To ask you for compassion and to watch this.

[morethanpotatoprints]

I have been appalled at the lack of compassion and empathy shown to a poster seeking help on these threads. Despite trying to find work and succeeding the family are being failed by the welfare system. I don't think they are alone in this and believe there will be many more.

AIBU to ask you to show some support for these families, to offer suggestions or advice to help them support their families?
Not to judge and name call rather than help.

If you think I am being unreasonable, or if you are a young parent please watch my link. It's quite harrowing though. Please spare 5 mins.

Laurie.

Yes you are right, but that afaik isn't the main problem.
The government are moving the goal posts and making it harder for people to be entitled to benefit in any form. There are people who are employed leaving them unable to claim benefit and the job doesn't pay enough for them to survive.
You can see the changes already with the increase in food banks.
Couple this with government propaganda "feckless, Strivers and Skivers" and how many in society are falling for this, we are heading towards situations that arose in CCH. We may think, but it won't come to this, society is different now. But is it?. When society starts to blame the victims we are in trouble.

I watched the news last night with the lady who lives in London on benefits of £30k. Should she receive £30k to live in London or should she have to move somewhere cheaper? There are valid arguments either way aren't there? What do we do with a limited pot of money? Or how do we increase that pot? Will someone want to pay more tax so that she can live in London as opposed to somewhere cheaper? What is the answer?

Suede.
Soon there will be no option where this lady lives as we are moving towards mass homelessness.
Benefits are being cut to the most needy in the country, and the rise in single parents being moved into hostels is becoming evident too. I have a neice currently living in another area who this has just happened to.
Its not a case of paying more tax, but the government prioritising a working welfare state. It has nothing to do with a limited pot of money, its distributuion of wealth which is the problem. There are couples earning up to 90k still recieving cb, they do not need this, when there are people being made homeless.

Suede.

I'm sorry I meant to add.

I started this thread and included the link because the similarities today are similar to those when the film was made.

The ineffective welfare system, unaffordable housing, a growing number of society lacking understanding and/ or compassion, a government forming this society to judge and condemn the victims. Government announcing openly that they believe that responsibility is with the individual.

Even now there are people who believe that families should be split and dc taken into care if the parents can't provide for them. Ok, they are thankfully a minority but even a few is too many.

As my OP said, please spare 5 mins and watch the link.

Even by understanding where the problems lie you are better informed so you won't be tempted by propaganda to judge, even if you don't have the answers

"There seems to be a habit of denying whats happening on your own doorstep (brilliantly demonstrated by Chocolate on that other thread.) The Americans do it too. Pretending that the huge "tent cities" dont exist.
And people tend to vote for what they aspire to be than rather what they actually are (both here and in the US) there seems to be a terrible ingrained snobbery in society now."

Darkesteyes- how dare you try and portray me as some sort of poor hater who doesn't beleive there are poor people in the country. The only thing i was pointing out in the other thread was people use the word poverty instead of poor, i never said people weren't in dire straits and many many posts on the thread demonstated this. When you want to paint someone a certain way it's very easy to overlook what they are actually saying and just go for the obvious "they must hate poor people and don't believe they exist" nonsense.

I help my husband run his food business - at the end of each day instead of either throwing it away, selling it unfresh the next day and posing it as fresh or reducing it the next day to make some money from it we donate it all to a local night shelter. We don't advertise the fact we do this to our community, it just gets done.

I don't sell things the kids no longer use or that i use - i donate it to charity, give it to friends or give it to others i may know who i think will like it. Not because i am rolling in it nor because i couldn't use the extra money, not to be smug or patronising - I do it because i see there are people in desperate need for it and will really apprieciate it, especially being from a very background myself i know how much people need it. Last week i gave a lady at work a couple of In the night garden duvet covers (that my kids were grown up out of night garden.) Now i could have just put them on ebay and got a few quid for them but instead i knew this lady has 2 kids of that age who would really adore these covers and the lady was so grateful because she is very hard up and her kids were very happy.

I also volunteer at a family support group where i see weekly families who are vunerable (especially with mental health, a cause close to my heart.) Plus i do something where i visit pentioners so they have someone to talk to. I enjoy talking to older people as they are very interesting and again it's something close to my heart.

So don't paint me to be some cold hearted person with no compassion just because i was (pointlessly) trying to use the word poor instead of poverty on the other thread. I am not rich by any mean and i always help those who need things and help where i can.

I'm glad you stuck up for yourself Chocolate, it's really poor form to do what the poster did!

"But of course people might feel compassion for mothers with mental health problems so let's portray them as pissed up thieving druggies instead, eh."

Oh yes that is very true. Mental health is still so taboo and it's a sad state of affairs when it's fine to talk about drug and alcohol related abuse yet mental health problems must be kept hush hush.

My spelling is shoking when i type fast without thinking

shocking

soooo not BU

Its scary how fast we have moved to being a society that seems to hate poor people

cant even watch it

Chocolate I don't think Cameron neglected to mention that that most families covered by the scheme were affected by MH problems because it's deemed taboo (though I agree it is unacceptably so). I think he deliberately misrepresented them as families whose members have drug/alcohol/crime problems because he wanted those families to be demonised.

Think about how sick that is - the triple whammy of the mother of a family (and therefore the rest of the family) struggling with mental health problems, having less access to services because of cuts then being painted as irresponsible and criminal.

As a society we are becoming less and less compassionate. People cite individual cases (like the £30k claimant above, and of course Heathet Frost) because they'd prefer to think that this country is full of rich benefit scroungers rather than the truth that poverty exists and is growing in the UK. It's a convenient untruth but the net result is that we will start seeing more and more Cathys if we allow ourselves collectively to be duped by this propaganda.

Fair enough Chocolate but i didnt know any of that because you didnt mention it on the other thread.

Just c and p this in .

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1694319--to-feel-slightly-annoyed-when-people-claim-to-be-living-in-poverty

Didnt they change the criteria for being troubled several times? And I wonder why the amount of families being concidered as troubled has not changed at all even when they moved the goal posts for what constituted troubled.

I have mental health issues due to being sexually abused as a child. I "wonder" why people like me are being demonised??

Oh and I don't have a drink/drug problem (the survivors I know who do have have been horrendously, systematically abused over a long time period) I don't have a criminal record.

I do have to justify myself.

I have found 4 jobs today, 1 is over 2hrs away, 1 is for 8hrs, 1 is for debt collection, 1 is retail and will be applied for by over 100 people.

Off to fill out applications.

IlianaDupree can i ask what your CV is like? I mean is it run of the mill? I ask this because i have been on the other end of the spectrum as the one being faced with the 100 CVs to fill one position and after a will they all blend into one. For instance i tend to skip the parts that tell me someone is self motivated/good at working as part of team/good at problem solving etc because most of it is the same drivel stuff and only when something different is written does it catch my eye. Like one caught my eye because it the person said they had a cracking sense of humur (not relevant in every case) but my point is it caught my eye and i wanted to meet her.

Lots of people have a CV that is worded the same as everyone else and so gets overlooked on the pile. Another thing i like is people who come in to see if a job is going or apply in person (again not relevant in some cases) because it shows me they are really motivated and it makes me want to give time for them.

Darkesteyes - i know i didn't mention on the other thread. I would think when i said phases like "most people struggling on benefits are hard working families," "there are poor people in this country living dire straits," and "we have a moral duty to help the poorest in our society" would have given it away that i wasn't same poor hating benefit basher. The problem was i was (again pointlessly) saying the people who say poverty mean poor which led to people not seeing beyond that and seeing i was actually acknowledging we do have poor people in the UK and they do need to be helped. It's more fun i guess to jump on the band wagon to bring someone down.

In the end i did have to step away because the draw back with the internet is you can get sucked in and as a vulnerable person myself i have to step away from the computer before i get to distressed (not said for any sympathy at all because i hate that, just saying why sometimes when people are reading you wrong it's fun for them to jump on the band wagon without a care) and i am old enough now to step away whereas when i was younger i would keep going and get myself in a state.

Darkesteyes - i have just seen what you wrote on that other thread about me. I haven't "drip fed" anything. Do i go around wanting praise and bosting about all my good deeds? No. Do i write about these good deeds to stick up for myself when i as being portrayed on a thread that i wasn't even on (this one) as somesort of benefit bashing poor hater - yes.

You clearly have it in for me for some reason, purhaps because i am not the person you were trying to make me out to be. Also copying and pasting my quotes from this thread onto another one to try and make yourself look good and saying on that thread "i have twisted it to make you look like the horrible one" is just not a nice thing to do.

Chocolate, ok cv, could be tweaked a bit, I hate the personal profile bit but someone has given me some tips on eeking it the way you've said. I get interviews but panic explaining taking 4 years off to be a sahm when I was in therapy for child abuse. I struggle with phone calls but have got my foot in somewhere by cold calling them.

Good for you for volunteering, I have a couple and it's a great way to give something back but it's not something I shout about due to confidentiality.

As for board arguments, bad form and should be reported. It happens to everyone, I've had it, just report, lifes too short. Thanks for your help btw

Don't panik, just think of anything you have learned/done in those 4 years that would be handy for work such as multi tasking etc. Good for you for getting therapy, i had some too last year for something along similer lines and it helps no end (but also the scariest thing in tnhe world too.)

Yes i like volunteering and yes, i don't really tell people because then they ask questions that i cannot answer due to confidentiality too - i would especially not write down peoples stories i have from the group i volunteer at on the internet!

panic even!

Just to set the record straight, the title of my thread incorporated anybody who had said derogatory words to the person/ people seeking help on other threads. I know that nobody had implied this but wanted to be clear on this.

It was the fact I was shocked by the many negative and judgmental posts that saddened me and made me want to try to inform others who didn't know, how bad the situations could eventually become.

MoreThan, I purposely haven't looked at that thread as I know it'd make me cry wuss and really appreciate that you care enough to raise this one. Sorry if I'm derailing a bit, I'm at the bottom and I don't even know if getting a job will be financially safer? I'm scared and I don't have a young family

Choco, have just filled out an application for a job by talking about the 4 years I took out to manage my little empire :) it'll either win or bomb. Good luck with you xx feels crazily over emotion