NZ Single Parents Trust

The stereotype of a single parent is a Maori sole mother under 20 on Domestic Purposes Benefit with kids to different fathers and lazy to boot.

Sole parents are often identified as an economic and social “problem” in political debate and by the media. But these stereotypes themselves affect social attitudes and undermine the mental and emotional well-being of sole parents and their families.

Demographers suggest that single parent families are an inevitable reflection of an
increasingly complex and diverse society. Greater sexual liberalisation has meant that today less than 50 per cent of the adult population is married and 20 per cent choose to cohabit.

And while marriage rates have declined, divorce rates have increased. Only 3 per cent of sole mothers are under 20 and almost 60 per cent are Pakeha. Statistics New Zealand figures project single parent families to increase from 31 to 38 per cent of all families with dependent children, between 2001 and 2021.

The child poverty rate in New Zealand, at 16.3 per cent, is high by OECD standards, but for children in single parent households this figure increases to 47 per cent.

The DPB provides single mothers and their children with a below subsistence level income. In 2004, 60 per cent of single parent families in New Zealand were considered to have low living standards.

Unsurprising if we consider that half of all single parent families rely on the DPB as their only source of income, and that the level of this income is set below the income poverty threshold.

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Julie News, Research, Separation

MP Paua Bennett

Long-term unemployed and solo mothers receiving a benefit were put on warning today by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett that they will have to find work – once the recession is over.

Following a week of controversy after Ms Bennett released the income details of two solo mothers, Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnston, who criticised cuts to the Training Incentive Allowance (TIA), she has remained staunch in her position.

Ms Bennett said the women could continue with their tertiary study without the TIA.

“I can certainly say from experience that it’s going to be hard work,” she told TVNZ’s Q+A this morning.

While she supports women who chose to stay at home with their young children, Ms Bennett believes women should be working at least 15 hours once their children are at school.

Ms Bennett said parents on the Dependent Persons Benefit (DPB) should work 15 hours a week once their youngest child is six.

“I mean I’d actually like to see, since we’ve got 20 hours (free early childhood education) there as well, that we have those sorts of training opportunities for women to be (at) while their children are having that 20 hours of early childhood education.

“That we get them skilled up, so that by the time they get to that youngest being six-years-old they can get that sort of part-time work that hopefully fits in with the hours that the kids are there.”

Ms Bennett, who famously put herself through university while a single mother on the DPB, said she was a “better mum” when she was working.

“It suited me. I actually needed the adult stimulation and my brain to be ticking over.”

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Julie News, Research, Separation, Study Assistance

The topic of managing work, self and family arises from the ever-increasing emphasis on the economy and economic life as the only valued and visible expression of human activity. It is also a gendered dilemma which rests on men’s and women’s relationships to the unpaid work of reproduction and care provision and the mainstream economy.

The split between work and family was once distributed mainly on gendered lines, leaving women financially dependent on men’s earnings, and men separated from the hands-on unpaid work of cleaning, laundry, shopping, and personal care of infants and sick and aged relatives. Women’s increased participation in the paid workforce from the mid-1970s onwards has, to some extent, dismantled the rigid separation of gendered roles.

Women and mothers now expect to work, and fathers are increasingly expressing a desire to spend more time caring for their children. In practice, working hours for many full-time workers have been steadily increasing and men have not been overly enthusiastic about actually doing domestic work, but women’s growing presence in the workforce is emptying the population of unpaid care providers, or stretching their time ever more thinly.

Unpaid care work is economically invisible, unrewarded and unvalued, yet the personal relationships forged in unpaid care work – with our partners, our children, our parents – are the bedrock of our personal and social lives. Without the care and work of another human-being, none of us would make it to adulthood. Every adult is an expression of endless parental hours of feeding, soothing, changing, washing, teaching, helping and protecting, and as old age and illness strike, there is again a need for many hours of care provision.

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Julie News, Research

The recent furore over the generosity of income support paid to sole parents on the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) is symptomatic of an undercurrent of discontent within our society. Put bluntly, taxpayers are sick and tired of supporting people who could and should be working for a living. To their credit, National appears to be listening.

For too many years welfare has been regarded as the sacred cow of New Zealand politics, fiercely guarded by the welfare lobby, feminists and other do-gooders who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. As a result, it has been almost impossible to have a sensible debate about the fact that the welfare system is now seriously out of kilter with the realities of modern-day New Zealand society.

This time, however, the revelation that many sole parents are getting far more money on the DPB than they could get in the workforce ignited public anger and outrage. The public now realise taxpayers (they!) can be saddled with paying for women who could and should be working, to stay on a benefit for almost a lifetime. Under the current rules sole parents on the DPB are not work tested and as a result are entitled to collect the benefit until their youngest child is 18 years old!

At the end of June, out of the 310,296 registered working age welfare beneficiaries 104,400 were receiving the DPB. Over half of those DPB recipients were Maori or Pacific Islanders, and three quarters had been on a benefit for longer than a year.
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Julie News, Research

By NAOMI ARNOLD – The Nelson Mail

Last updated 13:00 23/07/2009

Nelson man Rob van Nek had a tough time when he suddenly became a single father.

“She left, and I thought, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. Can I work fulltime and raise three boys? Can I find enough time?’. I felt I needed support, and there wasn’t anything out there.

“I thought, ‘I mustn’t be the only one in this situation’.”

He wasn’t. Mr van Nek’s experience reflects the results of a new Families Commission study that finds newly separated fathers can’t find the help they need from community services.

The study, Pathways Through Parental Separation, analysed discussions with 20 separated fathers in Nelson and Christchurch. Nelson-based researchers David Mitchell and Philip Chapman talked with two focus groups. They found there was an “urgent need for male-friendly services”, and for existing services to engage with fathers.

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Julie News, Research

Below is the information from both sides of the debate for the upcoming anti-smacking Referendum.

The VoteNO.org.nz website has information you need regarding the ‘NO’ side including
frequently asked questions,
quotes of interest,
summary of polls,
summary of media releases on this issue,
how to enrol,
background of the Referendum
even a cartoons page!

But there are also
FREE downloadable brochures and posters
(and banner adverts and sidebar adverts for your blogs and website). The brochures are even in other translations including Maori, Tongan, Samoan, Fijian, Chinese, and Hindi! Download them – photocopy – and distribute to family and friends!

Family First can also make the videos available to show to your group including Simon Barnett, Referendum proposer Sheryl Savill and Maori Child Advocate Bev Adair – simply email us admin@familyfirst.org.nz for the files.

There’s also a blog, they’re on Twitter, and a group of supporters have started a Facebook group

……………

The yesvote.org.nz website has information you need regarding the ‘YES’ side including
frequently asked questions,
their side of the referendum,
resources
media releases on this issue,
public awareness and attitude to the law
background of the Referendum
history of the child discipline law

But there are also
videos
free stuff, posters and stickers
banner ads
media kit

There’s also other websites, they’re on Twitter, and have a group of supporters.

So GET THE WORD OUT on what this Referendum is all about.

From Julie.

I seriously encourage you to have your say on this important issue. After all, single parents make up the most of CYFS clients.

Julie News, Research

2-5 Toddlers/Preschool

The Benefit of Nature and the Outdoors to Children and Families
When your family is very busy, spending time outside can seem like a luxury. However, time in green areas is important to the overall health and well-being of children as well as adults.

6-12 School-Age

The Benefit of Nature and the Outdoors to Children and Families
When your family is very busy, spending time outside can seem like a luxury. However, time in green areas is important to the overall health and well-being of children as well as adults.

13-18 Teens

The Benefit of Nature and the Outdoors to Children and Families
When your family is very busy, spending time outside can seem like a luxury. However, time in green areas is important to the overall health and well-being of children as well as adults.

NEWS

O-1 Infants

Study: TV can impair speech development of young children

A study released Monday adds to the debate over whether television impairs children’s language development.It found that parents and children virtually stop talking to each other when the TV is on, even if they’re in the same room.

2-5 Toddlers/Preschool

Study: TV can impair speech development of young children

A study released Monday adds to the debate over whether television impairs children’s language development.It found that parents and children virtually stop talking to each other when the TV is on, even if they’re in the same room.

13-18 Teens

Alcohol risks greater in teen-onset drinkers

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Delaying the start of alcohol drinking might curb subsequent rates of alcohol-related injuries

Depressed teens worry about family reaction: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Some teenagers with depression may not want treatment because they worry about the stigma attached to the disorder, a new study suggests.

Enjoy!

Julie Children, Research, Support

http://www.motherhoodstudy.net/newzealand/

New Zealand will be the first country targeted in an international survey that aims to provide insights into the reality of motherhood in the 21st century.

An anonymous internet questionnaire will go online at midday on Sunday, Mother’s Day, and remain open for several months.

It will ask mothers to talk about their thoughts and feelings on their role.
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Julie Research

BATTERED Ian McNicholl revealed today how he lied for his twisted fiancée – who subjected him to 12 months of shocking abuse.

As Williamson began a seven-year jail sentence, Ian opened his heart to The Sun. His story shows that, while women remain the main victims of domestic abuse, men can suffer as well. Ian’s list of attacks include:

SCALDED with a steam iron, BOILING WATER poured over his genitals, cigarettes thrust up his NOSE and stubbed on his CHEST, and a gin bottle SMASHED in his mouth — on top of numerous PUNCHES and BEATINGS.

Read full story

Julie Research

By Paul Revoir

Women have won the war for equality but it has left many of them imprisoned and exhausted, a pioneering feminist has claimed.

Campaigner Erin Pizzey, who founded the world’s first refuge for battered women in 1971, claims the idea of women happily combining a career and a family has proved to be a myth.

The 70-year-old said women’s ‘freedom of choice’ to have both has left them with less spare time than they had before.

But she added that many now did not understand what they had lost.

Speaking as part of a BBC programme about the role of women in the workplace, she said many are mothers who are having to juggle jobs at the same time.

She said: ‘There’s been a subterranean war between men and women which has been won by women and they don’t actually understand what they’ve lost.’

The campaigner added: ‘I don’t think anybody foresaw that what a freedom of choice would do is imprison many.

‘Many women, they don’t have a choice now, they have to work, they have to work hard, and I just see an exhausted generation of women trying to do it all.’

Her comments feature on the first episode of BBC2’s The Trouble With Working Women, which is to be screened in June.

The programme looks at why men still dominate the top jobs and on average earn £369,000 more than women across their career.

Miss Pizzey’s comments come days after the publication of Labour’s Equality Bill which gives employers legal powers to discriminate in favour of women and ethnic minorities.

Erin Pizzey pictured in 1976 outside the High court with campaigners battling to keep women's shelters open in Chiswick

Julie Research erin prizzy, Feminism, feminist, women in the workforce