Scroungers

Let me say first and foremost that yes, I am on benefits.

Due to my status as a single parent of a 2 year old who will not qualify for those all important 15 hours of nursery until September 2013, I am currently a single, stay at home mother in receipt of Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. I also receive Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits, same as many parents working or otherwise get for their kids. I work part time, in a pub, one or two nights a week. From the money that I earn in my job, I am allowed to keep £20 a week, the rest will be deducted from my income support. So, for example, if I earn £45 in work, I will keep £20 and the DWP will reduce my income support by £25 that week. My parents amongst others ask me repeatedly if it’s worth doing the hours I do and working until 2am for just an extra £20 a week, but as anyone who has tried to raise kids on even an average salary let alone what the benefit system affords you will agree, an extra £20 a week goes a LONG way. Plus, it could just be me personally, or how I was raised, my morals or whatever, but I would rather EARN that £45 than have the £25 the DWP would give me. I am not a person who believes in accepting a handout.

Before Chops came along I worked for a bank in debt management (a thriving industry when I graduated in 2008!). I have a 2:1 BA Hons degree in English & hopefully next September, I will return to university to complete a PGCE and become a secondary school English teacher.

For me, being on benefits is not a ‘lifestyle choice’ it is a necessity. Both of my parents are still of working age and have full time jobs, so I don’t have the luxury of retired parents who can look after their granddaughter any more than they already do. Her father is absent in the most literal sense- he is alive and I believe, well, but he has not seen Chops since she was 13 weeks old and we have received no contact from him since October 2010. He pays no maintenance.

Financially, that is the position I am in. Now I am grateful from the help I receive and grateful to live in a country which will still help those in society who need it. But I am writing this post about a term that really upsets me ‘benefit scroungers’. Now I KNOW there are people out there who abuse the system. I KNOW the system is flawed and there are loopholes which can and will be exploited. I KNOW there are people out there who seem to have little or no morals about the way they live their lives and it is of course taxpayers money that pays for the benefits system at the end of the day.

Living on benefits is degrading, it is depressing and it is difficult. I am not, nor have I ever been lazy. I work bloody hard raising my daughter single handedly- anyone who has ever had children will agree, toddlers aren’t easy. Just think how much parents complain about keeping the kids entertained during the summer holidays, make that the problem Every day but imagine that you just don’t have the money to go out and do all the lovely treat things that you do as a family during the holidays. Every time I need to use a Healthy Start Voucher in my local supermarket and the assistant sits and adds up the cost of my milk, fruit & vegetables to make sure I’m not trying to use the vouchers for anything other than their intended purpose I could die. The shame is horrendous.

The hatred towards people on benefits is overwhelming. The papers are full of it, facebook had groups dedicated to it, it’s in the language and faces of people everywhere you look.

What happened to compassion? How about having the understanding, the interest and the intelligence to think “Perhaps there’s a good reason this person is not working”. Of all single parents- 1.9 million of us in the UK, only 3% are teenagers. 55% had their children within a marriage. Now if a relationship breaks down, and previously one parent supported the family while the other stayed at home to look after the children, what is the SAH Parent to do? Would you deny this person help? Should their children live in poverty while their carer scrambles desperately to find work? What is the answer?

I may be on benefits, but I am no scrounger. I am an intelligent, hard-working, ambitious, articulate, educated woman who wants the best for her daughter. Right now, I believe the best thing for my daughter is to be with the only parent she has for the majority of her days, not to be cared for by someone else and only see her mother for an hour at either end of the day while she is on her way in or out of her bed. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think myself a better parent that I am able to be with her all day. As parents, we all face difficult decisions and must do what we think is best within our means. I have utmost respect for parents who are that position and know that that must bring all kinds of challenges of it’s own which I’m sure to face myself in due course. But I certainly don’t think I’m a worse parent for being on benefits as the tabloids would have you believe. She does not care that we are poor, she does not know that we struggle to make ends meet.

But she will know that her mother loves her and will fight to do what I believe is best for her. She will know that what you want in life will not be given to you, you must work for it. And right now I am working for a happy, contented little girl and laying the foundations of our future, just the same as every other parent out there; employed or otherwise.

That money I receive is to allow me to care and provide for her and that is exactly what it does- not to let me lie around in bed all day as some of the papers would have you believe us benefit scroungers do. Would you call my child a scrounger too?