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.

Thankyou Morethan

It's definitely going to make a huge difference to us. Things like being able to have hot water for more than an hour a day and being able to let the dcs go to the school disco that costs a pound each. We've been living way below the breadline for so long that that small bit of extra cash will be a lifesaver

One of the problems is that we now own our homes and that has huge costs over a year. Things can get bad very quickly if you lose an income and have just enough to cover rent and then you get a leak in the roof or a burst pipe. Renting means those costs are covered and in some blocks of flats heating and hot water are included as well. There is a bit of a cushion in a rental.

I remember being on a thread having a disagreement with a Mner who is a teacher. She argued that a poorer family could save money by not having the internet.
So i pointed out that she was of course going to start setting homework that didnt involve the use of a computer or the internet. She then used the very weak argument that the kids in question could go to the library. When teachers express views that children should be treated as "other" because of the income they are on.
a i find it quite alarming that a teacher should think like this.
b. i see very little point in having a school uniform which is suppossed to ensure equality and that all children are treated the same when you then trot out crap attitudes like this!

For me what encapsulated the attitude of many Haves towards the Have Nots (and this is not just on MN but I have noticed it on here more often recently) was a woman my mum saw in Sainsburys (she shops there as she is a MC baby boomer, I cant afford to!).

She was behind a woman in the queue who was with a young girl, mum said she was probably about 9 so the same age as DD3. She said "What's that?!" to a tin on the conveyor "Its a tin of beans darling" "ooh are we having new beans?" Look of horror on Mummys face "No darling these are our beans, those are for the food bank because some people dont have as much as we do." OK, so at least Mummy was trying to show her child that we should all do what we can for those who dont have as much as we do.

Mummy and "darling" were having Heinz, the food bank was getting one tin of value beans, DM followed her just to see what she put in. The rest of their shopping was all brand name, Mum said she made a point of checking after realising!

My mother is a card carrying DM reader with a classic "You just have to work harder and manage, we did!" attitude, whilst forgetting that house prices were much lower compared to income than now and that my grandparents provided free childcare that she refuses to consider...... But even she was shocked

I think that while redundancy, 6 months on JSA and then 18 months on NMW was disastrous for us, it was a huge learning curve for her. Something good came out of it I suppose......

So i pointed out that she was of course going to start setting homework that didnt involve the use of a computer or the internet. She then used the very weak argument that the kids in question could go to the library

I have seen this too. It was a "how to make ends meet" thread where the person who suggested that they get rid of their broadband was shot down because the OP had said that the nearest library that was open (thanks to Tory council cuts!) was a £3 ish bus ride for her and then £1.50 each for her kids so assuming one visit per week that would cost £X more per month than her current broadband cost! It wasnt much, only a couple of quid but that was for 2 hours internet access, assuming there were PCs available as opposed to unlimited access at home.

Its the only time that I have seen expensive public transport and crap public services ever win an argument on MN! :o

Placemarking.

YY to home ownership. We lost some of the tiles off the corner of our roof and can't afford to have the roof repaired, now we have a damp problem in the room immediately next to them but what can we do?

So calling your kid darling is snobby and wrong?? I don't really get the baked bean thing. Surely giving to food banks is positive? So what if the beans had a different label.

Bogey, I had the same conversation with people after the Jamie Oliver webchat. I commented about my Neice only having a co-op and local 'corner shop' to do her shopping, and how expensive they were. Another poster did the "well she should shop at Aldi/Lidl" thing and I explained that it would cost her £5.50 in bus fair to do so, and she didn't belive me! Explained that neice would need to get a bus into town (3.50) then bus from town to the retail park (2.00) and the poster said "well she should move closer to the retail park"

It grates on me. Some posters really don't engage their brains before posting.

You don't see the issue in that scenario at all Morris?

Bogeyface you make a good point about the "we managed!" people. Housing costs, the economy, the nature of employment contracts, the benefits system, all of these and more have changed in the past 5, 10, 15 years. Posters shouldn't assume that what worked for them is even possible any more.

Unlucky, I'm certainly not going to flame you but I am a bit disappointed! as your post illustrates exactly what I feel sad (for the poster) about on Mumsnet.

Someone frustrated and annoyed at having to go to the laundrette because their washing machine broke and they are skint does not need a lecture on how well you coped. Like a pp, I didn't know anyone well enough to impose on them with huge washloads weekly.

Hand washing is also problematic as it takes absolutely ages to dry. Ideal in winter with expensive heating bills? Doubtful. Likewise, if you have to walk everywhere and get wet and muddy and sweaty, it's unlikely you can cheerfully just sponge off.

The above doesn't apply exclusively to someone on benefits. It's the people serving you in Tesco, the care workers in hospitals and nursing homes (who definitely need to wash their clothes!) the factory workers, the call centre workers.

So easy to say there are ways around it when it isn't YOU. It may have been you, once - it was me, once, and because of that I would absolutely say a washing machine is a necessity.

Another random exclamation mark

!!!!!!

^

piss off.

OP, I haven't read the whole thread, but YANBU. Unfortunately it stems from a widespread attitude that other people's problems must be their own fault - that it couldn't possibly be because of a systematic inequality created by the system we live in. That way, they feel good about themselves - the reason they're not poor is because they are clever or hardworking, not because they're lucky.

I don't comment on threads about benefits and poverty in general. I don't feel qualified to offer advice.

I was broke as a student years ago as my mother instilled in me an utter terror of debt so I didn't take out any loans. I worried about spending too much on food. My clothes had holes in. But the bottom line was that although my parents were not well off, they would have found a way to help me if I was desperate (If I hadn't been to proud to ask) and having a safety net of any kind is a massively different psychological position to be in compared to someone who has none. I also had the hope that things would get better in the future for me. I don't know how it feels to have no hope of change.

Is anyone else old enough to remember Jarvis Cocker singing "but still you'll never get it right, cos when you're laid in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if you told your Dad he could stop it all..." Yep.

I think however, that knowing what you don't know is useful. If you have looked into an abyss, even if from the very edge, you know it is there. You might not know how deep it goes, but you know more than people that have never had any experience of poverty. They don't know it is there.

Also re:shopping on-line, that doesn't allow you to take advantage of the best deals in each shop or buy damaged or close to sell buy date food.

I assume it was well meant, but food shopping on-line is a classic example of something that only saves you money above a certain price point.

Thank you for this post. It is so relevant. Recently I read that over 200,000 people have been violently attacked just because they are on benefits, including children. We know how children in such circumstances are socially excluded and as you quite rightly point out so are their parent/s especially when seeking advise. They are made to feel ashamed. They need support and encouragement not prejudice and stigma.

Jane do you have any kind of link or reference for that statistic please?

People being attacked violently due to being on benefits is appalling, and of course a criminal offence.

But that's very different to offering well meant advice to somebody on a forum who has asked for help with their troubles.

Also there is the 'elephant in the room' of family sizes. I must confess I often think I'd be skint too if I'd had x amount of kids in x circumstances. People have kids for their own personal reasons and it's very much the form on here never to question that, but inevitably kids cost a packet and decrease earning power. That is a real consequence of choosing to have them.

For many of the skintest people, surely things will gradually improve as the kids get older, and working options etc become much more flexible? They won't have wee kids forever.

I get what people are saying about unequal structures etc, but it's hard/ impossible to read a post from somebody suffering hardship and just say, yeah, you're stuffed really. It's human nature to try to find any way of making things better. And that isn't just on skint threads, it's across MN as a whole. If people don't want well meant advice, they should either not post, or ask specifically just for sympathy and not for suggestions.

Perhaps among some people an understanding of the system, tax credits, housing benefit etc, which is supposed to prevent grinding poverty and thus a gap in understanding why that system at a macro level is not working for an individual.

Similar to someone with an understanding about the processes to help people with disabilities not getting why a particular person is struggling.

I would never want to wish hardship on anyone but it is difficult to understand the bleakness of poverty unless you have properly experienced it.

sandfish I agree with "I don't comment on threads about benefits and poverty in general. I don't feel qualified to offer advice" but if applied to all of Mumsnet that would cut traffic by about two thirds

But in all seriousness, I'm the same. I also stay out of step parenting, teens, the doghouse, all things of which I have no experience. But there's something about the benefits/poverty threads which brings out the responses discussed here.

So calling your kid darling is snobby and wrong?? I don't really get the baked bean thing. Surely giving to food banks is positive? So what if the beans had a different label.

No, I call my children darling quite often, it was simply to illustrate the difference in this womans attitude between her child and someone elses.

When the child was asking if they were the new beans that she was having the mother reacted in horror, they must only have the best brand name beans. But a 30p tin of value beans was ok for the child of the poor people.

Value beans have their place, they were the difference between something and nothing at one point for us, but donating one tin of them a week when you are loading up on expensive branded food just so you can feel good about yourself is insulting. And I say this as someone who was about a week away from needing a food bank when the redundancy money ran out.....