To be so frustrated and depressed by my neighbourhood

[Slowdownsally]

I posted the other day about my bully of a neighbour who was accosting other people demanding to know if they were the ones who had reported her to social services for neglecting her children.

I look out my window just now to see: a seven year old riding a scooter up and down the street with no parents in sight, I can hear a toddler crying in tiredness while his parents and friends drink in the streets and there's a whole other group of them also in their front gardens drinking whilst their small children play in the road.

Granted there's no real traffic to speak of, but it just seems so wrong.

There's at least four separate households where the parents couldn't give a stuff about their kids: they are only interested in themselves. The children are left out all the time and in the evenings they just sit outside everyone else's front doors drinking and chatting with their children playing in the street til 11pm.

Is this really what people do? I feel like I'm losing my compass as to what is normal parenting when I see this all the time. It won't stop when they are back at school either as none of them work.

Aibu to think this is wrong and to be frustrated that they all think this is normal parenting?

I had to go to local estate today and swung off normal Ok road into concrete Armageddon.

The shops, so un necessarily depression, the most bizarre concrete veranda thing over them, peeling white paint.

It depressed me as soon as I saw it, the houses and everything were all fine, pleasant gardens but the shops a really long row of them were hideous. I just couldnt help thinking a quick sand and paint of this concrete thing with some baskets drilled into it with folliage would have turned it from 70's evil hangover to smart frontage.

wouldn't be hard or expensive to do and yet make such an impact, I have rarely been to somewhere that so swiftly makes you feel you are on a deprived estate.

I lived in one of those neighborhoods. The houses were posh but I didn't fit in as my neighbourhood drinking mums started in the late afternoons! I could have written that post four years ago!

I have found older neighborhoods with some young people with kids, some without, some middle aged couples both with and without kids, some retired, etc. much more to our liking and lifestyle. So when we moved cross country and couldn't afford what we had previously we were in for a great treat: our neighbors couldn't care less about our comings and goings, In drinking with us, etc. They are there for us and us for them, but I don't need to socialize with them or see what I did in out old 'New' neighbourhood.

I SO feel for you. I've been there and YANBU at all!! I was desperate to get out of my situation and hardly gave it a second thought leaving my family to move cross country when dh got a job offer only in an effort to get a chance to move out of that neighbourhood! I was so upset about it as well as you are. Our house now is not posh at all, but I now live in a comfortable neighbourhood where no one cares about my comings and goings or details about our life.

They finally went in after midnight. Having a blissfully quiet breakfast as none of them will be up until 11.

Retro robot - I'm white English working class and a council tenant. The estate is mixed ethnicity and backgrounds.

It's a shitty stereotype that you're making.

The only common factors for the antisocial neighbours are a lack of education and financial deprivation.

If we spent more in this country on housing and education, perhaps people wouldn't have such poor aspirations and this wouldn't be their lives.

antisocial neighbours are a lack of education and financial deprivation.

not sure i assume most on the estate attend same school, so why this 5 or so families like this?

also they are not working are they? working class used to be working these people are part of the underclass that has been created.

Retrorobot My whole family were white, English and very working class as I was growing up. None of us ever behaved like that. They all worked, manners were important and drilled in to us. There were standards- houses were spotless and looked after, no one got into debt, no one was on benefits. Many lived in council or rented houses. All the children were brought up well and school was important.
My generation went to university and had those opportunities that allowed us to move on- became Drs, teachers, Head Teachers, artist, musician, successful.
It is not about being working class, it is about a culture that has developed where their values are just warped. They expect others to provide for them- housing, benefits, childcare, school meals, fund their choices to drink, smoke, have SkyTV packages etc. Unfortunately, society does it.
The welfare state was never intended to be about funding people to live like this. It was about providing a basic level of support until they got a job, not enabling them to live off the state forever.
The damage that has been done by this entitlement culture that has developed will last generations- there is a poverty of aspiration, a sense that they have no responsibility for where and how they live and that any children will just be provided for by the state.
I am, and will always be, a socialist but I see these families every day in my professional life and many are unbelievable in their attitudes towards the state and what they are entitled to.I always feel for the decent families that live amongst them and remind me of my family.

Lulu you are absolutely right.

Gobbolino - I take your point. It is I suppose an underclass.

I agree with much of what lulujakey has written too, there is an almighty chasm between the haves and have nots.

It's also a problem specific to this locality as well; isolated rural communities do have significant problems with lack of aspiration.

It's hard to get a job here and to get a good education.

The tendency is that kids who do want more leave in their teens to go work in the cities and come back when they have established careers. Those left behind end up in low paid agricultural related jobs.

And those that can't get these jobs (no cars, no public transport), just drift about like my neighbours.

Lulu that's totally spot on, I was brought up in a working class family. Education was so important, standards were high. I went on to university etc, in fact most people I know who are now in professions grew up in houses just like mine. The people in the op's post are most certainly NOT WORKING CLASS!

They all worked, manners were important and drilled in to us. There were standards- houses were spotless and looked after, no one got into debt, no one was on benefits. Many lived in council or rented houses. All the children were brought up well and school was important

same here, my maternal GP were white wc, 7 children, school paramount, some went to grammer, she even got some scholarships private, music and so on, council house.

it is about a culture that has developed where their values are just warped. They expect others to provide for them- housing, benefits, childcare, school meals, fund their choices to drink, smoke, have SkyTV packages etc. Unfortunately, society does it.

i would say its more a victim culture than an entitled one, after all, most people would think they are entitled to more than 50 quid a week and sky.

Its more a victim culture and materialist culture that they have been born into underclass, where everything is crap, this is as good as life gets...an ever decreasing circle of nothing.

school is vital. as is making people think they can do better for themselves rather than putting arm around saying - yes you poor thing this is shit.

These people aren't working class, working class people go out and earn their own money. This is the underclass and they have no manners, no inclination to work, and let their many kids run riot and cause mayhem.

I think the people who think this is lovely or not a problem have never experienced this type of thing. I see it so much OP and find it depressing. Makes me wander if there are any nice places left in the country. We see these places occasionally, when we drive out into the country. Might be an inner city thing.

This is the underclass and they have no manners, no inclination to work, and let their many kids run riot and cause mayhem

the most let down group of people in the country.

There has ALWAYS been this "underclass". I fear there always will be, no matter what help is given.

I was born in 1958 to working class parents and lived in Council houses till I left home at 25.

IME the working class looked down on the underclass as shiftless, dirty and crap parents. You could always spot their houses by the broken car dumped in the front garden (along with tons of rubbish they never cleared up), and the neglected kids running riot.

These days just the same, plus drugs to escalate the apathy.

Government after Government of both parties have failed to solve the problem.

Question - what do MNers think can be done to eradicate the underclass?

YANBU.

Anyone who thinks it sounds quaint and neighbourly has clearly never lived it. It's antisocial and shocking parenting. I can only urge you to move house as soon as you are able to, not easy I know, but something I have always regretted not doing sooner.

I think it sounds rather lovely, the neighbours enjoying a glass of wine an a chat in the front garden on a warm Saturday evening, keeping an eye on the children all playing together on the quiet street.
I remember we used to live in a cul de sac when my eldest were little and the parents would all sit on our garden with a cuppa and a biscuit whilst the children rode round on their bikes, go-karts etc (not as late as your neighbours admittedly) but it felt like a really warm comminity.

Gobbolini, You say they are the most let- down group of people in the country but I disagree in many ways.

They are not let down. They have money and resources thrown at them- with focusses on education, health, improving housing. I teach children from families where 3 generations have passed through the school - and all been poor attenders, never worked, eat crap, smoke, drink, have babies and large families - starting as teenagers- live in a local sink estate which has been totally refurbished twice in the last 12 years by the council and is still a tip in the same places. These families argue the toss with us over everything- why should their child have to wear uniform- it costs money? Why does it matter if they are 10 minutes late for school? So what if they don't do their homework-they don't approve of homework for children. They can't afford £5.00 towards a school trip. They don't see why parents can't smoke at the school gates- it's a free country isn't it?

These families get JSA, housing benefit, don't pay council tax, get child benefit, free prescriptions, many claim benefits for health conditions- I have no idea how. Most are unmarried and many claim they live separately to get further benefits but children tell us otherwise, they often have social workers, family support workers, health agencies monitoring of various aspects. The money and support invested in them and their problems and communities is astonishing.

I was talking to a mum last week who is 27 ( and well known to us) with an 12 year old. She has never worked, never seen the child's father again- the child has 3 separate half- siblings in 3 different local families. She drives a 4 wheel drive, has a fully furnished flat, her nails and hair done every week, smokes, drinks, has been to Spain for a fortnight this summer and was telling me she could not afford a school jumper for her daughter- cost £8.00- so could we stop ringing up about it.

Yet other families from the same estate have always worked, keep their houses nice, look after their gardens, children are fantastic attenders, support us with homework, uniform, behaviour standards. They might not be families who have huge aspirations for themselves but they aspire for their children. Their children do well and go off to university or into employment.

The pattern never changes in the area because no one else will move in to empty houses except people like the worst families- gradually they are taking over.

This is in Sunderland suburbs.

Thank you, thank you thank you thank you, a million times, thank you.

This is what it is like where I live. I thought I was the odd one out and uptight because I won't let my kids play out at all hours or sit drinking on the front with the neighbours (not that I would anyway). Over the past few years I've started to seriously doubt myself, but I knew, just knew that I couldn't have been wrong. 3,4,5,6,7, year olds running up and down the street gone 10/11 pm at times, screaming and shouting and it's supposed to be normal..

It's only going ot get worse too. I don't mind the neighbours getting along with eachother, it's better than the alternative, but you'd think they'd be inside when it's dark as it's the kids BEDTIME wouldn't you?

Lulu Exactly.

White English "working" class. We try to avoid them. Fortunately, easy enough. Most of them can't afford to live here any more - unless in council flats (hopefully fewer of those as they cash in under right-to-buy and retire to the costas to booze up the sale proceeds).

Quack