If you're poor it's basically your own fault, isn't it?

[ReputableBiscuit]

I'm so sick of this attitude, in society in general and on MN specifically. Some people just don't seem to have the imagination to realise that poverty is a complex thing and fucking hard to escape. 'Why don't you try budgeting?', 'how can you call yourself poor when you have a big TV?', 'give up smoking then you won't be poor'. 'Cook from scratch.' It's just not as simple as that. Unemployment, disability, mental health problems, social disadvantage, debt, benefits stoppages... none of these are magically undone by somebody writing a list of their outgoings or learning to cook a hearty potato soup.

I think so many factors are in play it's difficult to know what the answers are. Sorry this is long!.

Both my parents came from really poor backgrounds (really big families), both left school at 15 with no qualifications and got married at 19. At that time my Dad was working down the pit and my Mum worked in a supermarket. They had me and my brother in their early 20s.

We lived in a deprived area and my brother and I were quite bright and the local primary schools weren't great. This was the 80s and private schools did have scholarships available and my brother and I did entrance exams and were offered places at good private schools for secondary. My parents did have to pay an amount and they worked all hours to pay and we didn't have holidays or a car etc.

My Mum and Dad were basically told they should 'know their place' by family members and I did have a hard time being the 'poor kid' in a private school. I feel terrible saying this now but I never had friends over because I felt embarrassed because we lived in a council house and they all lived in huge houses. I was the kid with the second hand uniform who could never afford to go on all the school trips abroad.

I am the only person on both sides of my family to get a degree. I decided to be a Nurse which did cause my parents a bit of disappointment as they wanted me to be a Dr or a lawyer!.

Some of my cousins work and do ok for themselves but some are in and out of prison, have drug or alcohol problems and one died a few years ago of a heroin overdose.

We ALL came from the same gene-pool and the same background so what was the difference?. I do think a lot of it was our differences in education but not just that. Going to a private school was hard for me but it was a privilege and it WAS just luck that at that time, private schools gave more scholarships and my parents thought education was so important.

It wasn't just the qualifications I got, it was the fact I got to mix with people from more fortunate backgrounds and see different lifestyles and different attitudes to life. I was given a different perspective and different aspirations and my cousins never had those opportunities.

I'm close to a lot of my cousins, they are lovely people but we are very different. It really annoys me when they ask me to help them write 'official letters' or speak to 'authority figures' for them because I 'talk well and know all the right words'. It enrages me to be honest because knowing how to do these things and present yourself well should be something that EVERYONE should be able to do and not just because I was lucky enough (with my parents hard work and good attitudes towards education) to have had a fab education.

I posted earlier in this thread about service users on my caseload who are in their 30s who have never worked and are barely literate. One of them once asked "why didn't I grow up 'good' like you?" .Which is a heartbreaking question in itself. I said we just had different opportunities and went to different schools and he said "nah, you can't blame it on that neverthebride, I never really bothered to go to school". There's a big reason right there!.

A great and well rounded education should be available to ALL and we shouldn't just accept that young people can leave school without the very basic skills in literacy and numeracy (without specific sn) and every child SHOULD have someone that cares whether they go to school or not.

never I think the key for you apart from your own intelligence and motivation was two solid parents encouraging you academically and the aspiration of mixing with better off people. The second comprehensive I went to was in an affluent area and while it was hard being one of a handful of free school meal kids living in a council house it did give me that aspiration you describe. I had to keep up with middle class kids with private tutors and ambitions.

A good education should be available to all and it's heartbreaking that kids turn up to school late, hungry and unmotivated. They are already disadvantaged.

NeverTheBride

"......but it was a privilege and it WAS just luck...."

No it wasn't. You earned it. I went to a grammar school with a background similar to yours. My XH went to a secondary modern and his parents owned their house. He always called me 'privileged'. I wasn't. I earned it and my mother enjoyed telling people that I'd won a scholarship.

Talking about being 'privileged' means that you are thinking the same way as those members of your family who achieved less.

My parents both came from very poor backgrounds. Loving but poor.
Worked hard all their lives, terrible health due in part to poor living conditions and both died early 60's
They came from hard workers though
I think the impact of drugs and alcohol is not fully realised. My parents were not brought up with drugs or excessive drinking (alcohol would have been rare, small sherry at xmas perhaps)
My daughter (adopted) suffers the effects of drugs and alcohol, the impact on her is massive and I fear for her future
She does not have the social skills or reasoning other children her age have
How many of the non-working, poor educated poor have similar?

I think people like to make poor other - another group they can never be a part of. They forget illness or bad luck can strike anyone.

I do think Laquitar has a point. DH was made surprisingly redundant when I was pg with 3 DC s so many people tried to make it our fault and that was with us never getting to the stage where we need to ask for help - it took months fro him to find another job.

Most sympathetic friends and family were those who were facing similar or had in the past been made redundant and were aware of the job market.

My IL were the worst having ago at DH. Within two years hey were in similar boat - with MIL being unskilled - and were shocked at how hard it was to find work or how much competition there was for supermarket jobs.

Sparkly is right.

I am not saying theres always a reason so it's imoossible to escape poverty.

Im saying there are many reasons so dont blame people and call them feckless.

Whilst it is seen as aspirational to do well from a poor background our educational system is failing. Whether academically or vocationally doing well should be the same expectancy in all state schools, tables show that whilst children can still achieve at failing schools the odds are against them before they even begin.

five I find your passive aggressive accusations of bitterness really telling. You seem to dismiss any attempt to engage with your views albeit disagreeing with them, as bitterness or having chips on shoulders. Alongside your "pride" in never having claimed benefits I think this paints an extremely clear picture of the kind of person you are and the views you hold.

You assume I am bitter, why would this be? I have told you I am the mother to two autistic children, am I bitter about that? You tell me. Am I bitter that my marriage didn't work out? Perhaps YOU might be bitter about these things but I am not. My children are perfect and I made my ex H leave, I adore my own space. Perhaps you assume I must be bitter about these things because you would be? This tells me you have a rather limited way of thinking and therefore confirms my opinion of your lack of real awareness of the subject matter being discussed on this thread.

People are poor because they are on a low income, not because they smoke. Being on a low income is shit, smoker or non-smoker.

Sparkly I can't be bothered to engage.

fanjo you are right of course, there are many reasons but there are solutions too and moomin was citing ESA as an example of a solution to the situation she described. If you see everything as a reason not to do something then it's hard to move on and change your situation and many on here have proven that you can change your situation.

Hobbet sorry you faced such negativity when DH was made redundant. Hope things are better.

roadwalker drugs send alcohol are a blight and too easily available now. I think it has become more of a problem and subsequent generations of children are suffering the consequences.

I do agree that in the case of people with disabled children/disabilities themselves or unexpected illness or redundancy then there is no choice and therefore unavoidable. However in these circumstances there are cut backs that can be made to make available funds stretch further.

Some other situations are avoidable.

I once had about £50 to my name, no job and no home. I didn't sign on or claim a single benefit. I fought back and am now very comfortable. (With no help from family or anyone else, with the exception of a sofa to sleep on for a couple of weeks)

You've not engaged at all! You've dismissed every point I have made as down to bitterness and having a chip on my shoulder. Doesn't exactly lead to intelligent debate does it? It's just one step up from the "you're just jealous!" argument favoured by school age children.

I also think that the increasing responsibility on parents to not only extend / enrich their children's education but in some cases to almost take the lead to ensure certain things are covered sufficiently, because of a combination of funding cuts for support (especially for children of lower academic ability), failings within the national curriculum and the bureaucracy therein, targets which are wholly academic-achievement driven etc, only widen the gap between those lucky enough to have supportive parents and those who don't, and so make it even less likely that the latter group will succeed despite the odds.

I find it sad that people are so judgemental of what they see as "feckless" or "selfish" parents who don't have the wherewithal to do everything their child needs, without stopping to think that these are the same people as the "poor unsupported children" they were feeling sorry for five or ten years ago precisely because they were the product of the same "feckless" parenting. How exactly are they supposed to have broken the cycle collectively without some fairly serious and sustained social and educational intervention - intervention which has been pretty much lacking in any joined-up, state-funded way, and where it did exist in a piecemeal fashion has been first in line for austerity measures cuts?

Actually eminybob there IS a choice, we could start speaking up for disabled people or parents of disabled children, we could start campaigning and demanding fair payments for Carers and the work they do instead of vilifying them in the feckless poor bracket. Advice on how to eke out a chicken ONLY makes the person giving advice feel any good, I can assure you of that.

My sister has no money and it's all her frigging fault

4 years agao she inherited 100k plus a flat with no mortgage in London and a car she proceed to sell the Nissan and get a BMW on HP she got into some rental thing with a man she was having an affair with rathern than rent the house to the council which we suggested it now transpires one of the documents she sighned gave him over the flat dispite my fil being a barrister she wouldn't let any of us look at what he was making her sighs so in love was she "he would never do anything to hurt me said sister"
The 100k is now 2k and was spent over the four years on taking 12 friends to dinsey land , concerts paying for her friends wedding in Jamaica yes fucking Jamaica rather than keeping up with her children school fees who now are at a shitty state school all the money she has is going on the HP on the car

So personally it's her own fault we advised that she rent the flat to the council , drive the car she was left and uses the 100k partly yo educate her chikdren and the other part to buy a 20% share in her HA house the money would of also allowed her to buy a small carvan up Devon so the kids could have a hoilday

She did none of this now she is broke and living on welfare and is useing the remaing 2k to keep hold of her BMW the whole thing is shameful

That money could of kept her for life and given her children a real chance

I think ESA explains the attitude to benefits in a microcosm. So many of my middle class acquaintances, some of them teachers, would trot out examples of people frauding the ESA system, by being self employed of having an extremely wealthy but non resident parent or whatever.
"I'm a teacher and I can't afford to give my kid that kind of money. That kid spends all their ESA on clothes and going out anyway, not books and bus fare."
They entirely missed the point that, regardless of the fraudsters, it did a good job of keeping kids from poor backgrounds in education, and more able to access further opportunities.

Am from quite a large family and an one of the few who escaped poverty. This is mainly down to luck because of the following :
I was the cleverest
I had no mental health issues
I was lucky to meet my husband
I was lucky that when I have applied for jobs that nobody better applied
I was lucky that when I applied for my university place I clearly filled some kind of " let in a poor kid" quota

I also think that refusing to take 'any' job isn't necessariy a sign of laziness. If a job is not only shit but will leave you worse off, why take it? Again, I think that some of the smug idiots on this thread really haven';t got a clue how much things have changed. Fifteen or twenty years ago, it was still possible to take on an entry-level job and be aware that it might be hard work for low money but you would be able to use it as a starting point to move on to something better. Nowadays, most of those jobs are zero-hours contracts, minimum wage with decudtions for things like uniform and equipment, or you have to buy uniform and equipment, or you're expected to work a couple of weeks on trial ie for no money, which poor people can't afford to do.

And a problem with the media presentation of poverty is that poor people can't get jobs in the media, so their voices are not heard. To get a job in the media is impossible now without wealthy parents or independent wealth, as 'trainees' and 'interns' are expected to work for months without being paid - to be booted out at the end of the alloted time so that more unpaid labour can be brought in to replace them. Just about everyone in the media now considers the poor 'other', subhuman, Not Like Us, because the ones who have the jobs have already got money behind them.

tossedeggs smoking can be a factor in poverty. It is a waste of money. I am an exsmoker (a heavy extremely addicted one) it was very difficult for me to give up but that amount of money did make a difference. Spending x amount of money on anything can tip someone over the edge. It can mean the difference between 'managing' till the next payday or having to take a trip to chequecashers for a payday loan,eg.
I certainly don't think that it is people's 'own fault' if they are poor, but at the same time there is a need to manage money and resources as efficiently as possible, to make the most of what is available.

I do hate this assertion that were all just victims and there's nothing we can do to and that every single person who has no money is just a poor victim of Lady Luck

Some people are just victims of bad luck

Some people are just shit with money
But I can tell you giving people more money is raley the answer espically people like my sister

She didn't prioritise her children or there needs when she had 100k.

She dosent prioritise her chikdren now she's on benfits but I sure there are plenty to tell her what a victim she Is

Sparkly I total agree! What I meant is their current situation is not a choice.

poster SolidGoldBrass *i agree and disagree with you

Why borther work it it would leave you worse off totally agree however I do think there are some that refuse work if they would be better off they simply don't want to work.
Many people are just simply out of the work ethic hence why so many find them selfs sanctioned for not Turing up to there appointments or just failing to show because they can't be arsed

Agreed MaryShelley - it's not one homogeneous group.