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.

I'm still not completely sure I understand why that comment caused you distress I'm afraid, unlucky.

The point of this thread was to illustrate that advice,while kindly meant, is often irrelevant and that rather than accepting said advice is irrelevant in some cases, Mumsnetters instead go on to insist that an individual can follow that advice even if it's completely impractical.

Your 'wash by hand, then' has appeared on this thread and is largely a perfect case in point of exactly the sort of thing I mean.

Sorry posted previewing the bold by accident ...
'What people have to contend with'...

I never said you wouldn't be poor or drying your clothes wouldn't be a problem - literally I was just saying do people know how to do that - because I thought everyone did until I came across my old flatmate- who didn't...no critism intended - actually just trying to be helpful ...the fact that you have taken it to be a critism ...or unhelpful ...

At a parents evening a parent recently turned to the head teacher and said "you don't understand and will never understand. You don't understand that I can't afford to heat the water to have a bath every week and share my children's water when it's tepid after they get out. I bet you just jump in the shower without a thought"
that comment showed me that even though money is tight I don't really understand true poverty.

And I never said wash by hand - I actually said I reduced the washing I did, washed the odd thing by hand (underwear) so the laundrette was less of a hassle ...
I actually suggested coming to an arrangement with someone to use their washing machine in the short term ...
I am not - and have never - suggested washing by hand/sharing a washing machine etc is a long term solution but it could keep you away from the payday loans...which I think just make you even poorer...
The washing is a complete tangent...
(and actually mother a long time ago I remember being incensed when I heard a teacher telling someone at school that 'soap and water cost nothing' - warm water, soap and washing clothes does actually cost...)

But unlucky, it wasn't a thread about washing. Had it been, your comment might have had some applicability.

However, had someone hypothetically been lamenting being unable to wash their clothes, someone insisting that managing without a washing machine in a one bedroom flat with triplets is doable and indeed easy is infuriating. Especially when they Won't Let It Drop

croc

Garlic as usual is spot on. Everything she said, avec knobs on.

I think unlucky was referring to when you said her suggestion of swinging towels as an example of the kind of advice people have to contend with, I read it as she was quoting you kind of thing.

I remember sitting in the dark playing board games by candlelight in outdoor clothing as we had no money for gas or electric, also remember having to use newspaper instead of toilet roll, I remember hiding behind chairs when the rent man came, more than that I remember my mum in tears on a regular basis. The person who judged us most was Dad, the very person who played a very big part for the situation we were in.

X posts sorry.

I once posted on a thread where the OP was on her knees and was just getting pummelled with "advice" from all angles, and all she wanted was some bloody empathy. She felt alone, and broken and like she was fighting a relentless tidal wave. She didn't have the energy or the strength to post every detail of her life and have it picked apart with suggestions she had already tried and ideas which she had already ruled out. She wasn't daft, she had done what she could already, she just wanted to know that she wasn't alone, and that she could keep going.
It IS a fear thing, it's easier to keep stuffing padding into a wound to quell the bleeding than it is to keep a steady hand, see the degree of the injury and begin trying to slowly and painstakingly stitch it up.

Should have mentioned dad left us so they weren't together.

YY Shadows

Especially the bossy and pompous posters who loudly berate someone for questioning the welfare state and yet less than five minutes later will make a sucked lemon-esque post at someone struggling.

Poverty isn't just money and it's important to remember that.

I know we're several hours on, ispentit, but we live in a cheap area where the secondary schools are a bit meh, at best.

Ditching the car (not Audi, but a very smart, large, practical Toyota) would not even go part way towards the deposit needed to move to the very tiny catchment area of the highly regarded state school in the nearest city. Our 2 bed house is worth £60K (and paid for). We couldn't get a mortgage for the difference between that and an even smaller house or flat located securely in said catchment and, as mentioned upthread, our "wealth" is above middling. A £250K+ house is well out of reach for us, though.

And even if we could do it, DH would be 6 miles further away from (professional, pretty specialised) work, more than an hour further away with available and expensive public transport options and wouldn't have a car. Fat lot of good that would have achieved.

Lots of people in our village in one of the poorest areas of the country have fairly nice cars. I reliable car is pretty essential for most people here, anyhow and it's one of the few parts of the country where a family on an average income (lower here than nationally) can afford to buy (or rent) without living in a complete shithole.

Similarly for your neighbour, I refuse to believe that his choice is a simple as better school vs car. Living somewhere cheaper can afford you a lot of other comforts and peace of mind, as well. It's nice to be able to afford to do something about it when the washer or car breaks expensively (In the case of the car, we said "enough" and replaced it with the nice and reliable one that we have rather than forking out more than its value in yet another repair). There are sacrifices to be made (eg crap public transport, miles to the nearest decent shop) but those things are do-able when you're on a middling but not spectacular income.

"I suppose being on a low income often comes with lots of other challenges which take up time and energy.

Admin for example, endless appointments, feeling unwell. A can stop you thinking about rustling up a chicken kiev.

Yes! Walking everywhere, four supermarkets and a market instead of one to hunt out the cheapest bargains, jobhunting, studying, filling in forms, time devoted to eeking thing out, mending everything, plotting and planning. And everybody else thinks your time is cheap/plentiful too when you are poor/need benefits/are a carer/unemployed."

This for me much earlier in the thread was the standout post. My ex_h told my DS that I was lazy because I didn't work outside the home. I used to, but am now retraining and applying for jobs suitable for school run (like half the fucking country). It is the time expectation that grinds me down.

Having read lots more posts on this thread - I have been in tears and awe at so many of your fabulous mumsnetters. Life is not good for me now but I don't have to worry about feeding DS and me.

Love that post of 12.38 merry mouse, spot on.
I saw a programme once where really old people were talking about the past.
There was this one old fella whone mum had been an unmarried mother, and he had been taken off her and brought up in a home. Tales of sheer grimness.
At the end he said vehemently " people talk about the good old days, but they weren't good, a lot of the time. Especially for women and children. It's much better now."
Also, sorry about the washing reference again, but, in the olden days people had mangles!

If anyone is interested, these two programmes are on channel 5 tomorrow at 9.00pm and 10.00pm. The one about children is, I think, a repeat

www.channel5.com/shows/benefits-britain-life-on-the-dole/episodes/episode-1-690

www.channel5.com/shows/12-years-old-caring-for-mum-through-a-childs-eyes

Ourye,

I totally understand where you are coming from and to be honest feel slightly aggrieved as this whole car versus area thing was only one example I gave out of many,many posts I made and it was only because another poster jumped on it that I argued that particular point so much.

Your situation though is very different in that you own your own home,neither myself or the friend in question have that luxury and the actual difference in our private rents is around £150 a month....
About the difference in the running value of our cars....

I think it is very different starting points and circumstances

Cheesecake - I did when I was a student (with hands in a much better state than now) and only had me to worry about and not 2 very messy boys, one of whom is doubly incontinent. He gets through 3 or 4 changes of clothes, some days. We end up putting him in pyjama bottoms, simply because they're lighter than joggers and I stand half a chance of keeping on top of the laundry that way with a washer dryer at my disposal.

With out the money I actually now have available to throw at things, it would be either a visit to Brighthouse, or small ads for a washer that might last me a couple of months. There are some re-purposing charities that pass these sort of things on, but I know the sort of stuff we've donated has included a washer dryer where the washer's fine but the dryer was beyond economic repair - so goodness knows how much life would have been left in the washer itself.

And if I had to hand wash, anyhow, I'd be making sure everyone had black undies just so I didn't have to contemplate the inevitable stains.

Unlucky

Rolling in a towel is fine for a sweater, or a few undies.

Absolutely shite when you've got more wet clothes from a family than you have towels and nowhere to dry the clothes and the towels that is out of the way and sufficiently well ventilated not to make your house damp.

I do see where you're coming from, too, spent

I think that for some people, if they've been raised in an area (don't know if this applies to your friend) the thought of moving a few miles down the road can be pretty intimidating. It's easy for me because I moved around a lot as a child. DH lived in one house for most of his childhood and it was only a vendor pulling out that persuaded him to look seriously outside of his home town (which, a decade or so on, he does all he can to avoid visiting unless he has to!)

I think moving can be problematic anyway. I never can really understand why it's one of the things people trot out anyway. Moving often means moving away from family and support systems, which often makes things worse. In my case, I cannot move. My ds1 is disabled, has a statement, and is attending a specialist school. Moving could put that all at risk - and I couldn't guarantee that wherever I moved to would have the schooling that is appropriate for his needs. So here I stay, regardless, because it's best for him.

One thing I have in my favour, statement wise, Alice, is the fact that I live in one of the biggest counties in England. OK, so half of it is barely habitable, but so long as I don't ever crave a return to big city life, and we stay in reasonable distance of wherever DH is most likely to be working we have a reasonable choice of different living situations, including the ridiculously expensive catchment of the school dubbed by the Sunday Times, last week, as the best in the Northeast, but which I'd want neither of my boys to be at, even if they could manage mainstream secondary.

The irony that we moved here so my ex could be closer to his ailing parents, and now we're separated, he's flitting all over the country with every woman he can find, as the children and I are trapped here while he literally abandons his mother (and his children). It's very frustrating. I'm not saying it's a bad area, but it's not the area I would have chosen if I was to choose where to live. Can't afford to just pick up and move anyway, but yes, literally trapped here.

That was my situation, cheesecake, but, as I said, I didn't have a family, then and my current disability was an occasional temporary inconvenience rather than the permanent annoyance that it's morphed into.

Oddly enough, houses with non-air-tight single glazed windows don't have quite the condensation problems that houses with double glazing that were never meant to have. I can't even dry wet coats without the need for a dehumidifier, now.