single mums

@sunseeker

The benefit system is less generous now. I only stopped being a single mother of a school age child last month. It is extremely difficult to get grants for anything. The most people can usually expect is a repayable loan. A single mother is expected to prepare for work when the youngest child is three and to seek work actively when the child is five.

I stand corrected. Either way, women never got paid chid benefit of any kind just for the first one.

Single mothers have been stigmatised since the Thatcher years. Never a word about the Fathers who don't support their children. Just saying. hugs

Family Allowance was replaced by Child Benefit, which was a universal credit. FIS was entirely different.

Sorry, ...replaced by FIS and/or Child Benefit, which paid a sum for each child.

Family allowance, which was paid until 1975 when it was replaced by FIS, was paid for each child after the first one.

One other thing - leaving the EU is going to make a difference to us in many ways, one of which is in the number of children of single mothers in care. I know a foster carer who has a child from the EU who has been here for some years. Her mother has now returned to her home (EU) country leaving four of her children here.
I don't know how unusual this is.

I agree with OP that some single mums do feel "entitled" and grasp at whatever they can. But of course there are very many who do all that they can to support their children themselves and claim only the benefits to which everybody is entitled, single or not.

It should be stressed that many women become single parents through no fault of their own, originally having been partnered by their children's father who has later left them. Others have left an abusive relationship and some have sadly been widowed. And some partnerships simply break down.

Women today have every right to choose to have children when they are on their own, but surely they should not do this at the expense of the rest of the population? I feel much less sympathy for women who have deliberately chosen to become single mothers from the outset, whilst knowing that they will be entirely dependant on the state for their home and livelihood. I do know some of these women, many have never worked and have no intention of working, and they are a constant financial drain on the rest of us.

corncob I got child allowance for both my DDs. More I think fo first but deffo.more when second arrived. It is how I bought their shoes and winter coats!

I asked a ten year old son of a single mum what he hoped to do when he left school, he replied, "nothing, I am going to the post office every week to get my money, like my mum does" So the buck doesn't stop there, more like a merry go round. Sad!!

Following on from my previous post regarding "free car" for disabled people - Mobility cars are paid for out of Disability Living Allowance (or now Personal Independence Payment) - this is payed by part of their Mobility Allowance

Ana you are right about Maternity Grant - it is only payable for 1st child except for subsequent multiple birth, my DD is on Benefits as her OH is disabled (highest rates of DLA for Care & Mobility) & DGS is 6. She is a "stay-at-home Mum" as her OH cannot manage on her own. They are reliant on benefits but don't live a "life of luxury". DD worked from leaving College until DGS was born.

I too was a "single parent" when my H walked out she was 5, our house was repossessed so I had to find Rented Accommodation, I went back to College on a full Grant which was for myself & my DD so I was not eligible for any Benefits, I had to work during our Summer break as Grant for my DD was 52 weeks although mine was term-time & took me above Benefit level unlike single students who could "sign on" & claim.

Not all single parents/people on benefits are the same unfortunately what is reported in the media colours others views, my late DH worked all his life & apart from Maternity & College so did I until I took early retirement to care for DH

We have a friend who is a single mum, albeit of a 28 year old. She has been on her own since her son was 18months old. While he was small, she worked part time, then when he went to secondary school, got a full time job. she bought a small, neat house on which she has now paid off the mortgage. Her son is a well adjusted, lovely guy and she is now enjoying being a fun loving fifty something. Well done, I say! She is imo an example to anyone.

I was in the same situation as path.I had to work and pay for child care,never got a penny from my x alcoholic bully of a husband. I have a single parent who lives next door with a toddler. She is very nice but she has a lovely home and furnishings and my home is shabby compared.I often wonder how she can afford it and she also runs a car,something else out of my budget.I spent 25 years caring for my late husband and have saved the government a small fortune as never used respite etc. The single parents do seem to have it much easier now days,also we only got family allowance for the first child.

I live in a household of 3 disabled people; I was expected to pay council tax out of my (already impossibly low) earnings and fell into arrears. When I was threatened with my fourth lot of concurrent attachment of earnings orders to pay off the arrears, which would have left me with £40 a week to live on, I had no choice but to stop working and become DH's carer. Even living on pension and disability benefits, we feel relatively well-off and I do get cross when people moan about how ill-done-by they are/get blamed for being "scroungers" etc. My first husband was a violent, unfaithful gambler and had I not got out, I would almost certainly not be here now. So, yes, take story with the proverbial pinch of salt and follow the old advice about walking a mile in t'other fellow's mocassins.

I was a single mother by choice. I left an abusive husband. In those days, the 1970s,no one was interested as abuse was labelled as an 'domestic'.I left my husband, bought a house with my half of our marital home and went out to work. I received no help from the state whatsoever. Oh! I forgot. I had child allowance for one of my two children.It is so easy these days to just expect everything to be provided. I do understand though there are very genuine cases with which I sympathise. I have been there and it is not easy,

I am sorry but the state takes on the total responsibility for these life style choices. Not everyone of course. People fall on hard times but I live through it with my daughter. 3 children. 3 dads. Not one dad has paid anything or there to help. I help and buy things she needs. There are no consequences. There are whole estates like this. we are in a society where I want it now. We saved up to buy a flat before we got married. Didn't live together until we were married. I had 4 children. Times were hard and good but stuck in a marriage for the children. People aren't inclined to make sacrificises anymore for better good. I never expected anyone to pick up the pieces. It's not either or. Society needs to say somethings are unacceptable. You deal with it or we will help you as things have happened for unforeseen reasons. I get fed up with all these liberals saying let people do what they want. Everything is acceptable. Criticise immediately if you disagree. Then you are racist, unchristian, hard hearted. No thought for the people struggling to give their family a good life and are effected by other people's behaviour. My rant

Those who work the system make it harder for the unintentionally and undeservedly poor and, as can be seen here, erode sympathy for those in receipt of benefits who actually need and deserve them.

That said, years ago, when my mother had to leave her aggressive and difficult husband and fend for herself with two school age children she worked at two jobs to keep us and didnt take a penny from the state. Nor would we have free school meals or other handouts as we were too proud to take anyone's charity.

I think that, reading between the lines of many of the above comments there is too much polarisation of the argument and not enough consideration of actual cases and nuanced points.

When people condemn 'scroungers' I think they often mean that benefits now belong in that large catgory reflecting 'unintended consequences' and that what was initiated to provide alleviation for emergency cases and to help those in genuine need has become a lifestyle choice. This was never the intention and benefits were never initially costed for this happening.

We have seen this with disability benefits whose bill sky-rocketed and also with immigration numbers where helping a few genuine seekers of asylum from evil regimes has turned into an unstoppable tide of economic migrans whose rights seem to be considered ahead of those who provide the asylum.

An associated problem is that some people refuse to acknowledge that 'mission creep' has accellerated assistance and succour into wholesale exploitation by claimants. Debate has been stifled by emotive polarisation whereby a slight demur concerning an unhindered and openhanded approach is greeted with insults of the, 'If you won't take every person who wants to enter the country you must be a racist!' Other forms of abuse are: 'fascist', 'Kipper', Tory', 'bigot'. It is irrational and unhelpful as the truly in need are being forgotten and pushed aside as the exploiters push their way to the front of the queue.

The truth is that some mothers, as we have seen in above posts, are genuinely needy cases and some are exploiters. Each case should be examined on its own merits and polemicism and prejudice (on either side) dropped.

I think we all know that there are single mothers and single mothers. Some are there through no fault or choice of their own, others are not. Many are hardworking, others are not.

But I agree, it's the 'entitled' ones who get your hackles up. I used to know of one who'd hardly ever worked for the several years since she'd left school, although she was entirely capable and at the time, and in that area, anyone who really wanted to could find a job.
She was forever complaining about how it 'wasn't fair' at the council wouldn't give her a nicer flat, or that she couldn't afford to run a car, or that she couldn't go on long haul holidays like her friends. She was endlessly complaining that her hardworking parents wouldn't fund this or that non-basic item, and - most memorably - that her mother who was working wouldn't take a fortnight off to have her child while she went off on the holiday she was 'entitled' to.
What I still don't understand is how she was allowed for so long after leaving school to sit there on benefits while refusing any work or training that wasn't in one very specific and specialised field, which was the only one she said she was interested in.
It did her no favours at all, and I think that as her child grew older she really regretted not having made any effort with work or training after she left school.

Yea (sic) gods! Do some people just come on GN to vent their spleen

If my comment was what you mean an instance of "venting anybody's spleen" I do wonder how you view the OP? ("Steam coming out of my ears" etc)

There is a huge difference as you perfectly well know between an individual instance and a generalisation and it seems I was not alone in interpreting the thread title as a generalisation.
There are clearly members who feel very deeply about the issue based on personal experience and should not have to defend their own existence as "single mums".

And no, I have no spleen to vent here.

Sorry but I still think to say - bite the hand that feeds her was so wrong

I totally agree with Dilinneed.

She didn't take the photograph herself and she has been encouraged by a journalist to moan.

It is just part of the divisiveness that is been pushed relentless at the moment. People are so quick to kick down and kiss up.

This is being used to tar all single mothers and everyone on benefits. The journalist has made no effort to find out the truth about benefits.

You are wrong Anya, this is aimed at everyone on benefits as all poverty porn is. Has this paper ever reported on people who have been driven to suicide after having their benefits wrongly cut? As Anniebach has said, Council loans don't work that way and they are hard to get nowadays as so many people through no fault of their own are driven to need them.

This is how propaganda works. People trust the press and when they read the same type of stories over and over again they assume that they are accurate without question.

Even if she does have unrealistic expectations, that may have been the way she was brought up and when people are young they can get things wrong. She may treat 'the system' a her parent, and maybe it was. She needs to be educated - as do people who believe that the press always tells the press and always checks facts.

I think most of those posting their experiences of being single parents are talking about an age when things were a lot tougher. The benefit system is more generous these days. I think the OP was merely expressing her opinion that the young woman in question did not seem to appreciate the amount of help she had received. I have no problem with benefits being paid to those in need, but as someone said most of us know people who are working the system and those are the people who seem to receive publicity and give the rest a bad name.

When was it ok to have children you can't afford and there is never just a single mum. Where are the Dads?

I think OP you mean 'incredible', not 'incredulous'.