feral teenage mum rioter- does she deserve her council flat and her child?

[porcamiseria]

www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23977196-shame-of-the-mother-who-saw-her-bad-daughter-looting-in-tottenham.do

I get that there are underlying issues, and that castigating the "scum" underclass is not going to acheive anything but this story for me, epitimises things

how can anyone defend her right to be a mother, and her right to benefits and a council flat? now she will go to prison, her poor child will either go to his grandmother or into care, and the cycle continues

something needs to be done to disincentivise girls like this from having children. I am not advocating sterilisation, or having kids wrought off their mothers in labour ward BUT we have a society where girls like this have babies, and they are the kids that end up rioting

people say that education and support is the answer, but in some cases people should NOT have any more kids and I think we are being far too liberal, she's a bad un. end of.

"but i do find it funny that i get more vitriol that an antisocial , much evicted, hated by her own mother teenage (ok not a teen now) mum who left her kid at home to join her hoody mates to nick shit in the riot"

spot on

perfedtic.....so how do you explain the actions of the convicted youth worker and teaching asisstant?

they are men.....

"how can anyone defend her right to be a mother, and her right to benefits and a council flat?"

Because she's a human being and those are human rights (to family to housing, to subsistance), perhaps? What do you think, should her kids be taken and she be killed or left to die because she did something illegal once? Have you ever driven over the speed limit? That could have killed someone, and is illegal, but I'm guessing you don't want to resign your right to benefit from the remnants of the welfare state- pensions, NHS, etc, right?

I lived in (very acceptable) social accomodation til my son was three and his father and I retrained for careers. We were very lucky. We had qualifications which meant that we COULD retrain. I am as liberal as they come in theory, but admit a slightly DM tendency towards bitterness from my time in a very low income full time job which netted me £40 a week more than my friend downstairs who didn't work. Blushes at being annoyed, but to be honest, I was at the time Also - my friend downstairs had many fewer options than us.

"I lived on South London estates in the 1980's, where everybody was on benefits, and housed in council accommodation.

There was no crime, other than the occasional break in, which was a common occurrence during that time, no matter where you lived."

LOLWTF? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brixton_riot

Didn't they have newspapers in the 80s either, or what?

In NI we will lose about 20,000 public sector staff over the few years that is a massive number of jobs for us.
We will be totally unable to absorb it.

The young will be massively damaged by this and it is a Tory policy. That is why people are blaming the Tories

CRS - it seems now you wouldn't even get 40 more. You might even get less.

Some mothers really are unfit, though.

I'm not necessarily saying this one is (though where the hell is her kid whilst she's out looting gleefully) but some of them are. I have seen too many children go through hell by judges and social workers who favored reunification at all costs.

I know a family with three little ones who have been bounced back and forth between their mother and grandmother at least five times. Their parents have serious substance abuse issues, and while I feel for them, their children should not have to pay the price.

Thankfully, their parental rights have been revoked and the children are splitting time between their grandmother and a fabulous foster family down the road.

I don't care if it makes me sound like a facist. If you cannot take loving care of your children and raise them to be a stable member of society, then you should not have them.

Perhaps people shouldn't rely on the state so much, for a job, for benefits, for a house. Labour spent so much money expanding the public sector but they didn't pay for it. They got the credit for it (ha literally) but they didn't pay for it at the time. You're paying for it now and so am I, so is everyone.

porc I do understand your point and annoyance at the 'bad mothers' who don't take good care of dc's. I do also wish that girls who are not capable of parenting due to the effects of their own poor (neglected/ abused btw as opposed to without money) upbringing could be deterred .........but as everyone has said it is not that simple........... but you are right that the cycle of violence, neglect and abuse quite often continues. Children who are unsupervised from a young age leads to trouble later in life. Children without guidance or boundaries go on to rule their parents as teenagers and are more likely to commit crimes/ show disregard for authority etc. (I can reference that btw but it might take time as I can't remember where I read it). Often the people who could benefit from parenting courses the most don't want to attend them or can't attend for various reasons/ excuses . Children are often witnessing violence at home and then the feeling of being out of control means that they feel a need to take control over part of their life. This can then continue the cycle when kids join gangs to establish an identity and raise self esteem .

Well said perFedTic

Our downfall was not public sector but rather the allowed decline in manufacturing and technology coupled with the lack of focus in geographical areas that needed it most.

For those people who work for instance for the civil service..they did not expect their jobs to end..why would they? Many of those people are well educated public servants now wondering wildly what they can do.
Try to have some empathy and compassion

It just needs to be "worth more" to them to put off having children. How do we make that happen?

Would most of us have dared to behave in the way these rioters have? I know I wouldn't. I was told in no uncertain terms that if I ever brought the police to my parents door that I should worry when they left and clearly it worked because I never did commit any crime.

Perry I would have had far more empathy if it was people who had been made redundant ransacking the council offices........ these riots were an excuse for some greedy waste of space yobs to cash in .

and in answer to the op, I completely agree that if people (not just young mums) choose to break the law and destroy public property then they should lose their rights to benefits forthwith. Perhaps they would think twice before doing it then and if they still do it knowing the consequences then who's fault is it and if that leads to an unfit mother losing her child to fostering/adoption who's fault is it. Criminals choose to be criminals while the rest of society choose to provide for their families in a law abiding way. As for jobs being difficult to come by .........tosh.........if you can't get one where you live then move to somewhere else..........thats what has happened throughout history............migration for work. Supermarkets are always advertising, pubs, care homes etc are endless. The trouble is that people don't want to do anything they perceive as being beneath them.

Er,where do they find the money from to move if they aren't working?

they find a job move to a hostel until they can afford the down payment for rent . Oh and before I get speil about not understanding how it is, I have been homeless and penniless.

if you are in council paid lodgings then it is possible to have the rent paid somewhere else.

Hear hear thecaptaincrocfamily.

I have one relative who felt that starting on the bottom rung in a firm was beneath him (even though he was young and had few qualifications). He seemed to think he should be going in as MD he had such a high opinion of himself.

I think Britain does have a problem with people thinking some jobs are beneath them. Menial jobs are looked down on in some quarters yet many are socially important and society would be all the poorer if they weren't being done.

Hostels take self referral families now do they?

Tif my husband would make himself homeless (and also has been in the past) if it meant being able to access a hostel in a new area to find work. There are plenty of opportunities to get out of poverty but most people find an excuse reason for not finding employment. When I was penniless I joined the forces which I knew would provide a good income even though it wasn't something I previously wanted to do. There is work for those who really want it. Likewise I am now working in a supermarket because since completing my PG Dip I was unable to find work and needed an income immediately without having to wait for a CRB. Lots of people are lazy and have the state option.

Not read the whole thread but anyone who thinks council flats are easy to get wants to try getting social housing nowadays.. When fleeing an abusive relationship with a child I was looking at being lucky to get a hostel and the waiting list then (5 yrs ago) was two years.

I suspect the situation hasn't improved since then.

Those who are blaming the Tory/Liberal Coalition for the cuts in public spending are clearly suffering from selective amnesia of the type that afflicated one Anthony Blair and his cohorts Perry.

Perhaps someone has constructive suggestions as to where young people who have spent the majority of their lives in the care of Social Services should be housed when they are booted out of the uncaring system at the age of 18 or, in some local authorities, 16?

Going back to the OP's point isn't this about who should take responsibility for pregnant teenagers. The difficulty is that the mothers of today's pregnant teenagers probably were also once pregnant teenagers and 20 years ago it was easier to get a council flat if your mother threw you out because you were pregnant. What we have therefore is the result of 3 or 4 generations where family units have been diluted and where it is the norm to be expected to be housed and paid for by the state. Often not housed nicely or provided with enough for luxuries but provided for in any event. Up until the sixties the parents of pregnant girls were expected to take responsiblity for them and if they did not and made them homeless then the welfare state took over - this regrettable became the norm very quickly especially in cultures where it had never been the norm for fathers to be closely involved in family life but where it was usual and accepted for men to roam more freely from woman to woman and family to family.

If parents in some parts of the population are not prepared or are unable to support and pass on good parenting skills to their pregnant teenage daughters why wouldn't it be a good idea to set up hostels for teenage mothers where under supervision they can be taught parenting skills and have support to obtain foundation skills that will enable them to run a home independently and later to obtain work. I don't understand why it is wrong to point out that overall the children of single parents, especially single teenage mothers tend to do less well than children from families where there are two parents (and that isn't saying mothers should stay in abusive relationships or there are no good single mothers or mothers who are single for reasons beyond their control) and where anyone who does say it is decried as a facist.

There are huge parts of society where stability needs to be reintroduced, where basic moral values need to be reinstroduced and where a little discipline and respect for authority needs to be reintroduced. I can go down a local shopping centre any day of the week and hear a parent effing and blinding at a child or dragging a small child by the arm off the floor in frustration and anger. And these are by no means the parents who are the worst but there is a horrendous divide because there are two types of parents in that shopping centre and it is crystal clear that the two types do not inhabit the same worlds.