To be really upset to read on MN

[shootingstarz]

That parents are going without food because they can?t afford to feed their kids.

Wreck - Yeh I thought that

Howdid you pass the MNers intelligence test wreck?

Lesley I think by saying you manged so you cant see how others can't is a bit patronising.

All of the people on this thread are literate. How do you think it would be to be an adult with or without children and you can't read or write on a functional level? There are about 7 million adults in the UK who can't read or write at a 'functional'level. Not all of them will be living in poverty or skip meals to feed their children but some of them will.

Fair enough Tufty. I know that I can cook well, that I can get advice on money saving, understand bank charges, etc.

My mum told me once that she grew to like that feeling of emptiness she got when she hadn't eaten for a day - despite working full time - because it meant that we kids had been fed. And we had a massive garden and grew all our own fruit and veg, so it wasn't like that had to be bought. That was less than 50 years ago.

We have food banks all over the country now. The number has more than doubled over the last year. more and more people are sinking into poverty. Luckily, the top earners have slightly less tax to pay as the pensioners are taking up the slack, so there'll still be some well-fed people outside Westminster.

It is disgraceful.

Wasabi, just because you know 3 people who cope on benefits you can't believe that others struggle? I am someone who currently copes on benefits. I am well educated, was working in a fairly well paid professional job before my darling H and I agreed that I should leave work to become a SAHM. Roll on a few years and my darling H is now a wanker Ex-H who left me for a woman half his age. I am constrained by childcare costs / practicalities and so cannot go back to my old profession (not that I could anyway as it has moved on since I left). In fact I attended a lone parent advisory session at my local job centre about a month ago. The very helpful chap input a bunch of details into the computer and we discovered together that unless I earned about 40k a year I would most definitely be WORSE OFF if I went back to work, because of childcare costs / lost benefits etc. He was very apologetic, but stated that this was often the case.

Oh and by the way people do not get their mortgages paid off by benefits. They will have the interest portion paid up to a very low percentage that is generally lower than most fixed rates that are currently ongoing.

I am digressing. The only reason I currently cope in my benefits situation is because my ex still pays me maintenance and my parents are very supportive. So luckily I will be able to go back to work and take the financial hit as I have this support network behind me. Take away these two support systems and I would be utterly fucked.

This thread is terrible and I am very sorry to all those who are struggling so much.

Plus I could write a small essay on the idea that to prove that poverty exists poor people should be demonstrably thinner than well off people. The ignorance is astounding. Some of you are truly blessed to live in your little bubbles. Just remember, bubbles are burst, very very easily.

Jux - i think a lot of younger people don't understand the depth of poverty in the recent past. I am 47. As a young kid we lived in 2 rooms - 1 small bedroom and 1 room that was bedroom/kitchen and living room. No hot running water or bathroom and outside toilet shared with lots of other families. For a bath you went to the slipper baths at local swimming pool. And there were lots of families in similar circumstances.

This wasn't temporary housing or for homeless families, just standard family accommodation. And when I was a baby we had all lived in worse - just one double room.

Sorry Lesley, I'm not trying to be wankish but I encounter this on a daily basis at work (I teach teenagers/adults with low levels of literacy/numeracy). Some of them have SEN. Some of them live in absolute poverty, 4 adults and 3 children in a 2 bedroom flat? Adults working minimum wage, usually night/shift work. Then come to college knackered because they are so desperate to learn to read and write. They can't even write a birthday card to their children but they are allowed to work with hazardous cleaning chemicals. They sign loan agreements they don't understand. They cry because they can't help DC with their homework. They live on Jacobs crackers so their children can eat. That is the tip of a very big iceburg.

I apologise for the rant. We've got no tv signal. Again.

Can I just say though, the competitive 'we lived on nought when I were a nipper' will very soon lead to someone saying they only had coal to eat

That sucks Lesley, but just because people have lived like that, does it mean that the poor, in a country where more people are Super rich than ever before, should go back to the bad old days?

It doesn't matter if you are a genius though. There is only so much you can do with a tiny amount no matter how hard you try. Obviously if you have low levels of literacy etc it will be even more difficult but even well educated people can struggle.

I am not talking about a 2 bedroom flat. I am talking about 2 small rooms period. 1 room large enough for 1 double bed. 1 room size of double room with fire to cook on, 1 cold water sink, enough space for sofa and a built in small double bed area.

And no of course people should have decent housing. I am not trying to be competitive about poverty here. Just saying these kind of conditiosn realy really were not unusual 35-40 years ago.

I do understand how lack of literacy and numeracy could lead people into desperate situations.

*While I believe this happens, I find it hard to believe that there aren't other factors involved in parents becoming so desparate that they have to eat next to nothing in order to feed their children properly.

I appreciate that for people who have found themselves in this position that it would be very anger inducing to be disbelieved, but the truth is, I do find it hard to believe. That's because the benefits in this country are fairly generous, and I know plenty of people that live soley on benefits that have more than enough to feed themselves and their families.

I can believe that there maybe cock ups at the benefits office that lead to people being very short of money, but I don't see how parents can end up in that position I father are getting what they are entitled too.
*

Sorry, only got as far as this post, and felt I had to say something. Being poor isn't just affecting those who live on benefits. DP and I both work full time, but we are very poor. This comes from paying a massive mortgage for a shit house. It is just the way things are. We were pissed about something shocking whilst renting (moved 3 times in a year), got onto the housing ladder about 5 years ago as we thought this would be the best solution all round, but we are really struggling. We don't buy clothes, only out of necessity, and wear the same things till they wear out.

We have never had a holiday in 10 years, only visited family a couple of times in all that time. We are not entitled to benefits and when the money runs out, that's it. We are currently selling everything we can think of to raise cash to get us out of the shit. And that is only for the here and now. The car is forever needing money to be spent on it, but we can't be without it as public transport only runs every 3 hours.

All we do is work hard to enable us to get to work and back. We never go out, and by that I mean never. Our weekends consist of pottering about in the house. He should be on a special diet for diabetes but we have to buy what we can afford. We aren't as badly off as some people but please don't think that it is hard to believe. I am dreading our fixed rate mortgage coming to an end, as we could well find ourselves out on our ears. We could end up being in the position where the kids have to eat and we don't. Very soon.

How can someone not be able to afford food, but be able to afford a working computer with internet? Surely the latter is a luxury?

dontwakeupyet, I raised the same thing hours ago and was flamed. Internet is a neccessity not a luxury apprently. For job hunting. All well and good until you pass out at the interview from lack of food.

I think it's a sorry state of affairs when internet is not seend as a luxury and eating is.

I can 100% see how this is happening, I am a phd student (female and intelligent and skint) and so I get some funding but there is no way I could pay for nursery and rent, food and travel the price which everything is now. I am exceedingly fortunate that my DH is employed in a good job but on my own it just wouldn't be possible. We have to visit out hospital regularly and it's £2 if you park for over 30min, so it's always more than £2, and the alternative is a bus which is £3.40, it's too far to walk and we can't cycle due to DD's medical problem rendering it impossible to put her on the back of a bike.

saying that we have cut back every way we can, we don't see family as frequently (and so less opportunity for childcare) because of the price of petrol. I regulary feed DH, then DD and then I will have the smaller portion. If we run out of bread or milk due to poor planning then I go without, it's like a default switch that DD and DH must be fed first. We have been on one short holiday off season in 2 years and DH earns significantly more than average but we are squeezed every which way, we have no debt, we don't smoke, we don't go to the gym or waste money. DH does have a few beers at home on a Friday, I mostly bake as it's cheaper and we have cut down on meat in a big way due to cost.

There are some really interesting points on this thread, one I certainly agree with is the services available via the Internet meaning that not having it causes greater restrictions to be placed on the family. Answers, I don't have any, I don't know how we got in this state but given the total apathy at the way the country is being run into the ground I don't see how anything will change until everyone stands up to be counted, the changes to the NHS being a case in point.

Our computer was bought a while ago before DH was made redundant. Our internet is only £1 a week and is put to good use job hunting and paying bills to avoid the bus fare to the nearest town. Ironically saves us money.

Oh FFS!!!!! Your bubble must be bloody lovely.

Serious question, how are you getting the internet for a quid a week?!

I wondered that and want to know for my bills

The Best Things: Most people On Benefits ARE working.

dontewakeupyet: My laptop cost £50 years ago. The internet is a utility now.
I work freelance for one of my jobs, and could not do this with no internet.

We already live in a two tier society.

Those who own a house-those who rent privately.
Those who have a car-those who spent an hour in total today waiting for (privatised) buses that never come (and don't forget time is money).
Those who pay nothing for credit-those who pay far too much (free to those that can afford it-very expensive to those that can't.)
Those who pay bills by dd-Those who pay more to feed money into a meter.

I expect you would like to add Those who are connected to the World Wide Web, and should be even further isolated from society to the ever growing list of the have-nots-and-should-shut-the-fuck-up-and-be-grateful-for-their-food-stamps.

Lesley: I remember my mum crying as she washed nappies in the copper - she's allergic to detergent; her hands and arms were always raw. I remember trapping my baby sister's hand in the mangle as I (age 5) squeezed out the laundry. I remember Mum sending me to ask the butcher for bones for the dog (we had no dog) as he would guess we couldn't afford any meat and would make the 'bones' meaty. I remember getting dressed & undressed in bed because of the cold, having chilblains all winter, rubbing the mould off cheese with salt and other kids laughing at my home-made clothes from curtain material.

Is all this all right? My parents' generation bust their guts to make sure future generations would have better economic security. This country was still paying for the war then, but the focus was on a brighter future. I don't consider it okay to settle for so little now, or such hardship, simply because it's been done before. We had trench warfare within living memory, does that make it acceptable again?

That attitude is as cruel and silly as the "worse for the poor in Bangla Desh" posts - insulting and invalidating.

Finding a job is our only chance of getting out of this situation. Our chances are slim as it is when your chances of a future are so low you grasp at any opportunity.

Just try and imagine how you would feel every day knowing that not only do you have no future but you have sentenced your children to having no future thanks to your failure. I can tell you it destroys you bit by bit.

wreck - How old are you? Not trying to be patronising about this, but I wonder if you are young. I don't consider access to the internet a necessity but wonder if this is because I am old gimmer.

Our computer broke 2years ago. It took us about a year before we got a laptop and were on the internet again. Not because of lack of money, but before I discovered MN, we only really used the internet to book holidays. And during that year just popped into library for few times we needed to get on.

Obviously different if you need it for freelance work.

By having one tiny peace of luck and having a download limit. Or do we not deserve that either. Do us scummy poor need put in our place?

Oh, yes, and midwives quietly suffocated babies born disabled - as they likely do in Bangla Desh today. Yeah, let's remember the good old days.

garlic- I did say that I don't want anybody living like this nowdays. It wasn't right then and its not right now. But my op about this was in response partly to a post about poverty 50 years ago. And I was saying that that sadly wasn't that unusual.