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.

But most people don't own shops.

Once the free money is spent, it's gone. And if they're mired in the issues raised on this thread, a few quid in their pocket won't make any difference.

giveadogabonio In the list you give, the first two things are completely within a parents control.

By the time someone has children, they should be capable of supporting school work and providing a decent attitude to work and education, even if they don't work themselves.

Those things are purely about attitudes, and attitudes can be changed relatively easily. There are parents at the school I work in that can't even read, but they still manage to get their children to school on time and let their children know that school matters. And as a result, the pupil premium can and does make a difference, because the child is enabled, by their parents, to do as well as they possibly can.

The reason that their schools are failing is not because those schools have crap teachers, it's because there are too many parents that don't support the school and don't promote positive behaviour in their children. Those in deprived areas have had access to sure start and HV's, they would know what is expected of them as parents if they made the effort to engage with with the support that is available. The schools end up failing because they have too many behavioural issues to deal with, and that is the fault of the parents.

I know that parents who are jealous of the pupil premium often have absolutely nothing to be jealous of in reality, but I can understand why people get annoyed that their children don't tick a box to have their progress closely monitored and have any extra support they may need automatically be given. I can understand why it pisses people off that they can't afford, or struggle to afford, school trips for their children when others who make significantly less effort with their parenting get it for free.

Everything costs more when you're poor. You can't afford good quality shoes or clothes so you spend half as much on things that wear out twice as quick. You are forced to pre-pay on your gas and electric which is the most expensive. You spend all your money on rent and food every week, there is no spare for savings so when something unexpected happens, you have no slack. You can't choose to cut back on something, because there's nothing there. There is no extra food in the cupboards, there are no heirlooms to sell. The few, pathetic, treats that have accrued, that you've saved all year for or, worse, been exploited by loan sharks in order to get, are worth a fraction of what you paid...100 week terms, anyone?

Horizons are smaller, and nobody is aware of opportunities like bursaries. It's just not possible to 'make better decisions', how can being poor be a choice when you are not even aware that there's a choice? Life is precarious because blue collar work is precarious; you don't have to suffer with addiction or mental health issues, or any of the other 'reasons', you just have to have the misfortune to be born into a class where the ceilings are made of tougher stuff than glass.

By the time someone has children, they should be capable of supporting school work and providing a decent attitude to work and education, even if they don't work themselves

But the sad reality is that a lot of children DON'T have parents who provide this. They just don't.

This is a true story - immigrant family (another European country, and not a planned migration - a necessity), physically and mentally abused as a child by his (ill educated) mother and brother, regularly saw his mother physically abused by his alcoholic father, very very poor. He shoplifted food for his mum and later for himself as he wasn't fed at home. If anything his mother used to disrupt his education (not letting him go to school or giving him an opportunity to do homework). Taken into care at 12, thrown out of several children's homes for being disruptive, put in sheltered accommodation at 17 but thrown out (disruptive), lived on the street for a while. Had to do national service and didn't want 'leave' as he had nowhere to go. Sent to college at 18-19yo (catering - because that country looks after children in care to 21). Suffered racial discrimination.

At 21 with nowhere to live and no further support, he went to work on cruise liners for a few years, then started living in different European countries, eventually ended up in the UK. Worked 'normally' for a few years then at about 28 started saving money. It took just under 5 yrs - working every hour he could, low paid jobs, not spending any money and living in filthy bedsits with cockroaches to save £50k. He used that money to buy a business in an area where he could afford to - he worked hard for 7 years - working 90 hr weeks and at the end sold the business for a bit more than he paid for it and now had £200k in the bank. (In this time he had moved in with his partner and had two children). He tried to stop working for a while but went back to work, not earning a lot of money just enough to live on - modestly - no fancy clothes, cars, holidays, tvs, house. He owns a house outright. His money is his security - he finds it hard to spend money...but is getting better - he doesn't need to worry about money.
Now someone tell me how he can manage that - and others can't ...
What makes him so special? And that is a genuine question...
Maybe he had no back up support?...but he could have claimed benefits in this country - I really don't know...
I agree few people genuinely have no chance in life...stuck in caring roles/illness/disability etc
I agree some people apparently have 'no chance' in life, come from generations of non-working, hopeless (as in without hope not useless) families ...no role models, no motivation...don't know how to change that, I don't think money is the answer ...
Nor do I think it helps that we have such a huge gap between rich and poor...
Or that we are surrounded with a culture of consumerism that makes us consider certain things to be necessities ...
I do think education is important - how to manage money, how to make it work for you, avoiding credit etc is important and maybe giving very young children hope - maybe actually it is all about expectations and our society makes us think success and happiness is gained by earning a footballers/movie stars wage and living in a massive house, having a flash car and a big tv ...and if that seems out of their grasp there is no point trying?

Well you tell us, unlucky83 - what stops you from doing everything he did, hey? What's your excuse for not working 90 hour weeks and living with cockroaches?

Makes me laugh when posters say that poor people pump out kids year after year and get to stay in bed until ten.

In what fucking world does that happen?

unlucky I couldnt leave my children to go and work on cruise ships or to do a 90 hour week!

I know that bonio, the point is that they could, therefore it's inaccurate to believe that people are completely powerless to improve things, at least for their children.

While Unlucky83 gives quite an extreme example in terms of what he was prepared to do, I think that asking why some people are able to break the cycle and others can't is a legitimate question TBH. Not for the purposes of saving "it's their fault because so and so managed to do well" but to try and understand what makes the difference.

it's inaccurate to believe that people are completely powerless to improve things, at least for their children

Who said they were completely powerless?

See, the trouble is, that once upon a time working people were led to believe that they could aspire, to their own house, to an education for their children, to a car, to holidays, to all those things that make life good. They were also promised, in exchange for tax and NI, that when things went wrong...when the yards shut down, when they got old or ill, that the state would be there for them. After the Second World War, some of the class barriers had been dismantled, the work

I don't know if anyone has said exactly that, but it's still among the same theme of the title of the OP.

There will be people who are not poor because of their own fault, but who are poor because of their parents lack of effort.

Gah, blinking phone!

As I was saying, the working class was not seen as a different species but just 'people like us'. Currently, the wind is blowing the opposite way and even people that are only one wage from the breadline are being whipped up into a state of righteous indignation about benefit scroungers and those greedy empty-nesters that won't move out of their three bed council house into the (non-existent) one bed flat. It won't be long before we're back to a state familar to our Victorian ancestors.

But it's all completely circumstantial isn't it? No two situations are the same, therefore it is totally limited thinking to believe that because one person could do it then everyone can. There were circumstances in Cruise Ship Man's life that made it possible for him to do what he did, perhaps no dependants or close family that he wanted to stay close to, he happened to bump into someone who could get him in on a ship etc etc, to say "if he can do it anyone can" is nonsense, he did it because he COULD, not everyone can.

Give he's actually my DP ... I met him when he was 29...when he was living with cockroaches - at the time I was living in a cheap house share (no cockroaches), studying full time and working 4 part time jobs - retraining after ill health meant I could no longer do the job that had been my career... which I had actually been successful at - by working 90+hr weeks ...(but I don't have the background he has..)
And when he was working 90hr weeks I was working just as long looking after the children and working FT ...but that is his personal (safety blanket) money - I have my own...
Go - I know you can't - and I said so ...stuck in caring roles (and I don't mean that negatively )
Statistically gets exactly what I am trying to say...

Cool! Anecdotes! My dad has one, too. It's grim. Even he realises, times have changed and not for the better, when it comes to being poor and especially, being born poor.

Even Warren fucking Buffet can see this.

Sorry, I don't get the relevance of him being your DP.

I also think it's genuinely strange to be 'baffled' about why people wouldn't want to live in cockroach infested properties and work 90 hour weeks. Most people wouldn't want that, would they?

We have regulations in Europe about the working week - it's not healthy or sensible for people to work 90 hours a week so I don't see why you're baffled that poor people don't choose that for themselves (when the well-off, I presume, are excused by you).

and its only an old style fat portable one!

Phantom how are you managing to watch it The analogue signal was switched off a good while ago

eat I said I agree you can be stuck in a caring role ...as I said I don't mean that negatively....
sparkly the cruise thing just got him out of his country - he started saving money years later...and I really don't know why...
give no one wants to live with cockroaches or work 90hr weeks ...but for less than 5 yrs - to get £50k in the bank ? get you out of poverty - if you can ....
The point about him being my DP - you said what is my excuse for not working 90hr+ weeks - we have the same work ethic - and I have done that to achieve something I wanted to do - including get my own financial independence (but I don't have the same background) - and neither of us have to work 90hr weeks anymore...

Or to put it another way give we have both worked the 90hr weeks - so we are now the 'well off' and can excuse ourselves...

*and its only an old style fat portable one!

Phantom how are you managing to watch it The analogue signal was switched off a good while ago*

You don't need a digital signal if you have BT broadband connection (or maybe other providers, I don't know). I only have an old style fat tv and I can watch all the freeview programmes plus normal tv on the catch up services. So it doesn't work live but I only have to wait an hour or so if you see what I mean.

That's not to say I don't think everyone is entitled to a tv that works properly though! I have the money to buy a new flat screen one, I just don't have the time to go and buy it/watch it or the technical know how to set it up (techno-phobe alert!). So I don't bother. But if I was living in benefits hell with nothing to stimulate me all day then too right I'd want a proper television, it's the cheapest entertainment there is isn't it!

Well that's very commendable unlucky but my overall conclusion is that no one should HAVE to live like that just to be able to live well in the future.