doesnt have to be one or the other.

As for "the working parent may be capable of giving quite a nice time when there" - again what tosh. So dads who work would fall into this too as thats how lots of SAHMs get to stay home - what a nice way to think that of the person supporting the household. Just because a person works doesnt make them a lesser parent - the children grow up with a good work ethic, they realise the value of working and what earning money covers and they benefit from that money by having a home, food etc.

Indie_Kid

Sixer wrote: »

What we need to do is to find a way to maintain choice and control at the same time as developing sustainable financial arrangements to back it up. I don't have the answers to this, but I am quite sure that attacking one another's choices isn't going to provide them.

I disagree:
If you want to stay at home to look after your child, you shouldn't rely on the state to do so. Whatever next? Pay someone to sit at home and look after their dog?

Sixer

sh1305 wrote: »

I disagree:
If you want to stay at home to look after your child, you shouldn't rely on the state to do so. Whatever next? Pay someone to sit at home and look after their dog?

Ah, I wasn't very clear, sorry. You've completely missed my point.

I'm trying to say that in, say, the 1200s, people lived as serfs. They didn't even have free movement. In the 1800s, people had free movement but the only safety net was the workhouse. By the early-to-mid 1900s, people had the rudiments of welfare, but divorce was rare and the automatic route for unmarried mothers was adoption if marriage wasn't an option.

I am saying that it is GOOD that the social environment has changed so that people have freedom of movement, aren't condemned to miserable, even violent, marriages for life, or the workhouse, and can opt to bring up their children rather than giving them away, if they find themselves as single parents.

These changes are GOOD. But what they have meant is that the standard economic unit (family status within the economy) is no longer 2 adults plus children, yet all children still need to be brought up in a way that enables them to become productive adults. What I am saying is that our OVERALL (ie on a national scale, not a personal scale) financial arrangements haven't evolved to cope with the changing economic unit. This is clearly a problem as this thread clearly shows - we can't agree on how to finance a larger number of economic units (families/households) bringing up the same (if anything fewer as birth rates have fallen) number of children.

We presumably don't want to go back to the days of history I described. So we need to do some big picture/blue sky thinking about this instead of endlessly arguing the toss about working vs stay at home parenting. That's really not going to get anyone anywhere.

FBaby

If choice is to be encouraged, it is to be equitable. Why should single parent have that choice, but working parents who can't afford to have one stay at home not be given this choice? Why is the society rewarding (by giving the benefit of choice) the singles, but not those who are working hard and still providing the best to children (by giving them the chance to leave with both their parents).

The reality is that society can't afford to allow all mothers (and those fathers who want to SAH) to stay at home, it is simply not financially plausible as this can be a choice if enough people work and contribute towards NI, so again, why should it allow some to have that choice but not the others?

Sixer

FBaby wrote: »

If choice is to be encouraged, it is to be equitable.

Exactly.

FBaby wrote: »

The reality is that society can't afford to allow all mothers (and those fathers who want to SAH) to stay at home

But perhaps it could, if we stopped focusing on individuals and started focusing on outside factors, as I argued earlier in this thread, and indeed, as this thread started out - about childcare provision for ALL who choose it, not just single parents and/or benefits claimants.

As I said earlier also, housing costs are a huge factor here. Government economic policy, both from the previous administration and this one, so it's not a party political matter, has been to try to preserve house prices. Why is this? Why are housing costs as a proportion of income so much more than they were 40 years ago? We have a lot more "things" to buy these days, with technology as it is.

I just want to know why people on this thread insist on knocking seven bells out of one another but refuse to almost a man to look at other issues that affect the way we finance parenting in this country.

Indie_Kid

FBaby wrote: »

If choice is to be encouraged, it is to be equitable. Why should single parent have that choice, but working parents who can't afford to have one stay at home not be given this choice? Why is the society rewarding (by giving the benefit of choice) the singles, but not those who are working hard and still providing the best to children (by giving them the chance to leave with both their parents).

The reality is that society can't afford to allow all mothers (and those fathers who want to SAH) to stay at home, it is simply not financially plausible as this can be a choice if enough people work and contribute towards NI, so again, why should it allow some to have that choice but not the others?

Single parents don't really have that much of a choice. There is the issue of child care for many - as highlighted in this thread many times. And then there's finding a suitable job to fit around school hours.

DaisyFlower

sh1305 wrote: »

Single parents don't really have that much of a choice. There is the issue of child care for many - as highlighted in this thread many times. And then there's finding a suitable job to fit around school hours.

There may be a few that will truly struggle for childcare, ie the child is disabled, but for the majority childcare is available. There are not many areas that dont have a nursery/childminder/after school club available.

I dont get why jobs have to fall within school hours, most people would love their ideal job and just a few hours a day. Luckily most are realistic and work outside 10-2 to feed their families rather than sit back and wait years for their ideal job at the expense of others.

Sixer

DaisyFlower wrote: »

I dont get why jobs have to fall within school hours.

Because wages are low in comparison with childcare rates?

Indie_Kid

DaisyFlower wrote: »

I dont get why jobs have to fall within school hours, most people would love their ideal job and just a few hours a day. Luckily most are realistic and work outside 10-2 to feed their families rather than sit back and wait years for their ideal job at the expense of others.

Most child care providers are only open until around 5.30pm. Couple that with possible travel time, the parent really has no choice but to work within school hours.

Some jobs require shift work. How many child care providers are open at 2am?