To think she's probably not in a minority with her views?

[LauraMoon]

Foolishly talked politics after many proseccos with my True Blue sister.

Now, she wouldn't air these views in public but she knows she can say it to me because I know and love her for the cunt she is.

She thinks that the only reason food bank usage has rocketed is because poor people are lazy and just want free food.

That poor people need to learn to manage their money better and not smoke, drink or have sky telly.

That everyone can afford to buy a house if they really want to, but people waste money.

That anyone can get a decent job if they really put their minds to it.

Unemployment benefits are unnecessary because people should just have insurance.

(My 'favourite') that natural selection would breed out poor and stupid people and that by having a welfare system we are fucking with the natural order of things...

The background to this is that she left school with zero GCSEs and has then worked her way up from an office junior to finance director for an international (massive, household name) company. She bought a house in her early twenties with a loan from our parents and has always been well off. She says this is because she has a good work ethic, and doesn't see anyway that it could all go wrong for her.

Conversely, I am on ESA and have never really had a career, I've been a LP on benefits and lived in a HA house. I'm married now and dh earns £££ and we own our home, but I know how tenuous that all is in reality. She left her dh a few years ago and has her dc 50/50 and doesn't understand why other lone parents would struggle.

Anyway, I feel like I've had an insight into how some other people think and I'm pretty sure her views aren't even all that uncommon.

Does anyone here want to admit to thinking like this? Or maybe you know someone who does?

It's all a bit depressing really.

It's a bit like claiming anyone could come up with the theory of relativity if they thought about it hard enough. It assumes everyone has the same innate ability, the exact same potential and that individual circumstances and opportunities have no bearing.

It also completely fails to account for the fact that even if we all had the same potential to get "good jobs" we couldn't all actually get them because A) there are more people than "good jobs" and B) we still need people to do "bad jobs".

My sister reckons that all the employees in a company could get promoted if they just worked hard enough but totally misses the point that there aren't enough promotions for that to happen.

My mother in law is like this (dh's step mother - he can't stand her) Lives in a bubble, never lifted a finger, proper hyocinth bucket. She comes out with some total classics involving "class and breeding"!! The mind boggles

Nope not a troll- just not a JC & his money tree worshiper.
I don't think anyone mentioned DLA etc- I'm guessing it was the benefits as a lifestyle choice claimant OPs sis was referring to.
on a 10 hrs pw contract of NMW no doubt you would be on all kinds of benefits to top it up .....

I agree with her on points 2,3 and 4- and yes, I'm voting Tory

But you see it's lovely, and awfully convenient living in the bubble of this attitude - it means it's all 'their' fault, and you don't have to do anything. Except preen and be smug.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2944866-AIBU-to-think-shes-not-in-a-minority-with-her-Labour-views

WTAF

And not to forget, if hard work was all it took, every woman in Africa and India would be a billionaire.

And pay for it- with taxes

Fucksake. BSc project "political discourse on social media with a focus on women"?

My inlaws think like this too. They are heavily involved in local politics with the Conservatives. All their friends think like this too. They are also sdept at thinly veiled racism racist just to make the full catalogue.

That other post was a bit pathetic!

Is your sisters name Hyacinth Bucket by any chance OP?

If only everything really was that simple. Fact is anyone can fall on hard times, regardless of how hard they word. Does the person who worked their way up from company director really work any harder than say someone in supermaket, or a nurse, or a teacher? Do they fuck.

This is stupid now OP. You tried to be clever with the same thread just swapping Tory for Labour to show how people can be manipulated. But you're way of the mark cos the Labour drinking Sister would not espouse such shite.

I agree to a degree with some of what she says, I do think some people could do more to help themselves, and I agree that benefits should be used for life's essentials - which does not include beer, fags or sky tv. Neither do I think support for large numbers of children should be a given.

I think some people do feel that they are entitled to a certain standard of living and that 'the government' should provide it. The problem with that is that hard working families find themselves worse off than those who don't/won't work.

For peeps who haven't seen it, OP put up an identical thread swapping prosecco for gin and Tory for Labour. Now being removed for being ATAAT

This reminds me of a psychology experiment where participants thought they had to choose someone to give an electric shock to (it was a stunt, they didn't actually do it). If they didn't, they themselves would receive an electric shock. They would make justifications about how the other people must have done something wrong to be in the position of being shocked. IYSWIM?

Anyway, the point is that when we're feeling insecure for our own position, safety, financial security etc we try to tell ourselves that bad things happen to bad people. Sounds as if your sister makes herself feel less vulnerable by thinking that only the feckless, lazy etc end up losing their job and using a food bank.

I didn't think it was the OP who wrote the other post, just an offended Tory voter wasn't it?

Oh fucks sake. Cross posted to find this is a bullshit post. Shouldn't have wasted my time replying!

Soot. That's because of appalling low wages rather than sky high benefits. Sure there are some who work the system and get thousands in benefits but I defy anyone on here to swap for that life. Media/tv shows make it out to be a much bigger problem than it really is. The amount paid out to the poorest in society pales compared with the amount lost through the tac dodging rich and companies / banks which don't pay their fair share.

That other thread wasn't me! I didn't even see it.

Laura - poor you - sorry I take it back. Thought it was you with an NC. Bloody Tories!

She's being incredibly simplistic, non-empathetic and is a bit up her own bottom.

I'm relatively successful. Well, in MN terms I appear to be a slightly below average earner but according to national averages I'm well ahead of the crowd. I know that some of my success is down to my own intelligence, personality and work ethic but a lot of it is just down to luck.

I was lucky to be born into a very much middle class family so had the benefit of a good education, positive role models and an assumption that there was no reason I couldn't be successful. I was lucky to be born in a very economically active town. I was lucky to see the career opportunities I saw when I saw them and lucky again that better candidates than me didn't apply for them. I was slightly unlucky that my first marriage didn't work out but was extremely lucky to meet my current partner and have the benefit of over 20 years domestic stability and security. I'm lucky not to have suffered any health issues that might have disrupted my career. I'm lucky none of my children have required any significant additional support.

I know there are a lot of people out there who have not been so lucky as I have. I do know some people less fortunate than me could have made better decisions for themselves. Do I think people rock up to food banks for fun? Do I think people scratch an existence on the breadline because it's a bit of a wheeze? Do I think in one of the most advanced, economically active countries in the world it's acceptable that 100s of 1000s of people are living in relative poverty and many of those in absolute poverty? Do I think that 90% of our collective economic output should go to 10% of the population? Do I hell, but then I'm not a self-centred, heartless bastard.

I'll put my soapbox away now.

People really don't get how quickly the whole edifice can fall down, do they?

No, exactly.

I used to say to her, what if your dh upped and left, refused to pay maintenance and you were left with a hefty mortgage and two lots of preschool childcare bills? And she'd say that just wouldn't happen.

And then she did the leaving, he had the kids half the time, she's downsized to a lovely little house and life is just peachy. Which is fucking typical, really.

Its so sad that people think that way. But I do suspect her views are more commonly held than I would hope. Seems pretty prevalent even on threads about benefits and such on here, the assumption that people chose to be on benefits, that they could be on 50k+ if they just tried...and so on.

I've seen this in have been poeple who have come from poor backgrounds and worked their way up

There's actually a term for that. Can't remember what it is though.