Dear Single Parents,

Dear Single Parents and those who criticise them,

I have been meaning to write something about being a single mum for some time and today a thing happened to crystallise the intention. I ordered breakfast for me and my kids and my card got declined – twice. I paid cash and went back to the table a bit worried. This is my point just a bit worried, no hart stopping fear that my imperfectly balanced world was crashing down, no suppressed tears in a public place, no colour draining from my face.

You are going to say I am too dramatic but I never thought I would be one of those single mums you read about, you know the evil host who are bringing the nation to its knees. I’m nice, I’m sensible; once upon a time I had loved my husband. Well it happens to lots of people, and it’s not really the poverty that gets to you it’s the fear. I couldn’t shake the idea I was £200 away from the street...£200 away from the street...£200 away from the street... like an anti-mantra playing in my head.

This would be about the time Her Majesties Inland Revenue and Customs (HMRC) decided I was lying about my ex-husband having moved out and I should pay back more than £7,000. I can tell you that my terror was absolute. Because I was committing “fraud” they stopped all my help and I ran up an overdraught of £2,000 paying rent and living while I could at least prove we did not live together now. I never managed to pay off the overdraught because while money you owe HMRC can be backdated years, money they owe you can only be backdated 6 weeks. I continued to pay £32 pounds on overdraught interest for the remainder to the time I was a single parent.

But what of the £7,000? I fought it for three years and had to borrow the money from my ex-in-laws (thank heavens my divorce was amicable) to prevent bailiffs coming for our stuff before the appeal was completed then the appeal finally found that I was telling the truth all along and I got the money back. I was unlucky I hear you say, well then how come I don’t know any single parent who has NOT had their help suddenly reduced or stopped for complicated and often false reasons?

I should have worked I hear you say, well I was 16 hours a week and my daughter was not yet school age, but believe me I ran the maths on working more 7,000 times! I could have got a local job but with child care I would have been about £15 a week better off, and seen little of my child. Use your degree and get a well paid job you say, well that means London and more child care and the cost of the commute.... there is a reason they call it the poverty TRAP.

I was very lucky, friends and family helped me to an extent I found astonishing and I am forever grateful. Even so it’s not quite the same as another parent, someone else fully responsible for your child who may be coming home late, but they will be coming home eventually, the stress on single parents fees like it is just you between your child and a hostile and critical world, perhaps forever! Rest is scarce, and because of finance guilt free rest is nonexistent, illness simply not an option (some of you thought being ill was not voluntary didn’t you?).

So my point is this, if you are currently a single parent I think you might possibly still be a worthwhile person, it is possible you are not be a waster lolling about in your benefit luxury. It is even possible that you are not one of the main reasons my taxes are so high, or my sense of national identity is being eroded. Basically, hang in there seven, ten or twenty years you will get through it.

Love and respect, Kirsteen