to be worried there is no thread about what is being done that will affect our children's futures?

[granted]

I have become increasingly concerned both at the measures being taken by this govt (and the last too, though obviously nothing we can do about those now) that will impact on the next generation.

Articles like this:

www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1328228/Revealed-30-year-graduate-debt-trap.html

on top of high house prices, increasing unemployment, climate change - we spend so long on this site debating the tiny things, like bedtimes, number of baths, bla bla bla - just surprised that I haven't come across other threads discussing this.

Do other mums feel like this, and if so, what can we do? Am thinking about situations where women campaigning together have made huge changes eg I think in Norther Ireland women were drivers for the peace process etc.

I feel strongly that a load of super-rich and entirely male politicians have no concept of what effect the raft of policies they are implenting will have on ordinary families and ordinary children - who after all, have no vote to make their views heard - and the current lot will probably have retired by the time they're old enough to make their views known.

Anyone else?

[LoveRedShoes]

I think too many people have a sense of entitlement following the work/ policies of the previous government. I think (and hope) my children will learn from the current government that you have to work hard for your money, qualifications and life style, and not expect things to be handed to you on a plate.
I support the return to common sense, the death of the nannny state, ridiculous health and safety rules that limit the true risk taking nature of humans. I want my boys to be boys, and fall out of trees and play conkers.
I want my DCs to have a work ethic, whatever career they choose. I don't want my daughters to grow up thinking it is okay to have children and the state will pick up the bill. And I resent that the children of hard working middle income families get nada, while these on low or no incomes can have bursaries. And I resent the commonly held view that everyone must have a degree.
And I wish there was more campaigning about morality issues - far too much violence and sex in society trickling down to our children - on TV, movies, magazines, etc. And I would have gladly campaigned when the local lib dems ignored the democratic process and implemented a very ridiculous unfair 'environmental' tax on people who parked outside their houses in central areas - a tax completely avoided by those with enough money to have a driveway, thus hitting those on lower incomes and the elderly who had lived in the town for many years. More people voted against this than for it, but it was still implemented.
Grrrrrrrr.

[booyhoo]

all this is going on but you're worried there is no thread? huh, who'd have guessed?

[twirlymum]

loveredshoes I agree with everything you have said. Surely a degree is not worth much if everyone has one?
It is not a right it is a privilege to have a university education.

[violethill]

Very good post loveredshoes.

I think the sense of entitlement that has come about in the UK is probably the most worrying thing of all. A lot of people expect something for nothing these days. They think society means some people taking responsibility and being the providers, while others just take. It cannot continue, economically or morally

[Chynah]

Totally agree with loveredshoes.

[CoinOperatedGirl]

I don't get this whole entitlement thing. surely you mean being born into money, then getting a job running the country due to connections etc with barely any experience. I mean if that isn't a sense of entitlement what is?

Expecting a decent education and to be fairly paid for a day's work, evil evil feckers.

[NurseSunshine]

Then teach your children those things yourself loveredshoes. I think your children will learn from the government, and presumably their mother, that only those who have been lucky enough to be born to the right family are allowed education and a chance to better themselves.

And please, please don't feed me that bullshit about middle income families getting nothing, boohoo poor little you, whilst us lower income deadbeats are living it up with jacuzzis! Try doing some research my dear, and perhaps thinking about what you are lucky enough to have before you start whining.

I am a student nurse, my DP is on a low wage and I'm pregnant. Hardly middle income, in fact our child will be born into poverty as defined by the government. And what help can I expect? None. You say you don't want a "sense of entitlement" and yet in the same breath complain about middle income families getting "nada".

[tallwivglasses]

What CoinOp said.

I'm really scared for my kids - one soon-to-be-student and one who will have no choice but to rely on government care from the moment I can't.

Grim times.

[bethelbeth]

We own our house and both work but are still considered as earning below the poverty line.

We have been very lucky that we made some wise investments earlier in life as things really have taken a serious turn. Less frivolities.

I have to admit, that although we may not be as cash rich due to new policies, I entirely agree with loveredshoes. I think she wins quote of the week.

It's clear that as a country we have taken things for granted and now we will have to work for them. I am keen to get back to 'old fashioned' values. Less consumerism. Quality rather than quantity. Manners! And the death of Health and Safety!

I am also hoping that with the drive to get more people into work that there will be adequate support for small business owners and an eventual resurgence of British industry.

[newwave]

Bottom line is the tories want to screw the loaw waged and poor, squeeze the middle class and help the rich, always have and always will.

You show me a tory MP and I will show you a scumbag.

[CoinOperatedGirl]

Do people not realise that us working poor "work work work" every fucking day of every fucking week. we may not have chosen high paying professions (my dp is a customer care agent at Heathrow) before children I was a HCA, after children I will be the same, or hopefully a nurse.

My dp walks 10 miles+ each working day, deals with people from world leaders to granny in a wheelchair. We rely on government handouts to survive. When I go back to work we will probably still rely on government handouts (if they still exist).

Then again I'm good at maths, I could have chosen a career that involved moving money about for the benefit of people richer than me. We would be in clover, go figure .

Just because you earn more doesn't mean you work more.

[CoinOperatedGirl]

All these people "I work 14 hour days, I deserve my £100,000 bonus" jog the fuck on.

I bet you didn't spend your 14 hour day on your feet, running about like a loon trying to both provide basic care to sick people and service the wishes of the bosses above you.

[Heracles]

Hurrah! The death of H&S! Protecting people at work like the mugs they are, let 'em get under those looms and spinning jennies the workshy BASTARDS.

Manners! Best way to improve them is to increase the unemployed then treat them as criminals. Punishment works! Victorian values! The workhouse! I'm alright Ja... oh wait, no, We're in it Together! Yeah!

[Sakura]

Coinoperatedgirl wrote "I don't get this whole entitlement thing. surely you mean being born into money, then getting a job running the country due to connections etc with barely any experience. I mean if that isn't a sense of entitlement what is?"

thank you for nipping it in the bud early.

And what about all those bankers who are on benefits, who rely on taxpayers' money to keep their jobs alive because they were so crap at their jobs that they sunk the country. Scrounging feckless bankers who are being paid millions because we all have to feed the sense of entitlement of the rich and privileged.

[DooinMeCleanin]

Not much more to say really. Think they have covered much of what I was thinking far more eloquently than I could have put it.

[Sakura]

And LoL @ Heracles

[cumbria81]

FWIW, I am "poor", earn very little and struggle to make ends meet. And yet I disagree with the concept of child benefit. Why should the state give people money for having children? I think that the poster above was right when she said that people have developed a misplaced sense of entitlement.

Often people denigrate "them" (ie the government) for so many things - we're too fat, we don't go outside enough, we can't do this, we're not told that....Where does personal responsibility come into all this?

[StealthPoHoHoHo]

but there have been hundreds of threads about these issues! Are you a regular on MN, if you are I fail to see how you missed them all.

[violethill]

Interesting how some people are jumping on the sense of entitlement issue and jumping up and down in a tizzy as though loveresshoes had suggested its only the 'poor' who this applies to. She didn't . I don't think it applies to any one sector of society either- its widespread. As a teacher I come across loads of young people, from well off homes and from homes where they live on benefits- and the sense of entitlement cuts across the spectrum. Its an attitude of mind which is really worrying- not simply about money

[Chil1234]

As someone remarked on a radio prog I was listening to last night... 'In the past people marched demanding more jobs or better pay. Now they march to retain their benefits'.... that's the evidence of conditioning. Lifetime benefits have sucked the life out of the country.

[BelleDameSansMerci]

There is something you can do. You can vote. You can lobby your MP. You can make a LOT of noise and protest. If you want change then you need to lobby for it and actually do something not just expect "someone" to do it for you.

I don't condone violence or rioting and I seriously doubt the student activity yesterday will make a difference but the poll tax riots in the 80s did force change. We have a tendency in the UK to accept whatever is meted out and just moan about it. If we want change, we have to force it.

[PfftTheMildySpookyDragon]

oooh I know! Those marvellous hardworking middle income families, getting no help, being left out to dry, while those scrounging, no hoper low income families just get loads of help and have to work for nothing.

Yuck! I can't believe I have to even share space with them in the street! How dare they not have a job? And who do they think they are?! Wanting a degree!!!!! Cheeky plebs!

Violet, what shoes has suggested quite clearly is that middle income families deserve help, and their money because they are hard-working. And low income families are this way because they are somehow work shy and lazy.

[PfftTheMildySpookyDragon]

The main issue for me is that the removal of benefits now is not a practical solution. The Conservatives are using the deficit to get what they want ideologically. But there is no system in place to do things properly.
You can't really say with one hand "people shouldn't be on benefits, they should be working" and then with the other implement cuts that mean loads of people would be better off by being on benefits than they would be by working.

But then I suppose this is what happens when you don't bother to think out your policies beyond rhetoric, and your chancellor is challenged in the brain department.

[chandellina]

i don't see that shoes has made that suggestion at all, that middle income families are somehow better workers than those on low incomes.
though I personally think middle income families for the most part can and should pick up the cost of university fees for their children and/or the children can work and save.
otherwise i wholly agree with her comments.

[chandellina]

pfft - i think they did think that through, hence the pledge that it will always be more profitable to work than to live on benefits.