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My mum refuses to get a job and make friends etc

My mum is 61 and hasn’t worked for 28 years! She refuses to get a job and makes up excuses or makes up jobs to family members as she has no friends. She’s been living off income support and job seekers for 28 years! And when I was younger she lived off child benefit! I moved out from her home 2 years ago and moved in with my partner of 2 years as i was getting fed up with what she was like. However I still support her by paying for her tv license and broadband so that she has the internet to access. What is the state of her mental health do you think?! She has little to no teeth! And also what do think me and my partner should do?! I live an hour away from her too!
Realistically, she will not get a job after 28 years of being unemployed. I suspect her mental health is not great and if you are worried, you should encourage her to seek help for it. If you are worried about her teeth, you could also encourage her to see a dentist - she may be entitled to free dental treatment depending on what benefits she gets. I'm not really sure what exactly you are referring to in your last question.
Original post by Matty2993
My mum is 61 and hasn’t worked for 28 years! She refuses to get a job and makes up excuses or makes up jobs to family members as she has no friends. She’s been living off income support and job seekers for 28 years! And when I was younger she lived off child benefit! I moved out from her home 2 years ago and moved in with my partner of 2 years as i was getting fed up with what she was like. However I still support her by paying for her tv license and broadband so that she has the internet to access. What is the state of her mental health do you think?! She has little to no teeth! And also what do think me and my partner should do?! I live an hour away from her too!

I dpn't know why you would really expect a 61 year old to work. That's really close to retirement age. Considering that they haven't worked for almost 3 decades this is quite unusual to expect.
Original post by sufys12
I dpn't know why you would really expect a 61 year old to work. That's really close to retirement age. Considering that they haven't worked for almost 3 decades this is quite unusual to expect.

^ this

you may think she's been a lazy bum for most of her life

but back in her day, women didn't need to work and weren't expected to

sure, times have changed but someone's view on the world is mostly shaped by their 20s

and - she's been in routine for almost 30 years - do you think she will change that easily? or ever? I doubt

this is more than the matter of seeing a therapist... it's changing someone's world & life perspective. Needs an epiphany.

You need to accept the inevitable - one day, you will be financially responsible for her - when she's even older and needs more money to survive.

Set up an ISA for her, put some money every month into it - let it accumulate and give her money from the pot when the time comes.

If you don't want to do that, chuck her into a government care home... hard decisions need to be made.
(edited 2 years ago)
Just hit the lazy ***** and tell her to move her fat ass.
Reply 5
Original post by Buttmuffin
but back in her day, women didn't need to work and weren't expected to

Rubbish. I'm only 4 years younger and at no time did I - or anyone else I know of a similar age - think it would be expected or normal to sit around not working for 20 years. I did stop after my 2nd & 3rd children (twins) were born and didn't go back until the youngest was 4 (a break of 6 years) and I wasn't full time for another 7 years - pretty standard - but other than that I have worked since I started a paper round at 12.

Not working generally isn't great for your mental health - we all need a sense of purpose and a connection to other people which work often brings. The difficult thing now is how to encourage this lady into breaking the habits of 20 years to do something new.
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Buttmuffin


but back in her day, women didn't need to work and weren't expected to



Define "back in her day". She stopped working aged 33, which was in 1993, not in Victorian Britain :rolleyes:
Original post by Anonymous
Define "back in her day". She stopped working aged 33, which was in 1993, not in Victorian Britain :rolleyes:

LMAO stfu
Im not sure this is an easy solution.

I suppose part of the problem is she has been enabled and become accustomed to the lifestyle she holds.

You could cut off support but the problem is after such a long break your mum might struggle with simple things such as searching for jobs, making a CV etc.

I think the problem you'll have is how do you convince someone to change their ways when they are near retirement, and no company is going to be investing opportunities so realistic will be stuck doing menial jobs that no one else will do just to survive.

The better option would be for your mum to seek to take control of her own life and finding useful contributions she'll enjoy but that would involve being proactive and motivated...
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Anonymous
Define "back in her day". She stopped working aged 33, which was in 1993, not in Victorian Britain :rolleyes:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/lf25/lms

1981 (when she was ~20, her formative years): 55% women in work

When she stopped working in 1993: 62% women in work

When just below 1/2 of all females didn't work and relied on their husbands for primary household income, that's quite a gap in expectations vs today

Mass female participation in the workforce is not that long ago
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Buttmuffin
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/lf25/lms

1981 (when she was ~20, her formative years): 55% women in work

When she stopped working in 1993: 62% women in work

When just below 1/2 of all females didn't work and relied on their husbands for primary household income, that's quite a gap in expectations vs today

Mass female participation in the workforce is not that long ago

But the non-working women were seldom the same ones all the time, and it doesn't take into account the fact that women got pensions at 60 then so few were working after 60, bringing the overall % down by about 10%. If you look at the corresponding figures for men for the same dates, 82% of men were in work in 1981 and 75% in 1993. Yes, the % of men in employment was higher but nowhere near 100% - if you take the pension factor into account, by 1993 the % of women and men aged 16-60 working is about the same.
Original post by Buttmuffin
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/lf25/lms

1981 (when she was ~20, her formative years): 55% women in work

When she stopped working in 1993: 62% women in work

When just below 1/2 of all females didn't work and relied on their husbands for primary household income, that's quite a gap in expectations vs today

Mass female participation in the workforce is not that long ago


And the percentage of women working in 2020 was 72%, so not a huge difference compare to 1993.
Original post by Compost
But the non-working women were seldom the same ones all the time, and it doesn't take into account the fact that women got pensions at 60 then so few were working after 60, bringing the overall % down by about 10%. If you look at the corresponding figures for men for the same dates, 82% of men were in work in 1981 and 75% in 1993. Yes, the % of men in employment was higher but nowhere near 100% - if you take the pension factor into account, by 1993 the % of women and men aged 16-60 working is about the same.

The stats are for 16-64...

13% of the female population doesn't lie between 60 and 64
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Anonymous
And the percentage of women working in 2020 was 72%, so not a huge difference compare to 1993.

%-wise it does not seem significant, but on absolute basis it is... it has taken a literal generation for a 10% move

The change with regards to women in the workplace, feminist movement, gender equality in the past 30 years is pretty dramatic
(edited 2 years ago)
It's not really your problem directly, it's the state's or your mum's. The only issue is whether you want to continue to subsidise her. Depending on when she was born, she might be reaching her state pension age in 5 years anyway.

You know her best - what do you think her mental state is like? She may be very comfortable in her current situation rather than lazy or she may be very frightened of what a big change it would be to work when she has no experience.

In the past, benefits were easier to access and remain on. Now they are harder to enter and easier to exit. You have to remember that there have been big changes over the last few decades.

It's actually quite difficult to remain on job seekers benefit for a lengthy period of time - are you sure this is what she is on or do you think she might be on a sickness or disability benefit? With present day job seeking, the DWP work coach will put people on full time job searching who are not getting any jobs and sanction them for not doing this or not attending interviews, for example. Are you worried that her behaviour will mean that she will be sanctioned by the DWP?

Back in the 80s/90s, perhaps up to the 00s, unemployment figures were alleged to be massaged by people being switched onto Incapacity Benefit. At its peak, 1 in 5 working age people in my city were on IB. Many people were ported onto it from child related and job seeker related benefits. Again, that's hardly the fault of the claimant that it was made so easy to claim sickness benefits in the past - now it is very hard.

I don't know when it changed but if your mum is a single mum, until x year, single parents could legitimately remain on income support and child related benefits until their youngest child were in their (mid?) teens. Now it's been drastically reduced. That might account for a lengthy period of her working life. So that's completely legit.
Original post by Buttmuffin

You need to accept the inevitable - one day, you will be financially responsible for her - when she's even older and needs more money to survive.


My understanding is that things like social care costs, care home costs, are based solely on the applicant's means and not family members.

Putting money into an ISA for her could affect her entitlement to means tested benefits (like housing benefit, council tax discount, etc) after £x sum in capital accrues.

In around 5 years time, she will get her state pension (her NI would have been paid as a benefit recipient) and is likely to be better off on it than on UC now.

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