...It's Child of a single parent.

I grew up in a single parent household.  I had one dad and my two sisters had another.  Both men had left my Mum to bring up a young family on her own.  My mum was lucky that she had a good support network around her and extended family she could call on in times of difficulty.  But life as a child from a lone parent family wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t just that money was tight (really tight), it was the stigma that was attached to being from this type of family and from what I can see nearly 20 years on, sadly nothing has changed.

I never blamed my mother for being a single parent.  Relationships break down, some perhaps could be worked at, but people make mistakes and while we should learn from them and face up to the consequences, what kind of country are we to turn our backs on people when they need it the most?  What is wrong with giving people a helping hand, a second chance, free of judgement and scorn?  Nobody is perfect; are all the mistakes you've ever made free of consequences for other people?

After my stepfather left when I was 13, mine and my family’s life changed.  We were middle class, had a nice house, went to a good school and I had never had to worry about money.  Suddenly I was in a queue for free school dinners with people I had always looked down my nose at, I was wearing trainers from the market and a second hand school uniform and was told we could no longer afford for me to go on school trips. 

By the time I was in my final year at school, I was in a well established single parent family and it was no secret.  I had many discussions with people in my sociology and psychology classes about being on benefits.  People weren’t shy about how disgusted they were at having to pay their taxes to make sure me and my family got to eat.  The general belief was that ‘your mum chose to have children, she should pay for them.’  And she was.  She worked, but on a minimum wage and with a baby to look after it still wasn’t enough to support a family of four.  It was my Mum’s choice to have three children by two different men, but she was married, was comfortable, and sadly perhaps a bad judge of character and no crystal ball (that I know of).  She didn’t choose to be left by her husbands, looking after young children.  Of course this isn’t the only way to become thrust into the world of single parenthood.

And this is what makes me angry the most.  The assumption by many people that their taxes are going to single mums just so they can have babies, stay at home and watch Jeremy Kyle.  These young women have seen the pound signs (those benefits are like winning the lottery don’t you know!) and thought, ‘I know I’m going to choose to have a baby, by myself (one of the hardest things anyone can do) and make everyone else pay’.  This just isn’t reality.  The huge majority of single parents (I am talking about Dads too) are a victim of circumstance, a mistake, a consequence of someone else’s decision.  And who is to say they are bad decisions!  I am so thankful that my mum and stepdad split up, they made a terrible couple, they would have made each other and us miserable, but hey, at least we wouldn’t have been sponging off the taxpayer!

The recent win in the House of Lords is a cause for celebration for women, but just a small one.  This government appears hell-bent on punishing poor, vulnerable women trying their hardest to raise a family at incredibly difficult times (not forgetting of course the Dads doing this to). Research by Women Against the Cuts, show that two thirds of the cuts made in the June budget came from women.

Speaking on behalf of the government, minister Lord De Mauley said “We don’t want to return to the days when the state is encouraging parents to blame each other.”  No, with the tone of their policies and who they are aimed at, the coalition government is encouraging people to blame single parents and women instead.

...it's Juggler

Life hit me full pelt this morning when I walked into the boy’s room to the smell of vomit.  After a lovely weekend away for my Mum’s wedding, the Monday I had planned was giving the boy to a friend while I worked and unpacked.  He had other plans, as did my cats.  The morning was instead spent cleaning up the boy, his room, then the living room and kitchen where the cats, not wanting to be left out, had thrown up all over the rug.  I managed to squeeze in the unpacking and a bit of work too of course!

I am a mother and I work part-time.  It’s a very personal choice and what suits some doesn’t suit others so this blog isn’t about judging anyone’s decision.  I am racked with guilt, but my guilt doesn’t lie with the lack of time I spend with the boy, it’s the guilt I feel about neglecting my own career.  I am lucky I can work most of my hours when the boy is sleeping, which some would say means I get the best of both worlds.  (Sometimes it is, but sometimes I feel like I’m working two full time jobs.)  But I don’t have a ‘career’ anymore.  I’m just working.  I get to be a ‘stay at home mum’ to the boy which is what I want, and I love it.  But sometimes I want my career back.

At the moment I have paused, who knows when I will start climbing that ladder again and will it be too late?  I’m regularly reminded of my impending middle-age and how behind my career is by other women my age with amazing, well-paid jobs.  How do these women do it and where did I go wrong?!

Unfortunately the decision itself – to work or stay at home isn’t as easy as it first appears.  Childcare, maternity leave, money, guilt all hold more weight than my desire to do well.  The three options as I see them are; be a full-time stay at home mum and be poor (obviously I don’t mean everyone who has this option is poor, but it would mean we were), work part-time which means juggling money and childcare, the career doesn’t work part-time but at least you’ve got a toe in the door.  The final option is to work full time, still be poor (maybe slightly better off but not much after I’ve paid for childcare), keep the career alive but never see the boy.  Some days I want one and other days I want the other.  Why can’t I just make a decision and stick to it?!  Whichever one I choose, the money doesn’t really change. 

Is it because I don’t feel important as a mother?  Society places such value on the role you do.  When you say “I’m a mother or I work part-time”, you see people’s eyes glaze over and stifle a yawn, assuming that what you do is boring and un-interesting. 

It doesn’t help that childcare in the UK is some of the most expensive in the world and the maternity benefits are pretty poor too in comparison.  It seems to me other countries value their mothers and women more.  The argument of ‘why should I pay taxes so you can stay home to look after your brats’ just reinforces that mothers who stay at home to bring up their children aren’t seen as playing an important role or even working.  The words ‘stay at home’ do the same – I don’t stay at home.  I go to toddler groups or toddler yoga or I do the shopping, or cleaning or play-dates.  I see part of my role as a mother as a job.  I don’t particularly want to go and sit in a room with other Mum’s I don’t know, but it’s part of my job and like most people’s jobs there are things we like doing and things we don’t.  Just because there are more elements to my ‘job’ that are enjoyable doesn’t mean it’s not hard or not valuable.  Perhaps if I felt the role I was performing was important I wouldn’t feel so conflicted.

I am impatient and I like being in control.  In my head I say to myself “get your kids out of the way and then once you’re at school you can re-start your career”  “Your kids are only young once, you’re going to be working for years and years.”  And I know this makes sense.  BUT....I’m scared.  I see women who are so young and have achieved so much.  What have I achieved?  See, there I go again selling my role as a mother short, I have achieved raising (so far) a beautiful, well-behaved, happy little boy.  I do have a career – even if it is momentarily paused, a home, friends and family.  So why do I feel that something is missing or wrong.  I’m scared that if I leave it too long I will be left on the shelf.  I’ll be too old and I’ll have missed all the opportunities my young counter-parts will have already had.  I want everything now! 

My name this blog is ‘Juggler’, but not the normal way you’d assume a mother is a juggler, it’s juggling my own thoughts, needs and fears and perhaps I really could do with dropping some of them.

...It's jobseeker

The Fairy Jobmother on channel four has to be one of the most depressing TV shows I've watched.  The 'fairy jobmother' is incredibly patronising and I do not believe that she would do any of the jobs she forces the people she claims to help. It's even worse since I became a job seeker myself and have been signing on.

When I first walked through the doors of my local jobcentre, the woman asked me if I was a single mum (I had the boy with me), asked if I worked and how old my son was.  She then said "well you need to make an appointment, but I'm sure you'll get sommat."  Yeah, a job, I hope! 

I felt pretty positive about signing on initially, thinking that I would get career advice and help to find a job that I could fit around the boy and would make sense for me financially.  After my first visit...I cried.  What an awful, depressing environment the job centre is and I challenge anyone to go there and feel positive about job hunting on their way out.

You are interviewed first by your 'key worker' who finds out a bit about you and then shows you where you could be looking for work.  Except, my 'key worker' asked me what hours I could work, how old I was and how old my son was.  He didn't listen.  He asked what I would like to do.  He told me I wouldn't find jobs like that here.  He then showed me a list of categories and said choose two that you would be interested in doing.  He took no notice.  Turning the computer round he asked me "how about applying for this?"  'This' was a job that was minimum wage, every weekday between 11 - 2, in a category I'd not ticked.  Now perhaps I was being a job snob, but I had told him, I already worked part time (but less than 16 hours a week, I wasn't committing fraud!) and needed a job that paid at least the same, I have no childcare so need to work hours the man is home (which is not in the middle of the day!)

I felt very disheartened.  I was hoping someone was going to show me all the options I had available.  Talk me through perhaps retraining, going back to university, what childcare I would be entitled to if I did a certain job.  Instead I was given my documents, asked if I'd looked for a job that week and taken back to the lift. 

Each time I went, I became increasingly angry and defensive.  My personality changed as I walked through the doors; knowing that I was going to be looked at by the people that worked there like something they'd stood in, spoken to like I was an idiot, and treated like I was there just to get money (when in fact I wasn't entitled to anything) meant that I behaved differently. 

My last experience was the worst.  I had to take the boy with me, who was unhappy about having to sit there while the woman I was waiting for chatted merrily to her colleague for half an hour.  (Perhaps she was rubbing it in to all the surrounding job seekers that even though she was doing bugger all at least she had a job, unlike the dole scum she was looking down her snooty nose at - see what happens to me!)  As the boy became more restless a man came over and said he would try to get my name to the top of the list (get his colleague to stop chatting) and then said "you shouldn't bring him here, he'll get bored."  I nearly exploded with rage, but was afraid I'd be escorted out by one of the security they employ to control the riff raff.  Then the woman who I'd been waiting for repeated what the man had said.  I'm sure you can imagine what happened next.  "Don't you think I know that!  I don't have anyone to look after him, I'm not stupid!  And if you hadn't sat around on your arse chatting for the last half an hour we would have been out of here!"

And with that I signed off.

I am one of the lucky ones.  I pity anyone that has to sign on, not because you get a small amount of money to live on and not because it's hard trying to find a job but because going to sign on at the job centre even for a few weeks is depressing, sad and no help at all.  You leave with no confidence, no self worth, and no job.  For people that have been signing on for a long time, the job centre is the biggest barrier to them getting a job.