Blog

Modern telecommunications are fabulous.

I am in the country, with no electricity or town water. No phone lines. In fact nobody else as far as the eye can see. Yet I just had a conversation with my daughter in England, where I could not only hear her, I could see her as well.

I got up this morning and walked outside. There was frost on the ground, and fog coming up from the dam and shrouding the hills. The only sounds were the birds and the cows. Not a soul in sight, not another house anywhere.

I made coffee and had a piece of banana & raspberry bread that I’d just baked in the wood oven. I watched the fog swirl and lift, and sat down to work – on the laptop with mobile internet access.

“Aah,” I thought “does life get any better than this?”

Then I booted up the laptop and my daughter skyped me from her travels in Europe. What a perfect start to the day.

I can’t believe how lucky I am. I have 3 healthy, happy children who are all making their way in the world. I have my own business, doing work I love and that I can do from almost anywhere, including out here away from it all.

And I could get to this point in my life because when I needed it, I had the sole parents’ penion. I had the security of knowing I could look after my kids while I studied and worked for a better future. I didn’t have to take a dead end job just to satisfy a 15 hour work requirement.

Not everybody can be as lucky as I am. But everybody deserves the chance to try to be, and to make their own decisions about how they combine caring for their kids with paid work.

Sole Parents’ Union received the following story from one of our members. I thought it was worth reproducing, as I’m sure there’s more than one single parent out there in the same situation.

I am a sole parent and have been for a number of years now. My marriage left me in debt, with bad self esteem, low confidence in my abilities and struggling financially.

In the 12 years that I have been separated I have done a lot of work on myself, the children and been the lone ranger when it comes to meeting my children’s (and now granchildren’s) needs. My eldest (25) who has a mental illness is now married and making a life for herself. Raising her, I made mistakes like any parent but she is alive – which is a credit to both herself and her mother (me). She had her first child at 17 and I am now raising him – he is 8 (he has lived with me since he was 2). My other daughter lives at home with me and is undertaking year 11.

I consider myself a survivor. I have worked hard at being a good mum, buying a home, undertaking a social work degree and creating a community of care.

My concerns and issues regarding being a sole parent are as follows:

1. The low economic status of sole parents which is further exacerbated by the low social status that sole parents are STILL have

2. The lack of financial assistance out there for sole parents that want to improve their circumstances in terms of university education (research shows that better educated parents give their children better opportunities and lessen the likely hood of welfare dependency)

The second issue is one which really irritates me. I know numerous sole parents at uni who struggle financially, physically and emotionally trying to balance working, raising a family and studying. They are my heros. The University education system seems to support different demographics but there seems to be no specific support outside of menial centrelink payments and the commonwealth scholarship program to assist this group of people who have been clearly identified as disadvantaged (in terms of living in poverty, education and socially excluded). I admit that I haven’t looked into it at great length in systemic terms, but from personal experience – i.e. trying to find a sole parents specific scholarship program that would help take the financial pressure off so I can study full time rather than juggle family / work / study – there doesn’t seem to be anything beside the aforementioned financial assistance? Wouldn’t it make sense to invest in this group so that the individual benefits may also be generational benefits?

I know a number of sole parents who are investing in their future. They model good study behaviours for their children, they have conversations with their children about the modern world and influence their children’s view of the world by having a perspective other than that presented to them in the media, they teach their children to think critically and analyze their points of view, they show their children that an education is a way out of poverty rather than welfare, they are better equipped to find resources for their children when needed and they can sit and help their kids with assignments, and they show their kids that if they try they can do anything. Why are we not advocating for support for these parents more at the state and federal level? Or are we?

Thanks for taking the time to listen to my rant. I know everyone is out there pushing their agendas .. this is my bug bear at the moment .. and has been for a while. I really feel strongly that a little investment, understanding and support can make a difference .. not to just one person, but to a whole, sometimes broken family and the benefits are generational.

It’s inspiring stories like this that keep us going here in what seems an eternal struggle to get good policies and supports for sole parent families. But rest assured, we will keep doing it. So keep those stories coming in to help us in our advocacy work with government.

A while ago I got what I thought was an ideal job. It was well paid, had some prestige, and most importantly, had family-friendly work policies! Like all jobs, after three months probation, I had to undergo a review. To my utter horror, they refused to extend the contract, citing my family responsibilities as the reason for this. before starting the job I told them about my situation as a sole parent and was assured, through emails and phone conversations, that my responsibilities to my children would not be a problem.I was told that they ‘would accomodate my situation accordingly’ by allowing me to start earlier, so that I could leave earlier, and not leave three children home alone after school. What happened then was one of the most depressing periods of my life. Everytime I went in to work they made me feel uncomfortable and unworthy, and, of course, no-one remembered the earlier conversations at all. Lucky for me, I kept copies of everything,  I was able to get the Union to support me and force an investigation. I emerged with my dignity if not my job in tact after it was found that they acted illegally.

Read more »