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.

"Don't try to make our everyone can be a SAHM by having camping holidays and driving an old car because that poster might have no holiday and no car."

Yes yes yes!! I hated having to go back to work full-time after my babies were born. And it was long enough ago that mat leave was 12 weeks for DS1 but had extended to about 18 weeks for my last one. I am sure it contributed to my PND after baby no 2. But there was nothing I could have done to enable me to stay at home. it was infuriating to be told it was doable, I was just working for luxuries and foreign holidays.

Oh yes! The old "Go camping" advice!

Might be tough with no car, no tent and no cash to buy the gear you need! Oh...and petrol money!

Morriszapp - agree that people have different thresholds at which they think they can afford to have children. And there are people who make the decision to have children before thinking through the costs. As other people have said having children, if you are able to do so, is a choice.

Ssd so you do a NMW wage job and you survive because you have to. Do you think that an increase in the minimum wage would help? Of course not everyone who does a NMW job is an immigrant, that's not what I said. You shouldn't be offended by things people don't say, that is how we end up in this situation with the poor attacking the poor, it's the argument that is poor.

Wages can go up and industry will adjust by making the best of their workers, increasing productivity through a healthier and less resentful workforce with less turnover. If you find that offensive ssd, it's not my problem.

chav tv fallacy

Your tv stops working. You don't want your kids to be the only kids in the school without a tv so you look into replacing it. You don't have time to go running around and you have no awareness of freecycle. You cannot find the lump sum of £100 for the cheapest one at Argos as you are on benefits and have just paid out for school shoes. You are worried about what people will think if the kids say something and the kids being bullied for having less. You end up going to Brighthouse.

You end up getting one of the cheaper ones, you avoid the more expensive options but hope you can carry on paying the £4.70 per week which will give you a paid for tv after you have spent £733 in total. Because you can afford (you hope) £4.70 per week when you can't manage a lump sum of £100. And you will have to keep making that £4.70 no matter what because if you miss a payment they come and take it back, even if you have already paid hundreds off it. You can perhaps start again next week. However while you are keeping up the payments you have have a fancy new tv in your living room even though you are on benefits...

For me, having extra chidren would have a huge impact on my lifestyle. We would have to buy a bigger car, possibly need a bigger house, not be able to pay for educational extras, have to rethink the kind of holiday we could go on, plan for a longer period of child care fees etc. etc. etc.

If I had nothing, and didn't have much hope of having more than nothing, having more children wouldn't make much difference and is at least a free way of having 'something'.

I'm not saying that having more children is a logical decision, just that in some circumstances there isn't much incentive to have fewer children.

It's a fair point that lots of people could, if they wanted, re-prioritise, to spend money on other things. Some, probably many, people have an expectation of going on nice holidays, going out to the pub, going to the cinema, buying clothes new, having a nice car, having a nicer house than they actually need, etc.
But some people really have very little money, so can't re-prioritise. Maybe it's not always clear from posts which side of the line the OP is on.
It is possible to go on holidays in an austere kind of way - buy a tent second hand (we've just bought one for £5, sleeps 4), take the train or bus to somewhere nice by the sea, etc. It still costs some money, mind you.
It is a basic human urge for many (not all) people to have children. If only people in good jobs can afford to bring up children, then this country has a serious problem - not too far to requiring those on benefits to accept sterilisation.

No...my "anecdote" is not meant to be as literal as that,I just mean that people can and do make very silly decisions when in poverty or when proclaiming to be hard up.

Was thinking about what the poster said about instant gratification when you are a bit hard up. Obviously the car is used to make yourself feel better / keep up with the joneses,however sending your children to a decent school (ie prioritise where you live)might mean better prospects/education for them and would therefore be a longterm investment to ensure your children had better prospects and maybe stop the cycle of depravation repeating itself in the next generation of your family.

Does that make sensesunny even slightly?

That post was to sunny!

LisaMed thanks for that, I had only the vaguest idea of how Brighthouse et al work but

croc it was the what would happen if payday lenders etc were got rid of...washing machines are an example...
You can cope without a washing machine - generations did it, not just SAHMs -they coped because they had NO CHOICE. It isn't easy or desirable but it CAN be done - if you are desperate enough.
(And there are ways you can massively reduce your washing load. I was truly shocked how much I could cut mine down by - sorry if that came across as preachy)
But loans like those are 'too easy' to get, too tempting ...you do have the choice and your life is pretty shit anyway so why make it harder for yourself etc - I get it. It is hard -almost impossible - to say I won't do that. (I remember standing in shop wondering if I could get away with not buying tampons for my next period until the next month - with chocolate mousse pots (cost about the same) in my basket...)

We have had a credit culture - encouraged by the government of the day and some people have now grown up surrounded by it - you can have anything you want now and worry about it later. And I think the people who really suffer most from that attitude are the poorer.

Borrowing money used to be 'shameful' amongst the working class poor being able to make do and not having to borrow was seen as something to be proud of. There was sympathy too - I remember my grandmother talking to her neighbour about someone on the same street who the loan man was going round to. (He had a name -I can't remember it might have been 'co-op'? but there was the man for the insurance too -might be getting confused.)

If you can survive not borrowing £60 for a second hand machine and paying back £100 - you 'make' £40 - you are now effectively £40 richer not poorer. 2/3 the way to being able to afford another machine. It's a weeks food shop etc etc

(recent thread on here someone borrowing £500 to pay back £150 and get some extra money - £450 in interest!!! that's jaw dropping ...that's a few new washing machines!).
I know this seems patronising but I have read things on MN that have made me wince ...some people really don't seem to be able to grasp that fact ...the long term aspect - I think it needs to be drilled into children at school.
Borrowing money (except as an investment for say a business) is something you do as the absolutely last possible resort.

"there isn't much incentive to have fewer children."

And I'm not saying that to argue that people have children because benefits are an incentive - people carry on having children all over the world in abject poverty in countries where there are no benefits.

i imagine the car is used to ferry the kids from a to b ispent.
Besides I do not really think that not sending your kids to a 'decent school' at primary level is going to have a long term impact on their earning power tbh.
The best you can hope for at that age is that they feel settled and happy and are part of the group. Moving them down the hill or wherever to where schools are 'nicer' is a fallacy IME

It's not all about cost. Maybe that family didn't send their children to a better school because they didn't want the effort of driving them a couple of miles to the next one. Or simply think that sending your child to the local school is what you do, at that point handing their children over to the school system, and feeling that they have done their bit. One difference in our society, for reasons we can debate, is between those who think outside the box to get their children better opportunities, and those that just follow society's basic expectations. Where we used to live, there were several schools all within easy walking distance. All were excellent, except for one, which had quite a bad reputation. Why did all the middle class families send their children to the excellent schools, even when the bad school was their catchment area school and a shorter walk for them, whereas others had made a different choice?

I think far from the treeand others are absolutely tight when they say there is a difference in being a "bit poor this month" and real hardship and poverty.

There is a way out for some people and often it is just a case of finding it and recognising it when you do!!

My dh used to earn mw for many years,he had no real qualifications and lacked the enthusiasm for his "dead end" jobs to progress up the ladder. He eventually applied for a job that many would probably turn down due to unsocialable hours,dangerous etc etc

The training was free and on the job, in fact he got paid whilst training and his career in that area has gone from strength to strength. He now earns a good wage.

His job is so unsociable and unpredictable we have had to make big changes within our family to accomadate it.

But we did.

Cos we had to.

I really hate it when people say they're struggling and have managed to go on holiday by camping. ... ! We couldn't even begin to afford even a secondhand tent or the petrol or train fares to get anywhere. We haven't had a holiday in years and years and years.

I believe that is spoken by someone who has never lived in an inner city area with "nicer subarbs" surrounding it. Where the difference between the two is vast, even at primary level.

In terms of crime etc

Again,to sunny!

i tell you what ispent - my kids attended the estate school that everyone looked down their noses at, and a 'nicer' school down off the estate, much more middle class.
The difference was astounding, the estate school was far nicer, with better teachers and people who actually gave a shit.

With our catchment area school, it was Ofsted mentioning chair throwing that put me off.

I think though that a lot of the comments here about having fewer kids/moving for better schools/changing jobs for long term gain make the mistake that people are the rational beings of classical economic theory. They are not. People in general don't make decisions based on a long term cost benefit analysis, they make choices based on incomplete information, avoiding short term cost/inconvenience, what their mate down the road did....and that's especially true when just getting to the end of the week is a grind and you haven't got the time and resources to start researching how to make things better.

Well, I'm glad you had a good experience sunny with the school.

All I'm saying is that in the kind of area in which I live there are many,many families who prioritise crap that doesn't matter. Tvs,phones,cars whilst never ever thinking outside the box about anything or wanting more for themselves or children.

Completely agree vertdeterre that's what I was trying to say about the instant gratification theory in a less succinct way!

Yes generations coped without washing machines - when nobody had washing machines and for large sectors of society looking a bit grubby was the norm and B.O wasn't really a thing and really, it didn't matter if certain sectors of the community didn't have clean clothes, because there was never a shortage of demand for manual labourers.

Also, many intelligent working class women threw themselves into the undervalued and much maligned job of running a house because they had little option of doing anything else. Nobody was going to ask them to cure cancer, but at least their daughters could leave the house with white socks and a neat bow in their hair.

The weekly wash dominated women's lives. This was not a good thing.

One would hope they would have other outlets for their talents these days.