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?!!

oh and boysrock ... absolutely. Thanks for posting.

I do get that boysrock but if its a choice between my children eating and being online then I know what my priority would be.

Labour done the thing. Anyone with a child above 7 or something got a free laptop with a dongle with a years worth of internet. It was stopped by David Cameron i think. I have a Dell one i got just before the scheme stopped.

For some people, under colossal stress, vulnerable to depression and anxiety, without family and unable to afford to go out, access to the internet can be a vital lifeline

it really is impossible to make worthwhile judgements about somebody else's life when you have no idea what they are actually going through

but of course it's much easier to sneer and make ignorant remarks about feckless spongers blowing the taxpayer's money on big tellies while their children live like rats

listen to yourselves fgs

marioandluigi yes I do know about ezcema, my daughter has it. No excuse for filthy feet like that though and her toenails. My daughter has it on her ankles too but I manage to keep her feet and toenails clean.

Isn't the internet free at libraries?

I reckon putting Martin Lewis on the national curriculum would help at least a little bit. I bet there are some families on low incomes paying £30 a month on some rip-off broadband contract.

so sick of the TV comments. sheeesh

The internet is free at libraries if you can get a slot but they are closing ours anyway. Also, it would take a fair while for most people to walk there.

Stottie, I think the reason they stopped that laptop scheme was because the admin cost more than the laptops they gave away. It was costing over grand per laptop.

FFS her feet were not that bad.

Ffs they were! Steel wool wouldn't have removed that dirt.

There are various pressure groups around, 38 degrees being one that votes on policies to influence, the there are unions and the likes of the labour party() which is at least more sympathetic although I wouldn't say you have to be part of it, or writing to your mp over policies that you disagree with.

If people actually start demanding there MP's to consider issues and how they are voting it help them to know what is important for there constituents. - they have to face re election at some point.

Investment in local areas so leading to jobs helps, lobbying mps to support a living wage rather than a minimum wage (see Unites website).

Investment in social housing, again lobbying the MP and council.

A lot of letter writing. in short, I'm not the paragon of virtue on the local council it has to be said, but I do lobby the mp and get involved with online campaigns. there are so many issues but a good place to start to gain an understanding of issues is here

Not everyone in poor areas views education as snobby. Some do but even if by some miracle the situation was resolved it would still take a few generations for those viewholders to be reduced in size.

My daughters feet look like that after a long summers day running around bare foot.

Ok so people are getting sick of the 'tv' comment. But please, can someone explain why? To me it would be obvious that if I was struggling for money, I could sell a tv like that, buy an older one from a second hand shop for £25 and spend the rest of the money on filling the freezer. Why is that an unreasonable statement to make?

It's nothing to do with taxpayers' money IMO. It's making best use of the resources you have, wherever they come from.

flaming I wouldn't suggest that people go online rather than eat. However the point I was trying to make is that internet access should be viewed as an essential these days and not a luxury.

How much would you get for the TV ? How long would it last ? The value of the TV to a family like that it high because there is absolutely nothing else for them to do ever.

Someone on this thread asked what can be done to break the cycle of deprivation, low attainment and hopelessness.
There have been lots of services available in the last few years that have done impressive work to help families and young people improve their lives - I'm talking about services such as family support, young carers support, sure start centres, projects for young mums, emotional health services, youth offending projects, projects to raise educational attainment amongst deprived children and so on.
These are exactly the kinds of services that are getting hugely hit by the budget cuts. Some services are folding alltogether. Families and vulnerable children are losing out.
I work in this area. I fully expect to see the levels of deprivation and poverty of experience that so many children experience to get worse and worse in this current policy climate.

We can't tolerate cuts like we are doing without expecting children in poverty to suffer.

A TV is aTV. How can people justify spending hundreds on a TV when their child is going to school in a girls blouse and trousers that are too short?

Moomoo out of interest what do you sell to fill the freezer when you have eaten its contents.

I have to say having been in far more houses that are are below the breadline than it appears a lot on here, that the large plasma screen tv for people in this situation is nowhere near as common as people believe.

They may have been given it, who knows. Agreed boysrock it isn't as common as people think.

Yy selks we're all in this together.

MrsBethal. I actually know a girl i went to school with. She tried to flog it at cash convertors and they rang the police. I think they are all coded.

I can see it from other peoples points of view. My dd's go to a school in the next catchment area. Most of the parents are quite well off. Maybe in 150K to 200k houses. Most of them have not got a laptop

I got my other dd a reconditioned netbook off the net for xmas for £75 as they were fighting over it. They use them quite a bit now for school work.

Paying people more benefits will not help. Nothing can help a woman who thinks it oks for her kid to be fed sausage rolls and spend the child benefit on herself. Giving her more money will not help the situation only pro-long it.

I was brought up with parents on benefits and have 3 brothers. It was hard we done without but were fed and clothed. My mam and dad work now and own their own home.

Yes somepeople have it hard but some of them people refuse to drag themselves out the situation they are in

Her feet where bad,very bad but not just that her pj bottoms wer filfthy as was the floor she was lying on and the walls,having said all that doesnt help,i felt so so sorry for the kids,i wish there was some way of helping kids like this even if it was to just send them a tenners worth of food for the kids each week and a few essentails now and then like uniform/underwear ect,and xmas gifts,im in no way well off but far from what they are living like,i was a single parent 13 years ago though
is there any people on here that live like this that we can help??

Re the feet - I dodn't notice they were dirty, I was too busy looking at how sore they were (Incidentally, an uncaring mother would not have bothered getting her all the meds surely? By the end her legs were cleared up she'd clearly been cared for). But I just wanted to say I ahve 4 chidlren who run around bare feet all summer and seriously their feet are caked in dirt at the end of the day. I don't call that bad parenting, I see it as a sign they've been busy! How does anyone know they weren't then washed before bed?

Tvs...well sure, some of the families living in poverty have huge tvs. I'm willing to bet most are paying over the odds for them though! And many end up with bad credit as they default... but I can't really begrudge them it tbh. If you can't afford to go out, can't afford activities for the children etc, I can see why you would want a tv. Blimey, I cannot imagine life when mine were small without a tv to stick on as a fall back on a rainy day!

There was a good point made above about services. I lost my job for a well known children's charity thanks to cuts. The services we offered to local authorities were services the LAs decided they could not afford to buy into - these are very hard hit areas in terms of funding.

Funnily enough, I like the "idea" of the big society that DC has proposed - where people support one another etc but am not sure how it works practically. But one scheme that I think should be invested in, is a scheme where the unemployed are utilised to renovate and upgrade existing community housing that is unhabitable. There is a real shortage of social housing and many houses are empty or in poor condition. I would like to see people offered a basic level of benefits that is increased in return for voluntary work. This gets people out and about, working as a team and learning essential skills like plastering, decorating, gardening. Seeing projects come together is hghly motivating and increases self esteem. It would help with job prospects as potential empolyers would see committment and I think more unemplyed would recognise the benefits of earning again.

They do not own the tv, or any of the other appliances, they rent them all.

It's a far more expensive way to do it but as they haven't got the cash to buy outright what choice do they have.