Relationships

In general, the mothers were proud of their children and how they had raised them, and the young people usually appreciated what their mums had achieved.

Lucy said: “I wouldn’t have changed anything. I think I’ve given them a lot of my time. I’ve organised my life around them, I think, but they’ve turned out great... I’m happy with what I’ve done.”

But relationships with children weren’t always easy and in some cases resulted in children moving out of the family home. Some could live with another family member; others went to hostels and/or were homeless.

For Sarah the breakdown in relationship with her children was in part driven by low income and more immediately by the loss of tax credits: “I was on Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit then, but when all that stopped I found it particularly hard … because it just stopped all of a sudden, but they still needed feeding… Basically we just couldn’t all afford to live here, so they branched out.”

Maia does not like to even mention money to her mother now. She feels that their money struggles growing up affected them. She said: “I think it added to a lot of the stress around the house and I, I hate speaking to my mum about money and like I won’t even enter a conversation with her about it.”

The mothers had a strong work ethic but some realised that having to work to keep money coming in had come at a cost – they couldn’t spend much time with their children.

I fitted it in but I’m sure there were times when, you know, I feel I’ve missed out with them and they maybe felt they’ve missed out with me a bit because … but then I think they always saw, because I was the sole provider, I didn’t really have an option. Tracey

Children played a key role in enabling their mothers to work, by:

taking on extra responsibilities, such as doing chores or caring for younger sibling

holding back on their own needs – trying not to put financial pressure on their mothers for things like new clothes, school trips and equipment, and social activities

accepting situations they were not particularly happy with, including changes in their caring arrangements.

Tiffany had considerable demands placed on her when she was growing up. Her mother was working full-time and as the oldest child she was caring for her siblings. This was particularly stressful for her in her mid-teens when she was trying to balance her school work and care work at home. “I just feel that with everything that I’m getting from school, all the pressure and then with the things that I have to do that’s outside of school, like one of them is not going to be able to fit in and I worry that it’s going to be the work at school that I’m not going to be able to fit in.”

The young people also feel under pressure to earn and don’t always get chance to go back into education.

John wished he had done better at school; he has no qualifications and has had no real training. He started work as a bouncer in the security world when he was 16, initially following his father into unlicensed and dangerous work. He is still working for a private security firm. He lived in a hostel for several years, but is now on a rent-to-buy scheme and hopes to buy the flat he lives in one day. But he is struggling to manage on a low and insecure income, and is living and working in a hard world. He wants to get more training to get a better job but can’t afford to.

“To be blunt about it, it’s a dead-end job,” he said. “There’s no high positions. The only better positions there are, are in the control room, on the camera.”

Domestic abuse had strong long-term impacts on both mothers and children, affecting their confidence, self-esteem, trust and relationships. All the time the women and young people were dealing with work and managing their lives, they were often also carrying a heavy emotional and psychological weight.

Relationships with fathers varied, but they were often absent from their children's daily lives.