To think many mumsnetters have little or no understanding of life on a low income

[crocodilesarevicious]

It's going to be hard to know how to phrase this as I don't want to cause offence.

I've been hanging around for a while. One thing I've noticed is that benefit threads become angry very quickly because so many are quite loud and fixed in their view that the UK is full of starving children reliant on value baked beans from food banks to fill their hungry tummies.

However, if someone who is on benefits or a low income is searching specific advice! they are often given quite short shrift. I've noticed this a few times - they are told, often brusquely, to retrain as something at university - usually a teacher or a nurse. These are graduate professions yet they are chucked out as something anyone can do. Not everyone can go to college or university due to financial restraints but also, some people don't have the academic ability. This is dismissed and shrugged off - if people aren't on much money then they need to find a way to make more money, even if this isn't possible.

Childminding, or starting a business is also suggested. People who rent may not be able to do this. Again, this takes a certain amount of financial and business savvy not to mention starting up costs.

Cooking is another area people seem to have little understanding of. It's so easy to cook healthy, cheap nutritious meals if your kitchen is large and a pleasure to cook in and you can whiz in the car to sainsburys or Tesco. If you have a small, grubby, dark kitchen and the local Spar or premier shop it's a bit different.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that when talking about people in general terms, Mumsnet likes to be left wing and PC. Yet when it's someone specific, irrelevant and often patronising advice is given to them and then they are flamed when they can't act on it.

My own position, while I'm a graduate and employed in a professional capacity, is perhaps between the two. I've never been reliant in benefits but was homeless for a time in my 20s and am able to see how things that look simple often aren't.

YANBU, I've noticed this too. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad for the people needing help

Many, but not the majority. Thankfully.

I see a lot of threads asking for advice about au pairs and nannies on mumsnet definitely not any world I've ever belonged to unfortunately

I have never see this on any other forums, so, I've always taken it that there are a few people on here that aren't Short of a bob or two, for want of a better phrase.

So you could be right.
But I'm not sure.
There could, equally, be a large proportion of people that are struggling moneywise, also on Mumsnet.

It would be interesting to know.

There are a lot of mumsnetters on a low income, my experience doesnt tally with yours at all

I think you'll find it's the same people who post with the same responses each time too.

What have you done to improve your life?
Have you re-trained?
Be thankful you have a free house!
This shouldn't be a surprise because you should have planned your children!
I have a mahogany helicopter!

And so on and so on, ad nauseum...

What sort of advice are people on low incomes looking for then?

Beyond, perhaps I've phrased that badly.

I think many people on here earning and paying for childcare are probably on a similar amount to some on benefits. That's not meant to be an aggressive statement: just a factual one. Where I live, full time nursery is £900 p/m. I take home £2400 p/m. My take home cash therefore after nursery and mortgage is about the same as I would get as a lone parent claiming IS and CTC.

However, this isn't so much a cash issue as a societal one. My example re the retraining is meant to illustrate this. Not everyone has the intellectual ability to go to university yet 'retraining' is tossed out almost casually. There's often an assumption with that people live in university towns or have transport to get to university.

And YY to au pairs and nannies. Again, the actual cost isn't a relevance so much as the fact that an au pair or nanny would require a separate bedroom. It's an attitude I'm talking about, not how much is in the bank.

Don't you think people are, at least trying to help? The advice may not be perfect, but would it be better to offer no advice or support at all?

YANBU it's laughable.

The ignorance of which you speak comes from a life of plenty.

Morris sometimes they just want sympathy. Which is fine. People on here dole that out in spades when someone's cat dies or they've spilled champagne on their new diamond shoes.

I can see your point of view. However, I take issue with dismissing the idea of getting an au pair. I had one as a lone parent and shared a bedroom with DD in order to allow the au pair her own room. Not ideal, but there were no other options.

I haven't seen much of what you describe and it's usually counterbalanced by sensible posters seeing off the asshats.
Loads of threads about living on a small budget and helpful support for those who want to do something different to earn money.

If it's a thinly disguised begging thread the OP tends to get a shorter shrift though.

Sometimes I think people are trying to help. Other times, not so much - but that's true of any thread, and I suppose what I'm musing about here is the contrast between anyone daring to question the benefits system (torn to shreds, generally!) and the short shrift with how those in need of it are treated.

I am gay. I don't generally announce it like that but I know if I started a thread saying I had been subjected to homophobia people (on here) would be appalled.

Yet I chose to have my child at a clinic using anonymous sperm donation - and this has often been heavily criticised in the past. However, there are few other ways in which gay women can have a child - and the critical attitude would be from those very same people who react in horror - genuine horror - to the idea that someone has been homophobic.

It does intrigue me.

" I have a mahogany helicopter!"
Pmsl. mahogony is so 1990s

No one is saying its easy, but I bet there is something most people could do to improve their lives.

If everyone was all 'woe is me I just want to moan about how shit my life is' the threads would be quite boring.

Yanbu. It's reflected on the relationship boards too- book yourself into a hotel, get a cleaner, get counselling- these are all good advice and potential solutions, but they all cost and op has said money is tight

Croc yes. I'm starting to think that though the Daily Mail is heavily criticized on here, people LOVE it in private.

Yanbu.

Unfortunately when someone says they are struggling financially it seems to attract the likes of those who have been blessed with good fortune, good health and / or good family support networks who can't seem to fathom how on earth others don't have those things or at least one of them.

There is also often a general assumption (and I am not even relating this to mumsnet in particular) that those who earn more work harder. It's sometimes true, but not always true. I've done both highly paid jobs and minimum wage jobs. I don't think I've ever worked harder than when I worked 37 hours a week in a hotel doing quite literally everything for minimum wage.

Freckled - certainly it is doable and in some ways your post beautifully illustrates what I mean.

It's possible to share a bedroom with one child to enable you to have an au pair. I could do that in my cosy middle class apartment with heating and wooden flooring and bay windows too. It is rather less simple to attract a European teenager to live with you if you live in a shabby council house on a run down estate with stained carpets and the cooker won't work and the garden is overgrown.

I agree with you OP. Some posters don't seem to have the concept of having to watch every penny and even when you do, you are still short at the end of each month. Cries of 'Of course everyone can save a little bit of money each month' are frankly laughable.

No I think that's bollocks actually.

There are all sorts on mumsnet from high to low income and of all political views.

When I joined years ago it was far more lefty London centric than it is now and it's far more interesting now for the sheer different opinions.

Having an au pair is hardly Downton Abbey territory really is it. Usually a foreign kid on minimum wage in the spare room.

I think there are loads of assumptions made here, an awful ,lot of people think they know what being skint is like cos they shop in Aldi now

I once looked into becoming a childminder. There was about 25-30 women at the meeting and the girl running the course said only approx 6 are given a pass to the next stage (in this area might be different elsewhere) and that you can't just go and register as a cm, you HAVE to take this path to get there. Not as easy as some may think.

PregnantPause - YY :)

Cleaners, hotels, spas, babysitters - even the famous and sometimes joked-about LTB.

Long term most of us can but in the short term LTB means needing some money, even if it's only a taxi to your mums. A taxi to my mums, were she alive, would cost around £7. That's nothing to me. But I don't kid myself it's nothing.

Exactly Fairylea

Not cooking because your kitchen is small is not really a very good excuse. Dark- switch a light on. And grubby- clean it? I used to cook meals in an empty stable that had a stove and sink put in.