Single Mothers in UK

Parenting a child well is a worthwhile, necessary, demanding full time JOB OF WORK. To put a parent with no working partner under pressure to work (under threat of financial penalty) when a child is under 5 may cause long term psychological damage to the child. Research shows how personality problems are formed in children traumatised before the age of 5. These lead to future (costly) social problems. Vulnerable children need love and stability with their biological parent/s. Why destroy a child's developing sense of self, learned through family love, security and discipline by paying a childminder when you can pay the parent to do the job she/he is biologically programmed to do. Children left with trauma find it easy to turn away from family to gangs for security and recognition. Children of all ages are vulnerable to abuse as they grow up looking for love they can't find at home. These are some of the problems exacerbated because our culture does not appear to value good parenting as a JOB OF WORK.
Sign here and pass it on: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/PARENTINGISAJOB/

Comments

Nick said…
You’ve missed the point, haven’t you? Agreed that children need the love and stability of their biological parents, but they need both of them. It is difficult to argue that bringing up a child in a single parent home contributes to the greater good in quite the same way as a child from a married couple home does. Children of single mothers are much more likely than their peers to fail at school, to abuse drugs and alcohol, to remain unemployed, to suffer physical and mental health problems, to turn to crime and to be a drain on public resources. Why should the taxpayer pay for the raising of a child who stands a high probability of living off benefits for the rest of his life?

The recent report by the OECD clearly shows that the incidence of single motherhood can be reduced – and must be reduced – by a reduction in the level of benefits paid. The academic Libertad Gonzalez showed in her study that in countries where single parent benefits are less generous there is less of a problem with fatherless children.

Are you going to offer to pay for my children? Thought not. Destroy society if you must, but don’t ask me to pay for it. I won’t be signing your petition.
joannaB73 said…
Hi Nick, I agree the best option is for both parents to be raising a family but where we already have absent fathers, do we really want children with absent mothers too who are out at work. A child needs consistency in parenting and someone to 'be there for them' even when they are teenagers otherwise we are just going to raise a generation of latch key kids. Also while single parents in the higher income bracket can manage to pay for child care in the school holidays, lower income families can't afford this. I know of one young mum who used to leave her children unsupervised in the summer holidays while she was working. And term time only jobs are few and far between, recent term time jobs in our area attracted 50 and 66 applicants. There are already several million unemployed in this country; what are we gaining by putting the mothers on the unemployed list as well? Motherhood is a job and should be acknowledged as such by the fathers and society as a whole.

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