I have heard of the preposals to end entitlement for single parents whose youngest child is 12 years old, by October of this year, but was astonished to find, at my work focus interview today, that further changes for October 2009, when entitlements end for those parents with a youngest child under 10, and again in 2010, for parents with a youngest child of 7 and above!!
Whilst I welcome support to return to work for single parent families, and am in the process of training for a sustainable return to employment myself, I view these changes as draconian. Enforced employment for parents of such young dependants appears as a retrograde step, in my view. I contend that these moves are detrimental to the well being of thousands of families up and down the country, already stuggling to do their best under difficult circumstances.
I love the way we have only been given part of the story regarding the Governments intentions. Single parent households have long been an easy target, taking the blame for society's ills, and a burden on the tax payer.
As the majority of Single parents are mothers, I wonder where the fathers who pay no financial contribution toward their off spring are in the whole picture...Off the hook again!! Surely as the ones who do not care for their children full-time..they are free to work full-time, and are calpable as parents also? But yet again, the parents who honour their responsibillities are further targeted by a government so obviously desperate to claw back it's expenditure. We have money for war, but not for children whose parents already work bringing up young families single handidly.
I am not comfortable having strangers care for my daughters, at great expense, when i can do an infinately better job of it myself, at significantly less cost!!
Children are only children for a relatively short space of time, and 7 years is certainly too young to be away from a parent who has effectively been forced