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?

RE: 'judgemental'. On my counselling course, our tutor once told us that he used to ask candidates whether or not they were judgemental, and they invariably said 'no' - because who wants a judgemental counsellor, right?

He pointed out that we all judge others, to some degree or another. The important difference is in knowing when you have made a judgement and examing why (self-awareness) or making a judgement and decreeing it to be 'right', then acting upon it. The former is surely preferable?

Yes I know I made a spelling error

Perhaps Social Work isn't for you . . You appear to lack compassion for one thing .

Portia - nobody is judging you

So....I have concluded that I would be a good social worker after reading this thread. :)

Good job I didn't read it 20 years ago because I understand working conditions are very poor and getting worse.

Thank you to all the social workers on the thread for doing a really hard job.

Some proper twatish replies on here this eve..a lot of them repetitive, boringly repeating what others have said over and over! Op ..what you have said is not unreasonable, its, just what you think.. you are entitled to your opinion and I'm sure you would't vocalise this in front of this family! Please carry on your studies. this country is crying out Social workers !

• crying out for social workers!!

lazy. Well you clearly have curiosity, which is positive (I'm not criticising you, but other posters who have jumped on the bandwagon with probably less experience than yourself).

The reason I didn't pursue the counselling is because I didn't feel 'ready' - not healed or removed enough, I guess. Also there's a lot of mental plate-juggling. I'd still like to do it - but maybe in another couple of years. I don't want to feel fragile while supposedly supporting another fragile human being. Absolutely loved that course and would highly recommend it to anyone but it's far from simple 'tea and sympathy'.

I'm a practical person and used to get frustrated when people didn't want help. "I can't wash my child's clothes as I have no money" "here's a grant to buy a washing machine" "no thanks" I like everything to have a solution and for those solutions to work.

So I gave up social work. It involves a certain type of empathy and patience which I just don't have. I still care about people as I can see you do OP and it's not about not caring, it's just about, as you say, thinking people in some situations could help themselves more. I used to try and inflict my own solutions on other people and seemed to lack the ability to empower people. I just couldn't understand how people wanted to have a good moan or cry without wanting to take action to sort it out!

Only you know OP what's inside and what you really feel and think about people and you might make a really good, practical social worker despite having some reservations about a small few people you help. Me personally, I'm a judgemental witch and I wish I could find it within me to be the person I want to be but I just wasn't suited to a people facing role. I have many skills but putting myself in someone else's shoes isn't one of them.

Good luck with whatever decision you make, there are loads of things you can do with a social work degree!

Take away that safety net and the problem would be solved in a generation

What utter tosh. There's loads of countries with little or no welfare systems. Are they Utopias where everyone makes responsible decisions and there are no chaotic families living intolerably precarious lives? Of course not. What a fantastically daft thing to say.

You can't judge everyone by your standards in life. Some people genuinely don't care enough to try to help themselves. Some need a great deal of assistance but get there in the end, others don't even try - it's easier to rely on other people than it is for them to do something about their situation themselves.

Of course, that won't stop them moaning about their kids being taken into care, or their kids not being taken into care, or the government cutting benefits, or Sky Sports going up again, or anything else.

In your position as a social worker, the only thing you can do is your best. Meet everyone with an open mind and allow them to accept your help if they are able. Some people need to be offered help multiple times before they accept it.

But you can't change someone who doesn't want to change. And accept that they will blame you for not helping them, for not caring about them, when it's actually you putting in 100% of the effort and them a big fat zero.

Kids who want to learn, great. Kids who revel in their ignorance and try to stop others learning, fuck off. And they get it from their appalling parents.

Thank god you didn't become a teacher

" or the government cutting benefits, or Sky Sports going up again "

see that is what pisses me off, that assumption that anyone who has social services in their lives must be on benefits or have satellite channels.
Next thing you will be talking about wide screen TVs etc...

It's funny how judgemental so many people have been towards the OP, based on her saying very little at all.

Portia I was that teenage mum too.

Had a schoolfriend who insisted on talking down to me every time we met up. She was like a colonial talking down to a native, and pointing out how I should be living. She had no clue that not everyone had the comfortable, protected life that she did.

Oddly enough, she's now become a social worker (ha!) Wasn't at all surprised when she announced it.

mymothers. Great post - and you clearly have the self-awareness that is so essential to the role. What a shame, I bet you'd have been much better than you thought!

Sleepy- but at least those countries aren't paying billions to facilitate it.

brats. We have plasma TV's, Hun! Just watching mine while I await delivery of my takeaway for the umpteenth night in a row, whilst simultaneously admiring my manicure and spray tan!

@ Jess

Thanks itshouldhavebeen that means a lot

Some people have a really weird idea of the role of a social worker.

I've never told anyone 'there there' in my life, nor do I carry poor little you cream around in my wahhhhhhmbulance. I've had a multitude of tough conversations with families in utter chaos. I've been involved with families where I've had to support very difficult decisions about where their children should live and grow up. You think that shit's easy? Come follow me round for a day.

But you can't just cannonball into someone's home and tell them how to live. Don't denigrate 'coping strategies' - sometimes we have to teach them because people's lives have ill prepared them for difficulty and interventions can make the world of difference. It is frustrating and heartbreaking and difficult not to judge - but you have to want to understand the why. Social work training teaches some theories about the why, but you still have to puzzle it out for yourself, and have that willingness to understand, to overcome the judgement and get to the heart of what is impacting on this family, and how you can help them turn things around for themselves.

And you know what, when they figure it out and make progress it feels FUCKING AMAZING.

So if you want to understand, be a social worker. If you want to tell people what to do, please don't.

I will never ever forget the sneering when I was pregnant. Just because I was young and that sneering has stayed with me.
On the other hand my teenage pregnancy is now 18 and has just recieved an offer from a top Uni. However if she did have a contraception failure there's no way I'd throw her out. Things happen and I deal with them as they come.

OP I agree with you, but based on the role you are in think it but don't say it! Otherwise you get flack for it!

Portia. We heard that the first time and the 21st time. I'm sorry you felt that way, I'm sorry that 18 years later it's still upsetting you/pissing you off. But the OP wasn't one of them, she's not judging you and this thread isn't about you.

portia. You've done amazingly well. Fab mum, and I aspire to be the kind of parent you are.

welsh. Another great social worker with realistic ideas and values. I don't think the OP should necessarily be denigrated - at least she is curious as to how others cope with their judgemental side, so she may turn out to be brilliant.

I just dislike the random 'YANBU' without any effort to explain why.