I’m a single parent from Bradford with three daughters, aged 15, 12 and four. I’m affected by the two-child limit on benefits and get no help for my youngest child. When you live in a situation for so long, when there’s not enough money, you get used to it. It’s almost become our daily routine. But as politicians debate removing the cap, repeatedly putting off change for a bit longer, I wish they could understand that every day it remains in place is another day that my family struggles.
My youngest daughter started school last year, and ever since then I’ve been looking for jobs. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find an employer willing to give me a job between the hours of 9am and 3pm. When I go for interviews, I’ve had employers say to me, “If we were to allow all mums to work these hours, it would affect regular workers.” The school thinks my youngest daughter is autistic; she’s a very hyperactive child. That means I need to be around for her a lot, and I don’t feel able to ask my family to help with pickups. This makes finding work harder still. Even if I did find work, I’d still be affected by the two-child limit, because it hits those in work as well as those on benefits. So working mums on lower wages will still suffer unless it goes.
The two-child limit affects me and my girls, day in and day out. The summer holidays have only just started, but I’m already worrying every day about where I will get the money for school uniforms in September. I buy everything from the reduced shelves, and freeze bread that’s about to go off in order to make my money go further. I always say that bread, milk and eggs are the essential food items: if you can manage to buy these, you can survive. But the prices of these have all gone up in recent times, and so now it can easily set you back £6 to buy a loaf of bread, two pints of milk and a dozen eggs from your local shop. My daughter has allergies so she needs a different kind of milk, which is even more expensive. Politicians should look at the prices of these most basic items and ask themselves: “How are families managing?” Especially families like mine who don’t get support for all of their children.
With the two-child benefit limit, the best way I can put it is that there are four of us trying to manage on the money provided for three. We just about have the money to eat, and are just about able to get by, but we can do no more than that. It is really difficult to live like that, and it means I’m constantly cutting back on things for myself. Since my youngest was born, I never buy myself clothes or go out. Because of the two-child limit, we can’t have family days out, we can’t afford nice things and I can’t give the kids what they want. My oldest daughter is very understanding, and she knows that money is tight. She’s a good kid and she deliberately doesn’t ask for a lot.
I did used to get some financial support from my children’s father, but that’s all stopped now. My relationship with him was very abusive, and I don’t want to ask him for anything now, as he always expects something in return. For the past 16 years, he and I were on and off – and there were arguments, fights and violence. We’ve separated now, and I’m trying to do what’s right for me and the kids. I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner, but I feel like I’ve had enough now.
If the two-child limit were to go, it would make a real difference to our lives. I could do more things with the kids. We do go to parks and for picnics, but maybe it would mean we could explore the world a little bit more. We’ve not had one family holiday, and my children have never been away for a break with me. I don’t want anything lavish. I’d just like to be able to feed my kids without worrying that I might be short at the end of the month. I would just love to take the family for a day out in the summer holidays; a trip to a theme park easily costs £150 for a family of four, and so it is completely out of reach at the moment.
Even without the limit, we would only be living just a little bit better. The price of everything – gas, electricity, water, council tax – keeps going up, so things would still be very hard. Surviving is so difficult. I wish someone in power would assess the current price of everything and think about how much families actually need to not only get by, but to live on.
Still, when I hear politicians talking about lifting the two-child limit, it makes me feel excited and hopeful. Even that bit of extra money could change my children’s lives straight away. I am relieved and grateful that at least some people are thinking about struggling families like mine. I just hope this new government will do the same.
The writer takes part in the Benefit Changes and Larger Families project, a Nuffield Foundation-funded research collaboration between the universities of York, Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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