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.

[unlucky83]

Woowoo I still disagree...
What about a retired primary teacher who has worked with 2-3 yr olds for the last 20 yrs...counts for nothing...
The danger with the the way things are going is that you end up with a highly qualified workforce - which you can't pay above NMW anyway - or if you do or even if you don't - the cost to parents is so high that a child doesn't have any kind of experience of preschool education or even preschool groups until they are eligible for funding - which even then is arguably not enough.
Playgroups etc are struggling now - closing now - they can't make ends meet - but I know in our area the council don't have enough preschool places without them ...

[WooWooOwl]

Well we'll have to agree to disagree about qualifications then.

Clearly, early years education does need to be better funded by government, but not at the expense of quality staff. Children who have decent parents don't need to be at pre school before funding kicks in, and those who don't have decent parents or other reasons for needing it can get funding earlier. But for disadvantaged children from disengaged homes, it would be close to pointless to send them to pre school without staff who have a reasonable level of education.

[unlucky83]

I agree to disagree - and massive thread derail but
I think it is important that preschool children get to socialise with their peers. Groups like playgroups are important for parents to get to know other parents, especially if they have no family around/ friends with DCs. It helps to form a support network. It isn't all about 'education'. It is also about community. For SAHP it is an opportunity for a child to experience time away from their parents. For part-time workers it is an opportunity for their child (and parent) to get to know others that will be in their school year.
You can't have a group like that anymore (employ someone) without jumping through hoops - and so you need to claim the funding to pay for the hoops but that provides a whole new set of hoops to jump through...
I wonder if Steven Hawking or Watson & Crick or Rosalind Franklin or Fredrick Sanger or Tim Berners-Lee or Bill Gates or Seamus Heaney had preschool education by someone with SVQ3 or equivalent?

[yorkie84]

Yanbu. Smoking on 71 per week when you spend a fortune job searching and travelling to jonb centre. Very likely!

[sashh]

I don't think poverty in the UK and other places is THAT relative.

We have families in Britain sharing one room. We have families going hungry. We have families where parents can't earn enough money to feed their children. We have families who cannot afford to heat their homes.

And Happymummy

How is childcare going to help me and others become less disabled? Do you think childcare costs the same for all children? Try to find a babysitter for a child with SN, let alone enough childcare to work, and an employer who understands you might need to leave at a moment's notice.

Sorry, having children is a choice. Having a child with SN isn't. Having a disability isn't.

Childcare would help some people, SN childcare would be a damn site more helpful.

What would also be helpful is that if you have a disability and take a temporary job when your contract ends if you could go back on sickness benefits, not suddenly find out that the NI you have been paying/credited with only counts towards JSA and you can't receive JSA because you are classed as 'sick.

[daphnehoneybutt]

YANBU

Some people have no compassion for those less fortunate.

Guess its easier to judge the people "below" you than think about why things might be that way...

[HobbetInTheHeadlights]

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

We're fine now thanks Fiveleaves - though within 12 months of that DH was then badly inured on way into work.

We did nothing wrong just a lot bad luck at the worst time and it could have so easily have been so much worse. As it was financially an emotionally it took a toll and time to get over - again longer than many round us realised.

I think many people found it more comforting to themselves to blame us than accept shit can happen to anyone.

[Callani]

The way people talk about the poor reminds me of how my Great Gran used to talk about Asian immigrants.

She'd go on and on about how they were all lazy and rude, and they didn't bother to learn English, and then I'd remind her of Mr Shah who owned the cornershop and she'd say "Oh, I didn't mean him - obviously he's different". And what about the Indian lady 3 doors down who always came to check on her and made sure she was ok? "Oh not her family, they're lovely, they work very hard and they're really kind and care about society, unlike the rest of them"

And on it went, every Asian immigrant she personally knew was the exception and yet in her mind they formed this huge conglomerate mass of BAD PEOPLE.

Now people do the same for poor people. They hold up one or two bad examples of lazy people who form "the rule" and if I point out MANY examples of hard working people who struggle, they're "just the exception" and I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm not denying that some people on benefits are lazy, but does it really take that big a stretch of imagination to realise that there's more than one type of poor person?

[SolidGoldBrass]

Going back to the economically sound idea of just giving poor people more money and the idea put forward by some that they would 'just waste it', why not have a little think about how the comfortably-off spend their money? Some save, some give to charity, some invest in businesses, and of those that spend on entertainment eg restauarant meals, that's circulating the money in the economy. A percentage will spend far more than they have on drink or drugs, but most are reasonably sensible. If everyone had a basic income to a decent lliving standard, some might spend it on getting wasted, but the majority wouldn't. Or do you thnk that poor people really are a subhuman class?

[MorrisZapp]

Of course poor people aren't subhuman. But there are loads of posts on here about how poor people had shit childhoods, are unable to access services, may have chaotic lifestyles etc. How would cash help them to provide a better childhood for their own kids, beyond the material basics?

[SolidGoldBrass]

Well, for a start, if you're not constantly worried about how you are going to afford the next meal, or whether the money on the electric key is enough to last until the next time you get paid, you have more time and energy to devote to your DC.