It Is About The Money

One of the things Daisy loves more than anything is when I put some music on and dance around the kitchen with her.  I love it too – it’s fun and it’s one of the rare moments I feel like we’re actually making memories.  (Zachary not so much – he prefers me to wrestle him to the ground and then throw him in the air, but that wouldn’t give me a nice line into my current blog, so he’ll have to wait!) One of Daisy’s favourite tunes for us to dance to is Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’. (Her second favourite is Robbie Williams’ ‘Love My Life’ – she wafts about the place crooning ‘I am wonderful, I am beautiful, I am free!’ – keep singing that for your whole life my baby girl, your whole life, because you are all of those things and so, so much more.)  Anyway, I digress. For a single parent, nothing could be further than the truth with regards to Price Tag.   It is about the money because all too often, we don’t have enough of it.

I am grammar school educated.  I have a 2:1 degree from a red brick university.  I have a Postgraduate Certificate in Education*.  In short, I should be able to financially support my children.  But I really struggle to.  I work part time as a teacher (3 days a week) and I do one day a week as a freelance copy editor.  My annual salary is £30,000, give or take.  This is not a bad salary.  In fact, I recently looked it up.  I’m in the top 5% for earnings in terms of single parent families.  Despite this, every month, I’m short by £100 - £200, depending on how economical I’ve been with the food shop (and how many times I’ve said ‘go on then, you can have it.’ Because do you know what? There’s only so many times I can bear to say ‘no, you can’t have it baby,’ when everyone else around them is having it, and then some.)  I also get maintenance from the twins’ dad at the going rate.  So what’s the problem?
There are two problems. The first is that childcare is insanely expensive.  So so expensive.  50% of my salary goes on childcare.  Another 25% goes on getting me to work.  75% of my salary has gone before I’ve even walked through the door. The government would probably say that they’re sorting that out with the 30 free hours of childcare for 3 year olds.  And yes, that will help me. Who actually has three years of mat leave though? I had 6 months. By the time they get their free hours, I will have spent over £28,000 on childcare (with a further £8000 on getting to work).  They will also be three and a half.  Not three. There’s a whole 5 and ½ months that pass until they get the 30 free hours that the government bills as available to all three year olds.   I only earn £30,000 a year. Once tax and national insurance have been taken off, along with my childcare and travel, I have nothing.  I want to work.  I want to be a good role model for my children.  I just don’t think a system that means you lose money if you work is a good system.  I also don’t think a system that penalises parents is a good system.

The second problem is child maintenance.  The father of my children pays the amount he is supposed to: 16% of his salary.  Two issues here: one, he is self-employed.  The year before we broke up, he earnt £50k.  The year he had to start paying maintenance he declared his earnings as £18k.  And no-one, in any official capacity, challenged that.  This year, he did actually declare his earnings as £40k, so my kids have probably got closer to what they are legally entitled to.

It’s categorically not good enough though.  16% of your earnings to financially support two children?  If we took 16% of my earnings, I’d give just £400 a month to the upkeep of my kids.  £800 is childcare.  £560 is the mortgage.  £400 is my season ticket to get to work (in London, where I earn much more than I would in Kent).  If I only provided £400 a month to look after them, I would be charged with neglect.  A far fairer system would be that the essentials are worked out (childcare, food, clothing) and split equally.  It’s even more ludicrous that for one child, you have to pay 12% of your earnings.  Is my childcare for the second child 75% cheaper?! I wish it was!

For me, financially, we’ve hit rock bottom.  We’ll shortly be appearing on a BBC One show that helps struggling families sort their finances out.  Aside from asking friends and family for money - which I just don’t want to do: we are not their problem - it was the only avenue left for us.  I couldn’t do a food shop this weekend, because there’s nothing in either of my bank accounts.  Nothing.  £5k overdrawn in one and £1200 overdrawn in the other.  I get my tax credits on Tuesday, so we’ll be fine.  But bear in mind, I’m in the top 5% for single parent families in terms of earning.  How do the other 95% manage, when we barely do?

Every child, no matter what their background, should feel wonderful, beautiful and free – all of the time.  They should dance around the kitchen singing it like it’s all they know.  But that’s really, really hard to encourage when you have no money, because having no money is soul destroying.  I have no answers.  I just hope that explaining what it’s like for me – a relatively well off (!) single parent – makes people realise how tough it is for all single parents.  And that we’re not the stereotype painted by the media.  We all have the right to feel wonderful, beautiful and free.  And if we are lucky enough to feel those things, the next thing we should do, is do all we can to make sure others can feel that way too.

*Just to be absolutely clear, none of these things really matter to me.  It’s just that the media and politicians and Joe Blogg on the street keep telling me I’m dumb and on benefits and somehow a scourge on society, and that could not be further from the truth, from my quite wide experience of single parents.  I go to a single parent group every month (organised by the brilliant Gingerbread charity) and I have yet to encounter one parent on benefits.  That’s because, when you’re the only one in charge of their survival, you pull out all the stops to make it happen, regardless of how that affects you.  And also, benefits are there to help people in their hour of need, and if ever there was an hour of need it’s when one parent disappears and tries to abdicate all responsibility for their kids and then absolutely, the benefits system should help those people, those children, without it harming their future.