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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To wonder why we bother encouraging our children to share when......

44 replies

malificent7 · 07/11/2016 18:44

Most people seem to be quite fisted and lack generosity? Judging by all the benefit bashers and snobbery in the world it appears that the default condition for the human race is miserliness rather than generosity.

I know that I vastly over generalise but it really does seem that most people are obsessed with money to the extent where they begrudge paying any taxes towards public services and are very quick to brand the poor as lazy scroungers.

I went to a very posh private school and everyone was obsessed with cash there too. Your social standing very much depended on the designer labels you were warning and the car that picked you up from school. Apparently the kids would throw coins at the local people from the state comp as a snub.

Today, the phrase 'hardworking families' is bandied about in a way that suggests that why should hard working families pay for the poor.

I am relatively poor as a skint single mum but I work full time (35 hours). My wage is low and I keep trying for higher earning jobs but with no luck.
I don't mind having tax deducted as I want good public services and a safety net for those in needs. So I guess I am a hardworking family but only because I am lucky enough to have an excellent support network, an expensive education, a bit of self confidence and a great childminder. Thousands don't have these advantages.

The word 'feckless ' is bandied about a lot too. I could have been described as feckless in the past for having a child outside of marriage and no steady career. In reality I was suffering from ptsd.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for people working if they can but the government are really tightening the thumb screws on the poor as I am finding out and it seems that many are celebrating this.

I guess in uncertain times people want to grasp onto their cash more than ever.

I'm sorry to all you lovely generous sharing people out there and fwiw I do believe we should encourage our children to share...I just wanted an attention grabbing title!

OP posts:

RoseGoldHippie · 08/11/2016 07:36

There is a difference between sharing and giving.

^^this!

I don't share anything (only child syndrome ) but I am equally very generous. I just don't like people having what's mine! For example (this jade the happened but is the easiest way to explain) at the chip shop, I ask Friend if they want some chips (I'm buying!) they say no. if friend then proceeds to eat loads of my chips Id get pissed off. I would have bought you your own! FFS!

to me we should teach children to be charitable and geberous but I don't really get why we all must share all the time!

RoseGoldHippie · 08/11/2016 07:40

Sorry for the random anecdote! I'm holding my eyes open with matchsticks so am probably not thinking straight need coffee!

Statelychangers · 08/11/2016 07:41

I encourage my dcs to be well mannered, considerate of others, understand for example, that if they bring out a bag of sweets in company they should offer them around, they don't need to share equally amongst guests. If however they have a friend over they must share what ever they chose to do - clearly there are things that are for personal usage - but I'd expect my dcs not to play on a phone if their invited guest did not have one. I'd expect them to take turns on a computer of put the computer away. There is a pleasure in sharing, whether it be a joke, a cup of tea, a task or a bag of sweets....I like my kids to know this emotion, it's important, it encourages a generous heart and brings joy to all involved.

SemiNormal · 08/11/2016 07:49

I'm actually pretty selfish. I don't necessarily view this as a 'bad' thing. I aim to preserve myself and what is mine for the future of my child. I have been massively screwed over in the past having had my generosity taken for granted so perhaps that has something to do with it.

HarleyQuinzel · 08/11/2016 08:08

I've always thought this. I'm all for encouraging sharing, but that's all you can do. Demanding that someone 'shares' isn't really sharing anymore is it?

A lot of adults are much more selfish than they like to make out. Maybe it's because they were forced to share all their things as a child .

Batteriesallgone · 08/11/2016 08:19

Shall I drop this in here? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

LittleLionMansMummy · 08/11/2016 08:20

I agree op that as a society we seem to have become more 'conservative'. The problem in part lies with the increasingly right wing media and their sensationalist headlines about benefit scroungers and immigrants etc which feed the sense of outrage of 'normal, hardworking families' that there is a widespread epidemic of piss taking, rather than truly needy, people. It is no coincidence that by far the biggest selling newspapers in the UK today are the Daily Mail, Express and Sun. They are becoming ever more toxic with a strong tendency to stoke hatred and division over almost anything remotely sensible.

myfavouritecolourispurple · 08/11/2016 08:22

Benefits (and I specifically exclude vulnerable people here) should be a last resort safety net while you work yourself out of whatever situation has led you to claim, you are not supposed to be comfortable on them or where is the incentive to get back to work and support yourself

Have you ever had to claim benefits? If you have, I doubt you'd think anyone is happy doing it. It's an incredibly demeaning process (at least for job seekers allowance). Maybe it depends where you live - ie in areas of high unemployment it might be acceptable but otherwise not at all.

if I don't want or need something any more, I'll give it away not sell it

me too, too lazy to ebay things although when I was short of cash a few years ago I did ebay a few things. By the times all the charges have come out you don't make much though, so there isn't much point bothering.

I think there is room for the sharing economy though - like why does everyone have to have their own lawnmower? It would make sense to buy 3-4 for a road (in my case of about 25 houses) and then have a rota for using them. Car sharing is the same, I wish there was a car club where I live. I don't need lots of things, I just need use of them from time to time.

mysistersimone · 08/11/2016 08:24

The saying isn't 'money is the root of all evil' it's 'the love of money is the root of all evil'

tangerineclouds · 08/11/2016 08:26

It's often misquoted, as is 'the poor are always with us.'

Shakirasma · 08/11/2016 08:29

YANBU OP

I also wonder why we teach our children not to fight or hurt each other when it turns out it's horribly normal for grown men in politics (I'd running the country and the wider world!) to use fists at dawn to settle their differences.

Bluebolt · 08/11/2016 08:37

My mother was very forceful with sharing my two much older brothers both had terrible relationships with money. The had been brought up by learning to spend straight away or have to share their savings. The same with food. My oldest brother was really screwed by this as he was generous by nature but if he saved a pound and his brother spent his, he was then compelled to share his pound which DB2 knew only too well. I occasionally give to DB2 but would never share as he would have a good time spending and be back for more.

BadLad · 08/11/2016 08:40

Why not try to set up such a scheme?

shovetheholly · 08/11/2016 08:42

YANBU. It saddens me that people are actually proud of selfishness now. It's an awful trait, with awful consequences. So much of it comes from a kind of blinkered, consumerist mindset that has a very narrow conception of 'mine' and 'yours'. We are losing a popular sense of the extent to which ALL wealth is heavily grounded in common goods to which we all contribute (from law and order, to roads and transport, to education) and a sense of precarity (the extent to which, prior to the welfare state a 'respectable' family with a 'good' job could be reduced to poverty within weeks by illness).

I absolutely hate the point of view people have of "I succeeded BY MY OWN EFFORTS AND OWE NOBODY ANYTHING". It's 100% bullshit, every time.

Statelychangers · 08/11/2016 09:02

I don't believe selfishness makes people happy in the long run - quite the opposite...it's a lonely, bitter, envious, joyless emotion.

LurkingHusband · 08/11/2016 09:13

Money is the root of all evil

(nerd alert)

isn't it: "For the love of money is the root of all evil ?"

Nothing wrong with money - it's lovely stuff. Just not the be all and end all.

Theoretician · 08/11/2016 09:34

The saying isn't 'money is the root of all evil' it's 'the love of money is the root of all evil'

I would have been the third person to say this, had I not read the whole thread first. However I can offer an additional correction. The saying is:-

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

biblehub.com/1_timothy/6-10.htm

So what it's saying is that the love of money is one cause (among many) of many kinds of harm. (It looks like evil just means harm, in this context.)

Money does not cause harm evil, and the love of money does not necessarily cause harm, but it does place you at risk.

Note also that the "evils" are not harm to others, it is the harm that the money-lovers do to themselves. The quote continues:-

Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

LurkingHusband · 08/11/2016 09:44

Theoretician

Well, that's my fact for the day . Thank you. I can go to bed knowing more than I did when I woke up, which is how life should be ...

NotHardUpNow · 08/11/2016 11:08

Manina you have it the wrong way round re givers and takes with tax.

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