To ask if you would compromise your morals to keep your children out of poverty?

[BakerBinky]

DH and I were discussing how judemental people can be of people living in poverty and it started me wondering.

How far you would go as a mother to provide for your children if you lost your partner/job/house/means of wokring. Would you steal, lie, break the law or cheat if it meant keeping a roof over your children's heads or provide them with opportunities?

[mumsamilitant]

Bit of a huge question here. Depends really. But would do most to keep a roof and provide. The opportunities one, I'm not sure, depends what you mean.

[worraliberty]

No need in the UK thankfully

How far would you go OP?

[slavetofilofax]

If it wasn't going to hurt another individual, I'd do what it takes to provide for my child. Not because of other people's judging though, it would be because something was needed to keep my child safe.

That's a hard question to answer without a more definate idea of what you had in mind.

[MrSpoc]

I think you will find that if you were in a situation where you had lost everything and your children were starving it would only be human nature to do what ever you could just to servive. If this meant, stealing, fighting, selling yourself then im confident that most would do it.

[crazynanna]

Well,thankfully,we have a safety net in this country,but if it is taken away (quite possible with this shambles of a govt),then yes,I would do anything to feed my children.

[HecateGoddessOfTheNight]

I would do whatever I had to do to keep my children alive and safe.

I have no morals at all when it comes to protecting my children. I am not boasting about this but nor am I apologising for it. It is simply a fact.

I will do, have done and do do (apols for grammar!) whatever I have to to feed them and to keep a roof over their heads. Sometimes this has involved doing things that other people consider unethical. Once, it involved doing something that, had I been caught, would have landed me in jail. I didn't care then and I don't care now. In the most desperate of situations I did what I had to do for my children and it was the option that afforded the least risk and harm to them. I did what needed to be done.

Thankfully, I am blessed to live in a country where I am likely to have at least some help in the worst of situations. At least you don't starve, at least you don't die because you can't afford medicine which are very real possibilities in some parts of the world.

[Jamillalliamilli]

I do what I have to do, but don't steal. I'm lucky not to have to. The rest's grey areas but quite simply I'm sick of generations of my lot being at the bottom of the pile, we're hungry for change and I'm changing it.

[Morloth]

Anything for them. Anything at all.

Not sorry and quite pleased when other people say they have a line because I don't, so if the crunch ever came then lots of the competition for resources will remove themselves.

[AMumInScotland]

If the alternative was not having a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, or food on the table, I'd do whatever it took. But for less "important" things, I'd try to teach them that the answer to (relative) poverty is to work and save to get yourself out of it, rather than doing dodgy deals etc.

But it really depends what you mean by poverty - are you talking about starvation, or only having the basics?

[lesley33]

"I think you will find that if you were in a situation where you had lost everything and your children were starving it would only be human nature to do what ever you could just to servive. If this meant, stealing, fighting, selling yourself then im confident that most would do it."

I honestly think you don't know what you would do until you were in that situation. Some people in desperate situations don't do those things, some do.

[NinkyNonker]

I'm with Morloth. There is little I wouldn't do for them.

[coccyx]

poverty in Uk is nothing compared to third world countries.
Government/taxpayer will bail people out. May complain about the system but better than nothing

[manicinsomniac]

Yes. Anything with the exception of seriously hurting or killing other people.

I would lie, cheat, steal, break the law etc. I would make or get money by any means possible.

[ajandjjmum]

Few of us wouldn't compromise all of our values to provide food and shelter for our children.

[Pinot]

Anything.

[megapixels]

I think most people would do anything to keep their children from starving. But, maybe I'm being naive, but I really can't think why you'd need to do any of the things you mention to keep your children out of poverty. Not in the UK anyway.

[sparkle12mar08]

Hell yes I would!

[solidgoldbrass]

I'd do most things. I wouldn't mug a random person in the street, or kill someone for money, and if I were in a position where stealing or fraud were the only options, I'd hit big corporations rather than small firms or individuals.

[PomBearAtTheGatesOfDawn]

I think that if it truly ever came down to my children literally starving before my eyes I would do anything to feed them - even if that meant killing and eating someone. Not that I genuinely think it ever would come to that! I read way too much apocalyptic fiction I think and can easily imagine all the terrible scenarios from books with my family in them, and can think "would I do what that character just did, if it was my children's lives on the line?" and answer yes, of course I would. That's just daydreams though, and hopefully it would never ever come to anything like that.
Technically we live in poverty now, according to some of the criteria I've read/seen reported, and we aren't that badly off really - only by comparison, and there's always someone with more and better and nicer "stuff" to feel envious of. I've been worse off than I am now, and probably would have been referred to as poverty stricken, but again, it never got so bad that I felt I had to steal or cheat someone to feed us. Had I been a bad manager, or spent the little we had unwisely it might have been different, and possibly I would have been tempted, but it just never happened.
Quite often here there are stories about people who've been in court for shoplifting or petty theft, and so often the mitigation is "they had no money and needed food/nappies/essentials for the children, but oddly, they were never shoplifting food, nappies, or essentials...

[AlpinePony]

I would steal from a supermarket and I would sell my body to put food on the table for my children - and I'm sure I'd do 100 other things.

[lesley33]

But some people don't do anything to stop their children starving. They don't for example steal food from other starving families and children or kill people. If you want to look at how many westernised people behaved in terrible circumstances look at concentration camps. Some people stole, ate human flesh from the dead, etc. Some didn't.

I am not blaming anyone who lies, cheats, etc when they and their children are in terrible situations. But I think it is very hard to know before you are actually in that situation.

And i wouldn't lie, cheat, etc to give my DCs "opportunities". There are opportunities certainly in the Uk that you can take advantage of without having to do this.

[onehellofaride]

I would do anything if that was the only way