Poor Kids

[NearlySpring]

Documentary on BBC1 now.

Sat here in tears watching this show following children living in poverty.

One woman, with 3 young girls all under 8. Her partner left her alone and she is struggling with money. The girls were given a sausage roll each for dinner. They are let out to play on a building site and derelict houses- where the he'll is the mother? Mother comes on saying how she can't cope financially- kids saying they have to miss meals as mummy can't always afford food. Next scene, mother has acrylic nails and a massive dog!

AIBU to ask if she can't afford to feed her kids basic cheap meals how the he'll does she feed a massive dog that is bigger than her 3 kids put together!

It must be terrible to be in that situation but surely you get your priorities straight. Who has a pet if they have no money?!!

didn't see programme, but imagine lack of cleaning stems from depression, caused in part from difficult life conditions, bit of a horrid circle of bad circumstances.

Somewhere back up the thread, a poster mentioned that when she worked, her child would be left in the care of the elderly neighbour. Another poster then criticised this, saying that the woman wasnt registered, "hope you are all declaring any payment" blah blah blah....

When I grew up in the 70's, neighbours DID help each other out, and there was no fear of SS coming running because the neighbour wasnt vetted, and nobody batted an eyelid or thought to report this sort of thing.

It worked, and it built a sense of community too.

My mums next door neighbour was often in charge of 3 or 4 of us, she had a disabled husband, was in her 60's then, but was always helping anyone she could... she didnt charge money for her childminding services, but all the parents happily helped her in other ways, doing favours to make her life easier too.

I'm amazed that people are surprised that there are children living impoverished lives like this in the UK.

Believe me there are thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, living lives like this.

I see the fall out from this in my work in terms of the long term cumulative effects of deprivation on their eventual mental health. Depression, self harm, suicide, criminal behaviour, blotting it all out with alcohol and drugs, becoming a teenage parent in an attempt to have something 'good' in their lives.....

I guess if you want to do things like start a veg garden ,you'll do it.

We got a allotment over 7 years ago because we we fed up with only eating frozen peas and vegetables being too pricey when dh was out of work.

I had no clue how to do anything,so got a book out from the library and scoured carboots to find a cheap spade and fork and used lidls to buy seed.

We learnt and we saved money and it also got us out of the house and in the fresh air.

(oh and I suffer with anxiety and agrophobia too so understand,but making yourself get out does help even if for 5 minutes).

I know you can't just throw money at problems, but surely more basic help should be given. My DCs go to a school where at least 40% have free school meals and yet bin bags (by the dozen) of lost property school uniform are unclaimed and thrown out for their weight in rags each year. Some of it is almost new. Surely it could be discreetly offered to boys like Sam.

And how much would a summer holiday swimming pool pass for all school children cost the country? Or bus passes for low income families for that matter? So they could get off the estates and into parks and libraries, for instance.

I think families on low incomes should be given free or very reduced price bus passes.

Travelling by bus or train is so flipping expensive (I can't afford it and I'm not on benefits).

There are uniform grants available but not every area offers this.

You HAVE to rebuild community but I am not quite sure how. Whilst I am all in favour of child protection, not being able to pay a friend to care for your child unless they go through the process of registering as a childminder seems to me to cause endless problems for many people.

People are reluctant to help others in the home in case they do it wrong and I agree with others that we don't teach enough in schools about managing life.

Proper home ec lessons, finance and budgetting lessons, gardening, cleaning on a budget... all thing that are handed down from generation to generation but in some families are missing so not being passed on.

If your granny took you for a walk to pick blackberries and then showed you how to make pies and jam, it is something that will stay with you. I'm a huge fan of sourcing food locally for free like wild berries but you need to know what to do with them.

People need to know their neighbours. Some areas do still have a good sense of community, people knock on doors and offer to go the shop for the elderly, you have neighbours who put each others bins out, people who car shre to go to the supermarket. But not enough people know their neighbours to offer or receive support.

Community skill swaps are good - ie a person offers 2 hours cleaning in return for 2 hours gardening. Utilising skills for free and receiving in return.

apologies, just read that back and it is very disjointed!

coccyx
"Lesley33 I give to animal charities , my choice, my money"

I think the point is that some charities get more in donations than they know what to do with, simply because the cause is evocative or well publicised, while better causes which are not quite as media friendly get pretty much sod all.

If, as a society, we wanted our donations to do as much collective good as possible, we'd be failing badly.

I really do not see how with the array of benefits we offer people someone cannot feed their children.

I do not believe anyone on benefits in UK live in absolute poverty.

The problems those children are experiencing are due to poor parenting.

And donating money and things to them now will achieve very little in the long term. What will happen when the trousers you donate no longer fit? Teaching those parents to be parents is what is needed, not a sticking plaster or gifts of money!

Feckwit, I understand what you mean, and agree with all you have said too.

These furniture schemes are great. Howeve, there is too much red tape. When my mum passed away we offered some items including her double divan bed which waa almost new. They took the base but not the mattress as the fire label had come off. Crazy.

Choccybox, not all of it is down to poor parenting. Sam's dad has had a heartattack and has gone down from 400.00 a week to around that a month, his daughter has just turned 16 and is still eligible for cb but because of a mix up the cb has been stopped and is taking weeks to sort out.
He is feeding the children decent food and keeping a roof over their head sometimes it is not all crystal clear.
And while offering books and trousers does not sort out their problems it will make the children feel a bit better and give them a treat and maybe when Sam grows out of the trousers his dad will be in a better situation and be able to buy some more, it just takes the pressure of for a while.

*Off

Let's get children volunteering with the lonely and the elderly....I think that could be a great start. Make the elderly valuable in the youth's eyes.

£400 a month with 2 dependents??

tax credits and in come support would be £150 + a week,where does he give that figure?

and the daughter will be eligible for EMA if in full time ed still

rent and ct paid

My parents lived off benefits for a little while in the early 1980s (but it was nothing like the deprivation seen in this programme). My mum coped brilliantly budgeting, making meals from scratch, buying things second hand etc. But she came from a nice middle class family.

What I'm trying to say is that living well in that sort of poverty is possible but takes an incredibly industrious, capable, organised and strong person. You are not going to be like that if you have mental health issues, drug or alcohol problem and/or a shit upbringing yourself.

The government could do so much more to address teaching parents basic skills like cooking, budgeting, finding simple things for kids to do etc. But then again nobody wants to be seen as a middle class busy body, patronising do gooder do they?

I was originally a bit meh about the dirt.

And then I thought about the numerous threads on here over teh years and the homes of some of my friends and thought again.

If comfortably off, middle class women who are SAHM can't/won't keep their homes clean and tidy then who the fuck is anyone to judge an impoverished parent on benefits?

those already in nice accomadation with decent things arent going to be in poverty by being on benefits for a while though are they?

That might have been me squeaky, about the elderly neighbour on the other thread, I'm not sure. I was pointing out that the poster who thinks that the delightful children on the programme and their families are better off in workhouses because she didn't need to claim benefits when she had her child at sixteen was comparing unlike things

Most lone parents have to use registered childcare and pay for it somehow. I didn't have the option of leaving my DD with a neighbour when I worked full-time. Luckily I had enough left to feed and clothe my child but still had to sell my house and go on benefits proper for a few months due to the cost of childcare. Admittedly this was a decade ago, but I'm not the one talking about workhouses.

My mother could do all those things too whatsfordinner and she was lower working class...

Shock horror.

at the middle class comment

It wasn't you ZXE it was a poster called Maypole, I think.

I agree that it's sad that communities and extended families are breaking down but I am also very aware of elder abuse and the vulnerabilities of older people especially when people are paying "in kind" for childcare. My own sister has been guilty of it and it's horrible.

fifi if you have debts whilst you are on benefits you are fucked.

and as for your experience of always having your benefits paid in on time and never having to wait for a crisis loan, well how would you know? The job centre messed up our payments a few times (not our fault I hasten to add) and we had to wait 3 days for a decision because it was a fri, Its not a free phone no either so we had to find money to phone them, we were on the phone for hours as other people were claiming too. They said they would ring back at 3 with a decision which they didn't so more money wasted on a phone call. No go. It was fucking monday before we could go to the job centre and get a payment. And even then I had to wait in the queue for an hour and a half to get it. So for 3 days we had no gas, very little food and I had to borrow money for nappies and baby milk.

I have other horror stories involving the job centre if you want me to share

oh and they gave a single man 180 quid to piss up the wall, he was drunk in the queue. They gave us 80 (hmm)