http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8322736.stm

Has anyone considered the impact on the kids?

I grew up in a single parent environment, but both parents worked, no income support.

We'd go play outside after school with friends or we'd go to visit one of our grandmothers.

To be honest, I don't see the problem - as long as they get a job. For me, I was proud that my mum was bettering herself and had a good job and could afford to give us a reasonable quality of life.

I had some friends at school whose parents didn't work and they were social pariahs and treated by many as second class citizens. Single parents weren't an issue, unemployed parents were, single or otherwise.

Yes it does depend on the parents. Some are better than others. I know one who was a single mum who only worked during the summer with a high paying summer job, she did well enough looking after her kids. The problem is that many parents do not have arrangements for their kids while they are at work and the kids have finished school. While you may have done well, society is different from that era. There was very little trouble then. I never had any trouble or nor did I get into any trouble. That is very different now. There is a sizeable proportion who are problematic nowadays.

About frackin' time.

This thing has had me and my GF wound up for ages since we saw some whinging mother on BBC TV saying that she has to be at home for her kids and gets benefit for it. They were something like 13 and 15!

They're at school all frackin' day so why the hell should the State support the mother?

By the age of 10 my GF was ice skating too and from school in -20 in the winter and making herself something to eat until her mum got back from work.

That's Finland, actually, she also schooled in Germany and Switzerland and it was no different there. Our kids genes aren't so different or am I wrong? Should we fund every mother until their kid has retired just because they managed to procreate? Are children so soft over here?

Get rid of the cotton wool for frack's sake. Why does a parent have to be at home for when the kids get back? If my parents weren't in I would look after myself when I was 9 or 10 upwards, we're now creating a bunch of softies that will be as lame arsed as their parents when they grow up.

Here in Germany, if you want to claim benefits, your parents are means checked before the state pays out. If the single mother has parents, the parents have to pay to support their daughter first, then, when their earnings and savings have been used up, then the single parent gets state support...

That was enough for my girlfriend to go out and start working when she left her husband, the kids were in kindergarten, she got a job in the kindergarten, which was good for them, then she got retraining as a bus driver and again as a cook / housekeeper and worked in a nursing home, anything to stop the state forcing her mother to dig into her pension to look after her.