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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Riots - is it all the parents fault?

53 replies

MichaelaS · 10/08/2011 00:07

Right, throwing out a potentially controversial idea then scuttling off to bed before it blows up.

The riots seem to mostly involve teenagers. People on the TV (so it must be true, right?) have been asking what their parents are doing, why they're letting their kids out at that sort of time etc. Appeals from police to report your child if they turn up with unusual electrical items in the middle of the night.

So, is it all the fault of the parents? Do well brought up kids ever do this sort of stuff, barring severe mental illness such as being a sociopath.

AIBU to think that, mostly, it is the fault of the upbringing that these well fed, clothed and healthy teenagers feel disenfranchised and poor even though they are amongst the top 10% of the worlds rich because they are not starving and have somewhere to sleep. MN jury, your verdict please!

And on that note, i'm off to bed! enjoy.....

OP posts:

DioneTheDiabolist · 10/08/2011 00:57

Oh, yeah, and Parents of politicians, it's especially your fault.

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 00:59

It's nothing to do with benefits Dione but everything to do with three generations who have consecutively been beaten down. Not all people are srong enough to rise above.

Twoequalstired · 10/08/2011 01:00

GhoulLasher - That was one of the most balanced posts I have read about all the the events and the issues underlying them. I am generally a very liberal, "meh" kind of person but I got really angry and sad about all this and you are helping me to feel slightly more sympathetic again (I don't like the angry and sad me). People do have a choice of which path they choose to take though, it may not be the easiest path but they do have a choice

EdithWeston · 10/08/2011 01:01

"if i had a decent bin bag i'd consider looting john lewis and waitrose."

- nice to see the firm famous for its social principles (because it's the staff who are full partners/owners) as the one selected for theft.

Twoequalstired · 10/08/2011 01:02

Dione - OP said nothing about single parents, working or on benefits. Do you believe that parental influence has no effect?

Tortington · 10/08/2011 01:06

i'd considered the co-op, but decided against as their fresh stuff doesn't last. i must consider these things before i go a looting.

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 01:07

Glad to have cheered you Twoequalstired ...it's not a particularly hopeful picture though is it?

I feel pity mostly. When all this blows over, those kids...who were little babies once not long ago....they'll be arrested, processed through court, put on probabtion or sent away (probably not for the first time) and the whole thing repeats itself.

DioneTheDiabolist · 10/08/2011 01:08

I'm completely with you Ghoul, but parents are blamed for everything these days, except the parents of bankers and politicians. I read no media outcry about them during the 1st credit crunch and the expenses scandal.

Twoequalstired, you say that people have a choice. Yes they do, however poverty and deprivation (not just monetary) removes a lot of those choices. And when you live in a rough area and choose to do the right thing (like help the police in their investigation/stand up to the gangsters), you are then made to suffer and the police cannot/will not do anything to help you. When society turns its back on you, why should you care about it? And where people don't care about society, there is trouble.

But it's just easier to blame the parents.

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 01:11

Dione parents are our first port of call when it comes to morals and manners.

They have the main responsibility.

DioneTheDiabolist · 10/08/2011 01:11

Of course parenting has an effect, however, when the shit hits the fan (as has happened over the last few days), even kids with brilliant parents may indulge in violence. Especially if they believe that those values taught by their parents will get them nowhere.

UselessForeskinHiddenSurgeon · 10/08/2011 01:13

I dont blame the parents. i could not countenance being a youth in hackney or some of the other areas this is going on when i was 16 i knew i had some hope of making good so long as i put the effort in. I knew that i could look forward to certain level of support (fiscal and otherwise) to get to where i was aiming for. the youth in those areas today have less than nothing. university isn't even a pipedream. ask them yourselves about what hope they have for the future. their parents benifit is being slashed they've lost fiscal support for college and uni will cost them more than they can face. i feel sorrow and a little sympathy for them. and while all this is going on all i see on facebook are vaguely racist status updates and ignorant comments. as for the government "where are your children tonight" oh please do fuck off, where are the police (oh shit your cutting them" quit telling people how to run their families and start running the country properly. dicks.

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 01:14

Well yes. There are always cases of kids going off the rails even when they'v been brought up beautifully....as I said though...it's not ONLY parents it's the media....I said that these kids have has "stuff" pushed at them all their lives in a way which I and others over thirty never had.

UselessForeskinHiddenSurgeon · 10/08/2011 01:15

err sorry got a little bit emotional for a second there.

Twoequalstired · 10/08/2011 01:18

I do understand that "When society turns its back on you, why should you care about it? And where people don't care about society, there is trouble." but this is where I feel a positive family influence really can make a difference? I know I'm a bit of an ideologist. I think the reason parents are being referenced here is because of their young age. Certainly that is what I was referring to. I do believe that a 10 year old should still be under the complete control of their parent(s) and so if they are out amongst the disturbances then I would call for parental involvement and would be asking the parents why their children are not at home

DioneTheDiabolist · 10/08/2011 01:19

Ghoul, it's not even just about having stuff pushed at them (but that is part of the problem), it's about parents teaching morality and manners, but them seeing that those around them who are successful, do so by immoral and illegal means. When they grow up they are able to view things more accurately, but when you are a teenager it's harder to see the parent's pov.

Twoequalstired · 10/08/2011 01:20

[young age of the children rather than the parents]

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 01:21

I know Diane I said myself it was about manners and morality.

UselessForeskinHiddenSurgeon · 10/08/2011 01:26

people with issues around drugs and alcohol are certainly not beyond help. they maybe beyond the governments and societies willingness to help, but they are not beyond help. and why do you assume that many of these kids parents are substance abusers? please elucidate me with reference to specifics here... have you seen some statistical breakdown of drug related incidents with respect to families from these areas or are you making some rather ugly assumptions?

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 01:27

twoequal i think what we might find when al this is calmed down is that some of the people involved in the lootings are actually the parents.

They're not all kids. And also trying to get parents involved is all very well but hese parents aren't normal parents.

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 01:30

useless these kids are in the main from a place where drug and alcohol abuse is rife. I lived there. I lived amongst them. I worked on estates in Walworth and Peckham and of course they're not all abusers...but many, many of them are.

And it wasn't the abuse that I said was beyond help...but the people....not all....but many.

GhoulLasher · 10/08/2011 01:42

What? Do you think the majority of these kids have been brought up well? With parents of healthy mind?

Of course they haven't...as I said earlier..SOME may have...but in the main they've had questionable moral teachings and doubtful security provided...and I am blaming nobody....well...apart from the government.

It's part of Thatchers legacy.

UselessForeskinHiddenSurgeon · 10/08/2011 06:12

lets tie her up and set her on fire (thatcher) the ladies now for burning?

messymammy · 10/08/2011 08:03

If your ten yr old is out rioting, then yes someone needs to ask questions about the job you are doing and the role you have played in bringing them up.
Noone is saying that their lives are not shit, but that is not an excuse for rioting in the streets!!Protest is one thing, civil unrest and disorder is another. The mentality of wrecking something when you have very little is something I cannot get my head around, there was a jobs centre set alight....I think that's a fairly clear message that they have no need for it so don't build any more amenities for people who behave like this!
They talk about how the government has made cuts, and they are taking back their taxes and that they are showing police they can do what they like.
So what?! Do the police not pay taxes?Have they not had cuts? They are out working and yet these thugs can do as they like because bleeding hearts think "oh poor them".
Bollocks, sterilise the lot of them and cancel any benefits.They don't deserve anything they feel they should be entitled to.

DioneTheDiabolist · 10/08/2011 10:12

Bollocks, sterilise the lot of them and cancel any benefits.They don't deserve anything they feel they should be entitled to.
And here is an example of how society feels and treats these people, not just post rioting, but before that as many past threads here regarding benefits and chavs will attest.

Protests don't work, they didn't work for the anti-war lot, they didn't workfor the students. Protestors were kettled, beaten, demonised, imprissonned and then ignored.

As for the ten year old, yes, maybe his parents are awful, maybe they were walking the streets searching for him, maybe they were at work. Don't worry, Mr Cameron has already given society that whatever, that child will be punished.

Do we live in a moral and fair society? No. And it's harder and harder for the parents trying to teach their children morality and manners, when it gets you nowhere. The more unfair the society, the more likely it is that you will get trouble.

messymammy · 10/08/2011 10:46

Do you honestly think that someone who went out and smashed up your streets and burnt out shops and people out of their homes and terrorised people for 4 days now really deserve a hand out?
Because I don't. I don't think it makes me a bad person either.

Why should they not have to earn respect like everyone else? Why should we sit here and say poor them? Anyone of us could live in a shit area, but noone reasonable goes out and destroys whole cities.

How did the areas get so run down in the first place? Did bad fairies come in and vandalise things and graffiti on walls or terrorise services from their area? No, they've dont it to themselves, and I don't think for one minute that if I went around doing that in a nice area I would get away with it.
But sure theyre bored, God love them, what else have they to do but wreck what little they have left.
That's not "society's" fault, it's their own fault.
Fuck that, it is bollocks.

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