to think those of us born into stable, functioning family units are pretty bloody lucky?

[DolphinsandDinosaurs]

I've just been watching a programme, I think it was channel 4, where celebrities try sleeping on the streets, and mixing with people who are homeless. They met a couple of genuine homeless people, and tried hard to persuade them to contact their Mums parents for help.

It made me really cross, the idea that if you contact Mum it will all be OK. This is something that a lot of us take for granted, but it seemed so naive in the context of a programme like that.

Surely they should realise that a lot of people are on the streets because they don't have that support at home. They come from chaotic backgrounds and never had a bloody chance!

Sorry, I have had a couple of glasses of wine, but it does amaze me how much of a bubble so many of us live in, and saddens me to realise how hopeless so many people's lives are!

YANBU

I agree. I'm 43 and I still have a room at my parent's house. It's such a relief to know that if my life goes tits up I will always have a home with them. Having that security has meant that I've been able to take risks in my career, return to education as adult and live on the continent for years. In turn I will do the same for my daughter.

Some people/kids just get a shit deal when it comes to parents/life options.

Absolutely and it's not always the well off middle class, naice, outwardly functional parents. Mine have severe mental health issues and have been aggressive/borderline abusive but would always be there if I need them. DH's family may have been normal, naice, professional people but wouldn't put themselves out for him, they may throw some cash at the problem instead. I'd rather have mine despite the dysfunction.

Agree op. Never forgotten a boy i went to school with ended up homeless at 16 when his mum remarried and throw him out. As a direct result he got no gcses and had no address to get a job. Did bump into him a few years later and he was sofa surfing and trying to keep away from the drugs. Often wonder what happened to him.

YANBU

I often see homeless people and think, but for the grace of God.

It can happen so easily to anyone - you lose your job, can't pay the rent, sofa-surf with friends but it's difficult to find work without a fixed address. Eventually, you end up on the streets, and then what?

I am lucky, if the worst happened I could go back to my parents, or to extended family. Some people have nobody who can help them back on their feet, and I just find that so sad.

Yanbu. Very naive.

I'm 25. Throughout my life, people have told me to go home. When I broke my back, when I was homeless, when I got a pretty bad blood infection, when I couldn't work... People default to telling you to swallow your pride and go home so your parents can look after you.

My parents have never looked after me. I have no home to go too. I'm lucky that I'm coping okay looking after myself and I have some support from friends, but it's a constant reminder of what I lack. And it's always said at just the times when you're feeling vulnerable and could do without the reminder!

Very naive to think the homeless would rather sleep outside than go home, it that was at all an option.

My daughter's boyfriend was made homeless at age 18 when his mum just gave up the apartment she was renting and moved in with her boyfriend. My heart broke for this very lovely young man. My exhusband now rents him a room in his home at a very low rate.I tell my children as long as I have a home, they will have a home.

I watched that, thinking the same.
Also couldn't understand the Willie Thorne hotel thing but missed a chunk of the programme.
I think the issues are way more complex than they are getting time to show.

We say this, a lot.

Should we ever find ourselves in so much difficulty we become homeless, we know any family member would take us in. Even aunties and uncles rarely seen who aren't local. Cousins spread around the county and some we never hear from, we know no-one would ever see us out on the streets.

This is because we are both from two strong family units. Likewise, should a cousin we haven't seen for 10 years turn up here, they'd have a place to stay. It might be the sofa/floor but we'd find a way.

YANBU

it is the single biggest piece of luck in my life that I was reared by my parents in the safe, loving, environment they provided. It is secondary even to the piece of luck of being intelligent. Those 2 bits of luck are so often overlooked by people who think "work hard" solves everything or presume all families are functional. I know they shaped my life (my beginnings were not auspicious)

I recently talked to a friend -from an ordinary (highly highly dysfunctional) middle class family and she said to me "I have not one happy memory of my mother" this is over a 40 year period. And that isn't even the ending up homeless end of the spectrum.

I think people genuinely don't seem to get how different people's lives can be but see everything through the prism of their own experience. You see it on here when a woman is being treated horribly and contemptuously by her partner and someone will say "well we all get stressed at time" or "everyone has an argument". I think they genuinely don't get what being in an horrific and abusive situation is like because they have never encountered it.

Very true. Stability of some kind, parents who care for you and will always be there - makes all the difference. i can't imagine how difficult it is for kids who never had that.

I think it was on BBC One, by the way. Just in case anyone missed it and wants to find it online.

Anything I have I've had to do on my own. I don't have a "fall back" of parents or family I can go to if the shit hits the fan. I have spent time living on the streets and knowing the uncertainty and fear of that does keep you having a certain level of not wanting to take too many chances or risks in life.

Yanbu

I learned this at school when I realised a friend had parents who simply did not care. It was hard to understand because I was surrounded by care. I did not get on with my Mum as I grew older but I knew she both cared and did her duty. I did distance myself age 20 but life was never chaotic and as I matured we reconciled and I recognised we are just very different personalities.

I also recognise a thread through the generations of my mother's family of stability and care and love. It's like emotional epigenetics, I think. My problems growing to maturity are similar to relatives on my father's side, sadly a few of them have ended as addicts and leading chaotic lives.

Yanbu. My lovely mum (single parent, living in a council house) died when I was 20 and at university. Me and my siblings had 2 weeks to clear out the house. Since then I have totally supported myself. Luckily I have always been ok, but it amazes me the number of people who cannot comprehend the idea of having nothing to fall back on.

Definitely NBU OP! I am often in awe of those (that i know personally) who do such brilliant jobs of parenting despite having fuck all example of parenting set for them.

And yes sad for those who can never dream of having a mum to ring for a shoulder to cry on.

I can't comprehend it at all. My dad is dead but even at 48.. if my life went tits up I know my Mum would house me, care for me and help me in every way she could.

My kids are 18,22,23 and 24... one will always live at home (autistic) two have their own places now and one is travelling, but when he comes home... it is his home until he chooses to leave.

I am in awe of those who survive without a stable loving home to return to no matter what. I realise I am lucky to have a fabulous mother, and feel so so sorry for those who haven't had that security.

I will have a space available to my children til the day I die.

I have a df who's parents supported her 100% to go.to uni, pays for her holidays, and gave her and her db deposits to buy houses. She is very lucky, but can't see it. She has no empathy for people who suffer and struggle, and believes that she got where she is through sheer hard work. She thinks that any one could have the same if they weren't so lazy.

YANBU - if there's one thing I can want my children to learn it's that DH and I will ALWAYS be there for them in a crisis. There is something so inherently comforting about knowing I could just pitch up at my parents if I really needed to, and they would do everything in their power to support me while I needed it. Of course, that works both ways. I would also do absolutely anything I could to help them if they ever needed it. DH and his family are the same.

Yeah, agree. As a kid the reason I never told anyone about the emotional abuse from my mother and never tried to run away is because I knew they would take me back to my clean respectable home and my quiet, polite mother and they would think "problem solved". I would've preferred sleeping rough to living at home, I think - it was more the fear of what it would be like when I got found and taken home that stopped me.

You kind of hope it's better for kids from more chaotic households, alcoholism, borderline personalities etc - surely there SWs etc can see the chaos and know that it's not a safe place? But then the number of times you hear it said (e.g. in the baby Peter case) that the parents were "skilled" at appearing caring, and I wonder if that sort of natural bias of people with a happy upbringing to assume that parents are caring is in operation.