The interviewed families

Table 1 summarises some key characteristics of the families and compares these to the profile for all lone mothers in 2002/3 (when our study started), using data from the national Family and Children Survey (FACS), which is carried out annually on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. Bearing in mind our sample size of 50, there appear to be some differences between our sample and the national profile of all lone mothers. Ethnicity is similar, but our sample is mainly separated or divorced women, who are older, with older children, and larger families. These differences in family and personal characteristics are to be expected given that one of the defining characteristics for our sample selection was that there should be at least one child aged eight to 14. This means that fewer younger unmarried mothers were included. Nevertheless, there were seven women with pre-school age children in our sample. The sampled lone mothers were generally similar in characteristics to all employed (16 hours plus) lone mothers, who also tend to be formerly married, older and with older children. However, we have a higher proportion of people in rented accommodation compared with all employed lone mothers.

TABLE 1.

Profile of sample and all lone mothers, 2002/3

Source for national statistics: Barnes et al. (Reference Barnes, Willitts and colleagues2004: tables 2.1, 2.7, 2.9, 8.1) and Barnes et al. (Reference Barnes, Lyon, Morris, Robinson and Yau2005: table 2.2).

That these are older women – with a median age of 38 – has an impact on various other characteristics. First, they have larger families than average. In particular, their families often included older non-dependent children: there were 21 women with older children, including ten with older children still in the household. These older children, both in and outside the household, often played an important role in domestic life and care. Second, about a quarter of the mothers in the sample reported some health problems, which is higher than the FACS figure for all lone mothers reporting health ‘not good’ over the past 12 months (15 per cent) and for lone mothers employed for 16 hours plus (9 per cent) (Barnes et al., Reference Barnes, Willitts and colleagues2004: table 3.1).

About half of the women had been lone mothers for five years or more when we first interviewed them. Twenty of the women were receiving some child support payments at the first interview. By the second interview, five of the women were living with a new partner, including two who were pregnant.

Employment

Most of the women had had some breaks in employment when their children were young and/or had mainly worked part-time. Half of the women had left work around about the time that they separated from their partners. Some had returned to work quickly but others had spent several years receiving income support. About two-thirds – 35 out of 50 – had been on income support for a year or more. However, just over half of the women had experience of working part-time, doing voluntary work, and/or studying while they were receiving income support.

At the first interview, 44 out of the 50 mothers were still in employment. Most (36) were working in care homes, offices, retail, catering or cleaning. There were 11 women in professional or semi-professional jobs, all in care or education, most of whom had completed some further education or training. This is similar to the profile for all employed lone mothers, of whom about 27 per cent are managers, professionals or associated professionals (Barnes et al., Reference Barnes, Willitts and colleagues2004: table 8.6). Just 13 of the women worked full-time (over 30 hours per week). There were six women who had more than one job, four were working nights and five were working weekends.

Pay was typically £5–£6 per hour, which was about average for women in part-time work in 2002. All were receiving tax credits, most often both working tax credit and child tax credit, and this formed an important source of income. In general, being in work had improved the financial situations of the families compared with being on income support. In most cases, however, family income in work was still relatively low and the extent to which the women and children felt that the family was ‘better-off’ in work was tempered by a range of factors, both financial (such as debts, unexpected outgoings) and non-financial (such as security of jobs, time pressures, health) (Millar, Reference Millar, Glendinning and Kemp2006).

At the second interview, 37 out of 44 women were employed. However, there was considerable change in work situations over time. Just 11 women were working in the same job with the same hours of work that they had started in when they left income support. Thus the majority had changed their jobs, sometimes with a period out of work, or had changed hours, or had time off for sickness or maternity leave.

By accident rather than design, our sample of lone mothers with at least one child aged eight and above almost mirrors the new target group that the government has identified for employment requirements from 2010 (those with children aged seven and above). However, these lone mothers all chose to take up employment. They were ‘willing workers’, not required to attend work-focused interviews, or to seek work. Nevertheless, the types of jobs, hours and pay reflect the labour market that faces many lone mothers leaving income support for paid work. Their experiences can thus cast some light upon the issues that others, perhaps less willing, might face in sustaining employment.

Social relationships at work

Social relationships at work were important in enabling the mothers to sustain care and therefore employment. For example, it was essential for the women that they could negotiate some flexibility in working when this was required: if children were ill, for example, or during school holidays. This usually requires getting agreement from immediate supervisors and some cooperation from co-workers. When the women talked about their relationships with their employers, managers and colleagues, they often stressed the importance of common ground or identity, in particular in relation to being a working parent. For example, Sally worked for a retail company which involved travelling to different local schools. She talked about flexibility in terms of shared identity:

As did Parveen, who worked for a charity:

By contrast, Jessica was an example of how lack of responsiveness on the part of an employer could make a particular job feel unsustainable. At the first interview, Jessica, with two children under ten, was working in a shop. Her youngest child was going to a childminder, the older was at school and she managed holidays with the help of a neighbour. However, she left that job, even though she did not have another job to go to, because:

The lack of practical support and empathy prompted Jessica to leave that job. She contrasted this with her current employer, who was flexible with time off although not with financial support for this: ‘I can say, Sebastian's ill. I can't come in. They're fine about it. But I would have to take a couple of days' holiday or a day unpaid.’

Bullying at work and poor relationships with colleagues were also a problem for some women and a cause of concern and anxiety. Fran had been doing office work through an agency, but had stopped work by the first interview:

Her daughter Ashia, aged nine, was concerned: ‘I worry because when she comes home, she's had, like, a really bad day, and like recently, this thing with work and people weren't being nice to her and, basically, it was bullying.’

Social relationships in childcare

In the sample, there were 17 families (out of the 44 interviewed twice) who were using some sort of formal care usually alongside some help from family members. This included childminders and nurseries, but was more commonly before- or after-school clubs, school holidays schemes and camps. There were 13 women who largely managed their care needs by themselves, which usually meant that their children spent some time alone, and that older children might be looking after younger children. Family and sometimes friends played an important role in 14 families, including the fathers of the children, grandparents, and stepfathers or new partners. There were changes in childcare arrangements in about half of the families between the two interviews, not least as children got older and more independent and also because the circumstances of family members changed.

Schools were the location for the main formal care provision, in before- and after-school clubs, and holiday schemes. Before-school care – mainly at-school breakfast clubs – were often disliked by these children, and generally perceived as boring and lacking in opportunities for enhanced social relationships. The children were also often cautious of taking part in breakfast clubs because of the element of social stigma (a relationship of difference and ‘otherness’) they identified with this type of care. Relationships with care providers – often other parents as well as professional carers – were important for children's well-being. As one eight-year old, William, explains, there can be happy parents and staff but also ‘mardy parents and staff so I like going some days but not other days’.

Jake (William's brother) was one of the children in the study who experienced a range of formal and informal care over time. His relationships with his carers, his family and his friends were key elements in shaping his experiences of care and his changing responses to his mother's employment. His early experiences of breakfast club, recounted at the first interview when he was nine years old, were problematic: he was bored and his friends were not there. The stigmatised status of breakfast club also presented a challenge for his wider social relationships:

Jake was already very sensitive about stigma because of his experiences of exclusion and difference among his peers before his mother was working. Although breakfast club did not appeal, Jake said he enjoyed attending his after-school club and his account reveals the importance of good after-school care for social relationships with peers:

Children's experiences of care are not static, they change over time as their needs – especially their social needs – change. Although Jake enjoyed his after-school club when he was younger, by the second interview – when he was 11 – he was attending less often and felt that after-school club was affecting his friendships, because he was not seeing enough of his friends or his mother:

Relationships of care in the family

Family relationships change as time passes, and in ways not necessarily related to work status. The way the mothers and children interacted changed as children grew older and became more independent. Some of the families moved, some of the women had new partners, some were remarried, some had new babies or were pregnant at the second interview, some women became grandmothers, there were family bereavements, several children moved up to new secondary schools. All these sorts of changes were taking place alongside, and interacting with, employment continuity and change. Nevertheless, the mothers' jobs did have a significant impact on the ways in which family members spent time together and apart.

For the children, the central relationship of care is with the mother, and in lone-mother households children can develop particularly close supportive and caring relationships with their mothers (Brannen et al., Reference Brannen, Heptinstall and Bhopal2000; Smart et al., Reference Smart, Neale and Wade2001; Ridge, Reference Ridge2007). The mothers' work meant changes in the type and quality of time that children and their mothers could spend together. This was a strong mediating factor in how children experienced their mothers' work. The mother being in work leads to a reduction in family time and, despite the perceived material benefits, this can have a negative impact on children's experiences. Some mothers had tried to arrange their working time to have as little impact as possible on their time with their children. This meant working school hours and for some women working in jobs well below their potential capacity. Working school hours and school terms had the least impact on the children's time and, probably for that reason, was generally most popular with children, especially younger children. To some extent, if the mother worked school hours, the children could see the benefits of work (for example, in terms of increased income) but without experiencing significant costs, although illness and school holidays still needed to be managed. It was often children in families where mothers were working school hours who were very resistant to the idea of formal childcare provision, especially after-school clubs and breakfast clubs. They stated a strong preference for being at home and held the view that clubs were boring and unsuitable for them.

As noted above, some of the families largely managed their care needs alone without any regular help from other people. Children might therefore spend some time alone, for example getting home after school before the mother arrived back from work. This could be a source of anxiety for the mothers, and some also expressed concern about the possible bad influence of friends, especially those with teenage children: ‘one I can trust, two I can't, two teenagers I won't trust, so I need to know that his friends are going to be supervised’. Some mothers were also anxious about the ‘fairness’ of relying on the older children to look after younger children: ‘as good as she is, you know, she needs to be a 13-year old. No, I could depend on her for anything . . . she'd always help, but maybe one day a week but not five.’ And in another family at the second interview: ‘I encourage her now to not think about trying to help me out with [younger child], but to think about her future.’

However, what was valued by both mothers and children was the opportunity for independence and responsibility. As one of the teenage children said, ‘We all got our keys cut not long ago when mum started doing night duties because we can lock the doors behind us . . . we'd make ourselves dinner . . . it's alright, like you have a bit of independence and responsibility so it's not too bad.’

The relationship of care between mother and children goes in two directions – not just from mother to child but also from child to mother. Children often played an important role in supporting their mothers stay in work and were engaged in a complex range of caring and coping strategies to manage the changes in their lives and to support their mothers in employment. This included taking on extra responsibilities: for example, doing more to help around the house with the domestic chores of cleaning, washing, cooking and so on, as well as offering emotional support (Ridge, Reference Ridge2007).

Time spent with other family members also often changed as a consequence of the mothers' employment. For some children, school holidays, or parts of these, were spent staying with other family members – grandparents and aunts/uncles and cousins in particular. Grandparents often provided regular care. For example, Fiona has two children and was working school hours and school terms in the same job at both interviews. Her former partner's father (who she calls Dad) plays an important role in the family. He comes to the house every morning to take the children to school, sometimes picks them up after school, looks after the children if they are ill, and also regularly baby-sits at night. As Fiona said: ‘my Dad's brilliant, I said to loads of people if it wasn't for my Dad then I wouldn't be working . . . well I would but it wouldn't be you know the job I really enjoy’. Her two children appreciate his care and are settled in a steady routine. Both children are resistant to the idea of after-school clubs, preferring to have this type of care relationship. But as is often the case with familial care relationships there is also some fragility and, as her daughter pointed out, any tensions in the relationship could have dire consequences for them:

Changing time with, and relationships with, their fathers were another important part of the overall picture for some children. There were seven fathers who were closely involved with their children at the second interview. The fathers did not usually provide childcare while mothers were at work, but when children spent time with their fathers (weekends, overnight stays and holidays) this helped the mothers by giving them some time for themselves. In a few families, care relationships between children and their fathers had flourished into a more regularised and essential part of the family–work project, enhancing child/father relationships generally and often improving mother/father relationships in the process. Maia was nine at her first interview and she was enmeshed in a dense network of care relationships across different settings. Her father played an important role in this:

By the second interview, her mother was no longer in work and as a consequence Maia was seeing less of her father, although he still picked her up from some of her afternoon clubs. Irene, her mother, reflected on how her relationship with her former partner had changed and the role that her employment had played in renegotiating and remaking family relationships:

Children were thus engaged in negotiating a range of new caring relationships in the context of their mothers' employment. Some of these involved family members in new roles, as in the examples above, but some were with their mothers' new partners or stepfathers and stepsiblings. These new relationships can be positive and supportive but they can also be challenging. For example, Jake's relationships with his informal family carers changed over time. When he was younger, he was looked after by his grandparents at weekends while his mother was working, and he enjoyed this arrangement. However, his mother re-partnered and, by the time of the second interview, his new stepfather had taken over some elements of care while his mother was at work. Jake had lost care time with his grandparents but gained care time with his new stepfather. This relationship was still developing and Jake expressed uncertainty and some insecurity, recognising the need to develop a more trusting relationship which would take time: ‘because like when I'm at home, because I've known him quite a long time but not enough time to know what he's like so I don't really trust, I trust him, but not like much’. As Jake's experience shows, when new care relationships are forged the quality of those relationships may be critical in sustaining the family–work project.

For some children, new care relationships have to be negotiated alongside other family changes, and the success or failure of these other relationship changes can impact on the quality of care relationships. Kitty was eight years old when we first interviewed her and her mother worked nights, while she was cared for by her grandmother and at times her mother's non-resident boyfriend. The couple had married and Kitty's relationship with her carer therefore changed as he moved from caring as a non-family member to caring within the family. However, this was proving to be a difficult transition and she dislikes her care arrangements and is often bored:

Kitty's overall unhappiness with her stepfather is reflected into her care relationship and this in turn is mapped on to anxieties about her mother's employment and the time that they spend together as a family. She misses her mother when she is at work and blames her employment for family changes. Her dissatisfaction threatens to undermine the family–work project:

Kitty's situation highlights potential tensions that can arise in caring relationships which are generated through other family relationships.