This quote has been ringing in my ears lately, as a reminder of the mixture of awe and distaste with which we regard welfare-dependent single parents (mostly mothers) in our society. “I don’t know how you do it!” we say to them, and in the next breath: “Here, let me make it harder for you.” Loading This attitude is stitched into the heart of a welfare program called ParentsNext, which can require some single parents on the parenting payment to report to the state that they have taken their children to improving activities, such as swimming lessons or story time at the local library. If they don’t comply, they can have their payments cut off, often with no notice, and no clear line of appeal. The arbiter of complaints is also the provider, the company privately contracted by the government to administer the program.

Some mothers have reported being asked to provide photographs as proof they have attended the child-focused activities. Others report the provider phoning the library, or the local pool, to verify their attendance. Librarians as monitors, swimming instructors as social police: it’s a level of surveillance and control that would make Orwell twitch. The program has faced a barrage of criticism from welfare groups, and was the subject of a Senate inquiry last week. Peter Davidson, senior adviser to the Australian Council of Social Service, says the program was previously "less heavy handed”. I spoke to one single mother-of-three this week, 32-year-old Sarah, who had a positive experience of the program in its previous incarnation. She had a good case worker who helped her into a small business course, assisting her to set up her own florist’s business. Now she is earning some income and intends to get off the parenting payment as soon as possible.

But in July 2018, the Coalition government (then led by Malcolm Turnbull) extended the program from a smaller pilot to about 70,000 single parents, 95 per cent of them women. In its expanded form, the “targeted compliance framework”, which applies to other payments such as Newstart, was imposed on ParentsNext. It is language that would make Orwell’s fingers itch. Davidson says about a fifth of single parents on the program have had their payments suspended. Parents are put on participation plans, ranging from vocational training to taking their children to a playgroup or "story time". This muddies the waters between the practical objective of helping women back into work after the child-rearing and the insidious policing of their parenting. The result is bureaucrats invigilating parents from a moral, child-welfare stance, making payments dependent on proof that parenting is being done correctly. This is a qualitative difference from other “mutual obligation” welfare requirements, because it is not about getting people off taxpayer money. It is predicated on the assumption that parents (read: mothers) on welfare must not be as “good” as other parents.

These measures assume that the poor have different social standards than the middle class, who know the correct way to nurture children, with story time and swimming classes. They are also cruelly detached from the chaotic reality of raising small children, where leaving the house with everyone fed and clothed is itself an achievement, but one that almost never runs to time. Some days, the bad days, it doesn’t happen at all. This kind of compliance-and-penalty system stems from the belief that the poor are not just unlucky, but they are fundamentally different from other people; that they lack the correct values, and the rectitude to pull themselves up. This is not so far from the Victorian-era belief that Orwell upturned with his memoir: that poverty is a moral failing. This attitude can exist only when you wilfully ignore the fact that the majority of Australians will rely on government support at some stage in their lives, with millions of us slipping in and out of the safety net as our circumstances change. As Mother's Day approaches, women around the nation prepare themselves to be showered with gifts, some of them (my personal favourites) rather shoddily crafted by small, but loving, hands.

Advertisers will sell us the shiny pitch that mothers are valued and greatly revered. Politicians will say our job is the most important one of all. But until it is reflected in our social policy, all that talk remains exactly the kind of cant Orwell hewed his best work from. Twitter: @JacquelineMaley Follow Jacqueline Maley on Facebook