People are fighting back at Bailey’s uninformed attack on single mothers. Cries of how amazing and hard working single mothers are, ring out across the internet. The facts prove it; single mothers are now just as likely to be in work as women without children. Two decades ago, the majority of single mums were not in paid employment, now almost 70% of us have joined the hard working masses. The stereotype has been well and truly smashed, we are no longer predominately sitting on our arses living the life of leisure on the taxpayers back. Give us a few more years and single mums will no doubt be more likely to be in paid employment than any other demographic. I can see the Daily Fail headline now; the single working mum – backbone of the British economy. This is cause for celebration.
Or is it?
Despite more single mothers than ever before working outside the home, single parent families earn 27% less than others and a third of children in such families live in poverty. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this figure is set to rise as the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions recently admitted that half of single parents with children would lose the equivalent of £2,400 a year once they were transferred to Universal Credit. Poverty minus £2,400 is not a sum which either I, nor the other 320,000 single parent families in the capital, want to know the answer to.
It’s not all about the finances (or lack of them) though. What the statistics fail to tell you is what it’s like to be a single working mum balancing the practicalities, as well as the costs, of childcare with commuting, work challenges and that little thing called life. It’s a constant battle which fluctuates between exhausting and fucking exhausting. Single working mothers are amongst some of the most stressed in the country. Almost 30 percent of single parents, double that of coupled parents, report concerns with their mental health. Securing work which can fit around your child’s education or affordable childcare, is a huge struggle for most. Gingerbread research has shown that 22% of single mothers taking on work find themselves back on job seekers allowance within 12 months. The increase in single mothers working is not necessarily a story of success and stability, but often one of stress and insecurity. As a working single mother myself I’ve been lucky enough to receive childcare from my own mother, saving me a fortune in nursery fees. Yet still my finances have struggled. Even tougher though, has been the mental strain of balancing work and solo motherhood.
There have been many, many days when I have returned home exhausted from the pressures of work only to have to battle toddler tantrums whilst cooking the dinner, putting a wash on and doing the dishes – all single handedly. No matter how good a parent I might be, this takes its toll and my son suffers the consequences. Likewise, there’s been many, many mornings when I’ve headed into the office utterly shattered from broken sleep only to be met with a work emergency that requires my entire attention and then some. The assumption that work enables the isolated single mum some much needed adult interaction ignores the reality; full-time responsibilities crammed into part-time hours with a feeling that we must prove ourselves above all others or be the first in line for redundancy. In 2016, it all became too much and I was signed off work for a month and placed on anti-depressants.
So why, when working and single parenting is so challenging, are so many of us doing it?
The introduction of tax credits in the late 1990s provided support – practical and financial – for single mums who wanted to join the paid workforce. Since 2008, things have changed. The so called ‘lone parent obligations’ reforms have radically altered the expectations placed on single mums regarding work and these expectations have hardened over the last ten years.
Single mums are now expected to work longer hours, from earlier on in their child(ren)’s life and with less financial support. Take the age of the youngest child for when single mothers were expected to go back to work, as an example. Prior to 2008 it was when the youngest child turned 16. Now it’s when they turn three. In some cases with universal credit it’s set to be even younger. These conditions may be considered reasonable to someone in Whitehall, but for those of us living it, they are exhausting and stressful. The pressure placed on single mums to (re-)enter the workforce pushes many into low paid, insecure work. This may create a short upswing in the employment figures, but is the political gain from these figures really worth the emotional impact they have on single parent families around the country?
Mr Bailey is entirely wrong with his reading of single mothers and our intentions and actions. However, those of us who are quick to shout the praise of the hard working single mother should also pause for thought. Single mothers should not be pushed to the brink just to prove that we too can master the capitalists’ dream. Flexible work and affordable childcare should be a right afforded to all mothers, especially single mothers, but so should reasonable benefits for those who find balancing both too much. There is no shame in that.
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*If you liked reading this you might also enjoy reading my posts on the 11 Realities of Single Motherhood, Annoying Things Single Mums Hear and The Benefits of Being Raised by A Single Mum.
If you’re a single parent and struggling, then my post on Support For Single Parents may help.