Aibu to expect people to help themselves in their own lives?

[Lazymazy1]

Have wanted to be a social worker for many years, have a degree and was looking to do a MSc.
However, doing voluntary work with a family who are in a very chaotic position, who won't help themselves, ie getting pregnant again whilst effectively homeless. Not taking control of things which will make a big difference in their current situation.

It isn't a case of can't, but won't help themselves, perhaps ingrained.

Am I being unreasonable ? Or are there good reasons why people just won't help themselves?

I think we're all interested in the same things, TBH apart from a few people who just see the word "benefits" and start grinding their teeth - social disadvantage and how best to deal with it

On a pp on this thread iced you had said you turned it around, can I ask what helped?

"Nobody is going to think my kids come from a poor household if they wear a tesco track suit because it's fairly obvious that in every other area of their life they have an expensive lifestyle."

That's exactly what I was going to say, *Needsasockamnesty"!

I have the worst pram on my entire estate. Seriously tatty looking, early 90's charity shop job. You can leave it anywhere. No one wants to nick my pram.

Its only possible for me to pull this off because I present as middle class in other ways.

If I didn't, there is no way I would walk about with, what amounts to a visible advertisement that I can't support my kids.
Which is how it would be interpreted. Not just by other Mums either: by nursery school teachers, health visitors, doctors, social workers possibly.

The stress not only to provide but to be seen to be providing is incredible. When social workers get involved multiply that by 100.
You could actually have eaten a HOMECOOKED FROM SCRATCH meal off my floors when they were involved.
While I silently died inside and my child couldn't play outside and get dirty or eat a bar of chocolate in case the cnuts came. And tutted.

I can't remember exactly what I said…

I had a serious mental illness (still do) and had a lot of problems going on, but more recently have been getting the right treatment, and although I'm still on benefits, I'm now doing a college course in order to go to university next year. It's pretty hard work but I'm now a "student" with some prospect of a decent future. I still have a lot of problems but life is better. But who knows? I could get seriously ill again and lose it all.

Social workers are like mils. Except they have the power to remove your child instead of just tutting.

These example conversations I gave, right?

"People who are/do x y z are feckless and we shouldn't be helping them"
"I was x y z and with help I turned it around"
"Oh not you, those others"

"People in situation x y z got there through their own fault"
"I was in situation x y z and it happened because…"
"Oh I didn't mean you, I meant those others"

"People in situation x y z should just do a b c"
"I'm in that situation and I can't do a b c because…"
"Oh well not you, that's understandable, but those others, there's no reason why they can't"

By most people's standards, I probably haven't turned things around all that much. I'm still on ESA and DLA, have never had a job, etc. etc., but I've never not tried.

Exactly iced.

I'm disabled, mentally ill, single mum on benefits and have been for 8 years. I've had points where I felt I was getting well enough to consider preparing to go back to work (I worked full time since 16 except when studying full time, including after becoming a single mum) was raised to not rely on others, honestly raised it was shameful to be on benefits.

My disability is invisible (nerve disorder) as of course is mental illness.

I've had dirty looks, subtle comments, not so subtle comments ... Until either I or a friend puts these ignorant people straight...then you get 'oh I don't mean you'.

Honestly where I struggle most to reign in in real life is when acquaintances then think it's ok to slag someone else apparently living a cushy life on benefits to me because 'you're not one of them'

Because

A YES I am and I know you thought that about me before you knew my circumstances

B they haven't learned from that example that they may not know the whole story!

C it's showing me that person is not a nice person but a judgmental arse who'd get a bloody shock if anything awful happened to them

Everyone's story is different. I have NEVER met

Anyone who had a baby 'to get housed' it's far more complex than that.

Anyone who hasn't hated being on benefits and the stigma/judgment it attracts.

Anyone not working just because they Cba

Anyone that wishes a life on benefits for their kids.

Certainly NEVER met what seems to me to be fictional (because even in the press or on threads on here nobody's been able to provide proof when properly challenged) people on benefits with flash cars, tons of latest tech, getting regular fake tans/manicures/pedicures, having luxury holidays, having lots of nights out UNLESS they're up to something dodgy (cash in hand work, drug dealing etc). And even that is far more rare than we're led to believe.

I can guarantee you that benefits are impossible to live off. Seriously.
I am going insane trying to figure out what to do.
I have considered prostitution but it would destroy me. I just don't know what to do.

unlimited

My pram is the same, it's a Stokke xplory (which granted is an expensive pram) but one that has done a minimum of 12 kids as it's been passed back and forth and seriously battered.

It's interesting when you look at it, lots of people laugh at the percieved "middle class" stereotype of messy haired kids wearing wellies and fairy wings but have a child from a very low income home rocking the same look at those same people start talking about the child "looking unkempt" or being "inappropriatly attired"

I can walk around with large enough bags under my eyes that I could be mistaken for a zombie but nobody bats an eyelid yet the same thing on a mother whose highest qualification is a gcse and she lives in a council house and it becomes "mother looks stressed and tired And like she's not coping"

people inc a lot of social workers appear to have almost no understanding of the dynamics of power involved with a SW and His/Her service users and IME grossly underestimate their own role in not making those dynamics work for the child alongside how their own subjective opinions can cause harm.

Its classism and it stinks. Its what allows situations like this to keep on happening over and over and continue unchecked.

Today at 15:43
"Utterly disgusted with Swale heating, been waiting since MAY for our boiler to be fixed, since getting colder I've phoned every week for the past 6 weeks for somebody to come out and fix the boiler as we've had no heating and I've been draining the boiler myself for hot water (like your engineer showed me) finally got someone to come out on Monday to fix it and just received a call saying as you've had a high number of emergencies you won't now be coming out until the 12th December, my 2 year old son has now contracted a chest infection that he is struggling to beat as his home conditions are so cold, I'm curious as to why we are not an emergency considering we've had no heating at all since May and I have 4 young children"

Why dont Social Services intervene when its landlords causing problems if its all about the welfare of the children?

Not sure the sw would have any powers over the landlord, but could only advise I imagine. Could the person get another engineer out and bill Swale?

I wonder if the stigma greater now - I guess this is subjective.

Re think your career!!! Omg!!

I've never not tried.
Which was my initial point .
Good luck for your studies iced

A man I knew, had a house, job , partner. Then, he lost his job, his house, his partner, ended up sleeping in a car for 6 months . Hit rock bottom , he managed to turn it around, lost 12 stone ( on purpose) , he has his flat, has MH issues so no paid job. But he fought back, he does some volunteer work and he never stops trying to get to where he wants to be. It can be done, year by year he is making progress.

I hope you find a solution my

I understand where you are coming from, but sometimes people aren't motivated by the same things as you or I perhaps. What may seem as a deal breaker for getting help to one, may not be for another.

Also, many people, due to many reason, can display self-destructive behaviour and/or feel they do not deserve help.

That might have been your original point, Lazy, but I didn't look like I was trying at all. I was sitting on the sofa all day gazing blankly at the TV.

At some point my trying began to look like trying. I, too, lost a lot of weight (seven stone), started college, etc., and the trying was visible on the outside. Before that, "trying" looked like nothing at all, because all it resulted in was me managing to stay alive. But once I looked like I was trying, I got praise, encouragement, and help. I know that I'm not trying any harder now than I was before. But nobody else does.

I was sitting on that sofa for a decade. Well, actually, my arse wore through three different sofas in that time

Lazy thats the trouble. You have to go through the ombudsman first which takes months. Plus poorer tenants may not be able to afford it.

Either way kids are freezing and becoming unwell.

If the parent was choosing to keep the heating off SS would be all over them.

Yet the end result is the same........kids health and well being is being affected.

Yet SS has no power to enforce landlords but IMO i think they should have.

In fact I think everyone is trying in one way or another. They're doing the best they can given their circumstances and abilities.

I hear you iced

Yes sometimes trying isn't any more visible than the challenge, sometimes trying is just staying alive!

A friends inlaws chose to live mainly on benefits some years ago. Her FIL hasn't worked for years. He managed a few years ago to get DLA for his back problems, so MIL who worked a few hours a week, packed it in to become his carer. FIL has several siblings who all live a similar lifestyle. They nearly all live on the same estate, their social life revolves round the family, and they see choosing not to work as pretty normal.

Friends DH is a lovely guy, but was of a similar mindset til he realised that his children could have a better life. Friend always had a job, but now both work, have moved to a nicer area, and their DC are at a decent school. Friends ILs have resented her and her DH for trying to improve their lives, calling them snobs, and cant understand why they'd want to move, even though the estate is fairly notorious and the schools are crap. Quite a bit of pressure there to conform to that norm.

myoriginal Thinking of you and hoping you find a solution. It is hard but you sound so clued up and intelligent on here that I have complete faith things will change for you. xx

My former nanny (who has a degree as well as various childcare qualifications) gave it all up to have two kids on the social with a transient father who pays nothing towards their support. She's been given a brand new council house, free bed, sofa, washing machine, and lives on benefits including running a reasonable car (which to be fair she needs as it's in a rural area). Like a lot of people I was supportive the first time around, giving her so much stuff and helping her out, but when baby number two came along soon after the other one, and it was clear this indefinite living on the social had been the plan all the way along, I had a really judgypants moment where I wondered what the point was of going to work and not seeing my own kids so much so that other people could sit about and please themselves.

Given her level of education, and the fact that locally nurseries are crying out for staff and many will allow employees to take their own children along for free or at very low cost while they work, I honestly didn't think this was right. Nor is the dad chipping in for the children he helped create. It sets a bad example to the children and limits opportunities for the mother in the future. This is the kind of thing that the Ian Duncan Smith people of the world get incensed about and it makes it a lot harder for people who have a genuine reason for not working such as ill-health or domestic bleakness, limiting the financial support and sympathy available for them. That is, in my opinion, just wrong.

You can't indefinitely live 'on the social'
When the baby is 12 months old your ex nanny (well educated, good work history) will have to show she is looking for work.

Councils and HA do not provide free beds and appliances so perhaps a charity provided those, if your information is correct.

As for free housing, the woman in question will be paying rent for the property she is occupying, which over time will pay for itself.

She has actually got fuck all as far as I can see, raising 2 small children on benefits, an ex partner who is not contributing in any way to the upbringing of these children, a rental property, no job...poor woman.

As well as people like yourself condemning her when you don't really have all the information.

Would you prefer her in the workhouse?
you probably would