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?!!

I think Sam's dad said he had 80 pounds per week -- there's a lot of difference between that and 130.

So, your veg patch, then. On a subsistence level income, can you afford seeds, fertilizer, allotment rent (if no garden), tools... it's ok if you have these things already but so many don't.

Cooking something for an hour on an electric cooker is hugely expensive, much more expensive than an hour's television. If you are on a key meter the cost of cooking can be astronomical.

It's tru I don't mind walking a mile or two with my shopping sometimes. But I'm bloody glad I don't have to do it every single time. Share a taxi what planet is this, when we are talking about subsistence level incomes.

Being poor is a bloody struggle, an endless, tiring debilitating struggle. Poor people have massive levels of mental illness, most commonly depression, that they wouldn't have if they weren't poor. It's all very well for those of us who are comfortable to go on and on about poor people making bad choices and choosing to live in squalor, but most people know from their own lives how hard it is to motivate yourself and keep active when you are down.

Imagine then that you have (probably undiagnosed) long term depression, feel that nothing can ever change in your life, that everything is stacked against you. Even though making that nutritious bowl of soup, washing the floor and getting out to dig the vegetable patch would probably help you feel better, for some people that will be a mountain to climb.

Of course there are some people who would always make bad choices. But there's such a lack of imagination here about what it really means to live at these income levels day after day, week after week, year after year, generation after generation.

I totally feel for all the children on this programme.
I also feel for the parents in the main. Though a few things struck me as unreasonable regardless of how much money you have.

The little boy in a girls shirt and short ripped trousers for school. I'm sorry but if I was that childs father I would miss meals myself to make sure that he had clothes for school.

Also the lack of sheets etc on the childrens beds. Totally neglectful.

Missing meals.

Why was all the wallpaper ripped off and walls covered with graffiti? The kids obviosly aren't supervised and are bored out of their skulls.

Teddy, I'm in Scotland too. Clothing Grant in Glasgow from the Council is £47.00 per annum, paid prior to start of academic year.

Agree, that for once, the Glasgow kids weren't the worst!

Our allottment is £24 a year,not a fortune.

Seeds are pence,you can pick up cheap tools if you look around.You only really need a spade,fork and trowel.

A £10 monthly taxi ride split 4 ways would be 50p a week,again not a fortune. Many supermarkets have free buses.

I rarely cook anything for an hour in my electric oven.

Walking weekly to get shopping if you're out of work is a very good idea.It gives you much needed exercise and gets you out there in society.

Fine deal with depression,ill health etc but saying it's impossible to feed children adequately on benefits is wrong and does said children no favours what so ever.It's also quite insulting to the vast majority that do manage it.There is no more money so throwing more at the problem of kids going hungry is not only impossible but not helpful.

I do however think more needs to be done on a practical level eg having gardening support to help people get started on a veg patch(bulk soil,seeds etc).In an ideal world a travelling council gardening gang/volunteers would be such a good idea.They could help people set up in their own back garden and then travel round monthly for advice.Families could have veg swaps etc.I think councils should be providing more allottments and turning communal gardens into veg patches or provide flats with communal land.

I also think gardening,cooking and budgeting lessons should be mandatory.Just being able to pass these 3 skills on to kids would make a huge impact let alone anything else.

I'm healthy and strong as an ox and i struggle to carry heavy shopping any distance - like the look of those pull along trolley things though.

It's all too depressing and can't see any way to really improve things unfortunately. Although i grew up in a poor town on a council estate, we and most of my friends are all comfortably off now. Joining Mn has opened my eyes a little and let me see just how some folk are up against it and struggling.

Zukie arthritis effects people on all incomes.Re snow and ice,how do the rest of us manage?

Do you get disability benefit?If you ring around many taxi companies will help carry heavy shopping

I'm sympathetic with those truely disabled and all for added support but that isn't everybody.The vast majority of the general population aren't disabled.

sotilltomorrow £47 isn't much for a year! Enough only to buy a few cheap basics and a child can grow out of clothes very quickly.
The £150 figure I was told must have been for the family and not each child as I assumed.

MilaMae, I would not take an allotment even if there was one available where I live (which there aren't, there isn't even a scheme where you could put your name on a waiting list), as I wouldn't be confident enough and I don't have a car to transport compost and tools in. I'd rather be at college than learning growing.

I agree it is about support and teaching skills, but there are a lot that I would be teaching before I'd go down the allotment route.

Also families with kids can get their kids to help.My dp used to carry sacks of potatoes home on his 2 mile walk.

Pensioners have to contend with snow/ice/creaking bones and often no young people to help.

My grandma had chronic arthritis,no car or family and she managed to eek out her small income and feed herself properly.It isn't impossible and I'm fed up with hearing a continual line of excuses which do what exactly for children living in shit conditions?

Can I also point out that less than 100 years ago a vast amount of the working classes lived in these slum conditions living hand to mouth with little extra cash for any luxuries in life. Anyone who was unable to work through no fault of their own was put into a workhouse.
Times have greatly improved since then and although things may not be ideal or improving as quickly as we would like, there is no need for any child to go hungry.
Provision is made for those unable (and sometimes unwilling) to work so that they have the basic necessities of life; food, clothing and shelter.
Hopefully things will continue to improve but I feel this could only be achieved through education and empowering people to want to help themselves.

If you're talking about an entire family on benefits surely one person could be responsible for the allottment/garden.

I didn't have a car,it's not essential(a spade isn't that heavy).

MilaMae, an entire family on benefits could be a single mum or dad with 3 children under 5. Only one person there is responsible. For everything. I see that it worked for you and you are a bit evangelical about it, but growing and gardening isn't for everyone, even if it were available to everyone, which it isn't.

Fine said mother can forget the garden and get walking to the nearest Lidl/Asda like the rest of us.

Jesus it's just something that could help,sorry I forgot the entire population of people on benefits are so busy and unfit it's not something to even consider.

Zukie I'm not getting at you,I'm aware your situation is different.

However the vast majority of people on benefits don't have to contend with arthritis.

MilaMae said: "Fine deal with depression,ill health etc ... I do however think more needs to be done on a practical level eg having gardening support to help people get started on a veg patch(bulk soil,seeds etc).In an ideal world a travelling council gardening gang/volunteers would be such a good idea. "

I agree, it would be great to deal with depresssion and ill health (that disproportionately affect the poor). But, you know, there are people out there trying to do this, and most of them feel like they are trying to climb a mountain every day. And they are seeing the services they try to provide slashed.

And yep in an ideal world it would be great to have teams of willing volunteers and support for gardening (cooking, budgeting and all the other things that have been mentioned on this thread). But where are those volunteers going to come from?

I live in an area where there are many families just like the ones in that film. Strangely enough most of the volunteers in my city are lending a hand not in my area but in their own, much more comfortable patch. It is a lovely idea, but it's just a fantasy given the pathetic level of community involvement allied to appalling prejudice and judgementalism about how the poor live on the part of swathes of the population. Once I see everyone who's said 'well they should just learn to clean their house' on this thread going out an volunteering as, say, a Homestart visitor, I'll take my words back.

In answer to MilaMae's last: people on benefits suffer disproportionately from both chronic and acute illnesses. Poverty is a root cause of ill health.

I have just joined Homestart to help families with difficulties shown in this programme. The problem is that the Homestart branch I trained with has now run out money, so aren't sending volunteers to families in need. So much for Dave's Big Society. It makes me and

to make a difference we have to start with the children and be prepared to pump lots of money into their schools and areas - but that won't happen at the moment.

ideally, i'd like to have these kids have access to sports and clubs like the guides etc. Have these type of outward bound places where they can go away for a week and have fun and learn about something and somewhere away from their home ares - you often find some of these kids hardly ever leave their home turfs and have no idea what is out there. I remember when those schemes came out where they would take kids and put them on projects, like sailing boats etc - the papers and the public hated it but i thought it was an interesting approach.

The problem is Niminy many of us have to work,I had a HS volunteer so know how valuable they are,I do however have to work and be a mum.

Budgeting/cooking and gardening classes would get to more people for less man hours. There should be more and they should be mandatory for some families.

I don't think pumping money into schools is an answer to be frank(having taught in such areas)yes it'll help but the kids still go home to the same shit hole and come back hungry.

The kids don't cause the problems their parents do.All the time people/politicians don't have the balls to face this fact and start dealing with it the same shit happens.

Our SureStart scheme has lost its HV as a result our community has lost one of the best people (IMHO the best person) to find and help families like the ones featured in the programme. Not only that, but for those who do use Surestart, summerscheme costs have more than doubled this year and the staff cuts mean that they are no longer in a position to help as much they have done previously with things like Parenting, Nutrition, Literacy and Fitness classes or even just help dealing with authorities or filling in forms.

Life is getting tougher for most. For the poor it is becoming unbearable and sometimes impossible. Children, the elderly and those with disabilty are the worst affected and the government don't seem to give a toss.

I think what a lot of posters on here are forgetting is what a difference there is between short-term poverty and long-term poverty.

Benefits are set at a level that is legally defined, and it is deliberately meant to be enough to live off in the short term because when the Welfare State was created it was only ever meant to be a stop gap. If you don't have debts and nothing goes wrong you can live off benefits for a few weeks or months.

However, if you have pre-existing debts, the kids all suddenly need shoes at the same time, the washing machine breaks down, or any of a million things (some predictable, some unforseeable) happens, you're stuffed. The likelihood of this happening increases the longer you're on benefits. Eventually it becomes a certainty.

When you've been in that situation for years, and you're living in a flat with peeling wallpaper and stained carpet that you cannot afford to do anything about, is it really surprising that some people just give up and say "F*k it - what's the point in cleaning up, the place looks like s*t anyway." Hasn't everyone of us here felt exactly the same emotions over something as simple as our DC playing up one day and just whinging one too many times? What if there's no end in sight to that? Most of us get through things because we know it will pass. What if you know it never will? There's a reason that poverty and money worries figure so high in the causes of depression you know. Doesn't mean these people don't love their kids or are not doing their best for them. It just means they've given in to the crushing weight that is ongoing poverty.

And with so many people applying for a job, how do you get that job if you're unqualified, unskilled, inexperienced, and quite frankly look terrible because god forbid you actually spend your benefits money on buying decent clothes for an interview, or getting a haircut, or buying makeup.