The road less travelled

Lunar_Eclipse · 16 December 2011 at 2:24PM

Plans_all_plans wrote: »

HOWEVER, I would not swap places with her for all the world. She has to do everything herself without support and her children are growing up without their father: you can't put a price on the fact that our children have 2 involved parents. Her children don't deserve to suffer and I am proud we live in a country where there is a safety net.

I always think: there but for the grace of God go I. Money isn't everything.

Agree with this. Money isn't everything, in fact it's nothing.:D

daviecol · 16 December 2011 at 2:24PM

onlyroz wrote: »

Exactly. Life is too short to spend it looking over your shoulder at other people. I am rightly proud of the fact that I can get on without benefits (apart from CB, which I expect to lose in a few years), and I think the OP should be too.

I am proud as well as bitter lol.

Actually I now feel very happy that we brought up our family the right way. Now the rewards are coming in, 2 kids working full time. I am a very proud dad

And with hopefully 4 years left on the mortgage at the age of 45 I can see a bright future ahead.

Thanks for your comments a merry christmas to you and yours

BugglyB · 16 December 2011 at 2:38PM

My old nan would say 'What do you want, a medal?'

pimento · 16 December 2011 at 2:44PM

BugglyB wrote: »

My old nan would say 'What do you want, a medal?'

"Or a chest to pin it on?"

My son was the only one in his year not getting EMA. Some of his friends were using it for driving lessons.

FatVonD · 16 December 2011 at 2:51PM

It's easy to stew in resentment about some people on benefits being better off/as well off as someone that's working but you've instilled in your children the work ethic which is priceless

brokenlily · 16 December 2011 at 3:23PM

The reason the system was set up this way was to stop children whose parents split up being worse off in a single parent household. It isn't the child's fault if their parents split and if one parent walks away so it wasn't fair to leave those children in poverty. It's harder as a single parent to work and get childcare that is affordable if your family cannot help.

The side effect is that many people who are working and who are in stable family units, as well as single people without kids, feel hard done by, and it's hard not to when you do see people who seem to be milking it, so to speak.

I work with unemployed people, and it is the single parents for whom it is most difficult to get back into work, because the system does keep them better off on benefits, particularly if they can only get low skilled/low paid work, so the system in itself has created a barrier for lone parents who do want to work, but they also do not want their kids to be worse off - who would? I have worked with many a young single parent who is frustrated and would rather be at work, but they can't because it would actually make their family worse off.

All I'm saying is don't tar everyone with the same brush - there are some single parents out there who would want to work, but are in a benefits trap and surely you wouldn't expect people to willingly be worse off if they have children. The system is wrong, I believe there should be more financial help and benefits available to people who do work, particularly where that work is low paid, the system should support people to be in work rather than not be no matter what their living arrangements, couple or no.

elvis86 · 16 December 2011 at 3:36PM

I agree with a lot of the principal, but JESUS...Sancatmonious, much?:cool:

Person_one · 16 December 2011 at 3:41PM

I'm curious as to why you chose the title 'The Road Less Travelled'.

Do you honestly believe that you are special, unique and different? That there aren't thousands of other families getting by on about 30K p/a (which is not exactly shockingly low, you could live very nicely on that in my part of the world) and managing to do so without picking up a weird martyr/victim mentality along the way?

daviecol · 16 December 2011 at 3:45PM

Person_one wrote: »

I'm curious as to why you chose the title 'The Road Less Travelled'.

Do you honestly believe that you are special, unique and different? That there aren't thousands of other families getting by on about 30K p/a (which is not exactly shockingly low, you could live very nicely on that in my part of the world) and managing to do so without picking up a weird martyr/victim mentality along the way?

It's the title of a well known book.