Aibu to not know why you wouldn't be able to feed your DC's breakfast?

[Bearlover16]

Daughters school has recently extended the 'paid' breakfast club to 'free' breakfast club due to an increase in the number of children going to school not having had any breakfast.

Are people really that much on the bread line that they cannot buy a loaf of bread or some cheap porridge oats for less than a quid?

I'm not well off by any means and I do donate to food banks when I can. I also ensure my dcs have had breakfast before leaving the house as I was always led to believe it's the most important meal of the day.

If you think the system is generous I'm going to hazard a guess you haven't had much experience with them @Daisy

@wannabestressfree sorry if I mistakenly lumped you in with the other judgeypants on here

"Like wise if you have a baby under 1year old and no way to get childcare

So basically. If you're disabled or ill and could fo a bit of work then you should but if you've had a baby under 1 you should be excused? Because they're totally the same thing...

I started my full time degree when DD was 6months old!

If you can work I think you should. A lot of people with illnesses and disabilities work.

I didn’t said all ill or disabled people, I said if they CAN

You live in a dreamworld User if you think that poverty is either rare or short-term.

The benefit cap is doing a grand job of making sure that poverty is long term, at least in high rent areas.

One of my clients is left with £121 after paying her rent of £229 pw (an "affordable" HA property). Her water charges are £7 pw, council tax £8 pw and her house, despite only being a couple of years old, is massively expensive to run: gas and electricity come to another £30-35 pw, tv licence is £3.50. Her only "luxury" is landline/internet at £4 pw. She's left with less than £70 pw to feed and clothe 3 DC, two teens and a 3-year old.

Then her older DCs' school decided to change their uniform. There was no financial help for buying new uniform, and she had to take out a social fund loan to pay for it. That takes another £7 pw out of her income, and has tipped her into real hardship.

The week she and her daughter both have periods means they can't afford fruit. Her daughter has been bullied at school because some of her uniform came from Aldi or Lidl. The week her son came home with the sole ripped off one of his school shoes reduced her to tears and the time she dropped her last 4-litre bottle of milk and most of it went on the floor, when her next lot of benefits weren't due for 2 days, meant no cereal and they only had half a loaf of bread. She'd run out of porridge, too. Every other week, I pick up a food bank food parcel for her. She then has to try and work out what will cost more in electricity - microwaving beans and toasting bread or boiling pasta on the hob. She has seriously talked about resorting to prostitution.

People who aren't chaotic and dysfunctional soon get beaten down by constantly being on the bloody breadline and end up being dysfunctional because they're so depressed.

On another thread, MNers are all moaning about the shocking rise in food prices. Imagine what that feels like when benefits are frozen and you're already on the margins. People on such low incomes are really terrified about how they're going to manage.

Yes I'm well aware of what was written which is why I said in my post if you could work.

Of course some people with illnesses and disabilities work. Unfortunately some simply can't.

You also said the system is generous. May I suggest volunteering in a foodbank occasionally so you can discover just how generous the system often isn't.

The literature on WTC stated that as a couple we could only work 30 hours a week.

Afaik, there's no maximum hours for WTC (although there is a minimum for WTC). It's the amount you earn that is relevant, and one of the online benefit calculators will let you see what the difference will be if you increase your hours.

*Also we live in a country with readily available contraception, though many choose to keep reproducing children into ‘poverty’.

Whether people like hearing it or not, a large proportion of parents who are not providing breakfast and other basics for their kids is down to poor choices and lack of responsibility.

It’s easier to blame the brew, blame the housing, blame whatever. You know what, no one forced you to have children you can’t afford. *

Yes Lucie, because no-one's circumstances ever change, do they, and if they do, it doesn't matter because of everyone is blessed with clairvoyance?

No-one has ever suffered death of a partner, divorce, desertion, disabling injury, redundancy, mental or physical illness, domestic abuse or anything like that, have they?

Some people on here really live in fucking fairyland.

I did say if you genuinely cannot work then you should receive sickness/disability.

You are responding to one line of a whole post. Why not re read it and respond to it as a whole instead of nit picking??

Afaik, there's no maximum hours for WTC

There is for a couple. IIRC it's only single workers that can still claim after 30hours.

This three has made me really think how lucky I am. I'm by no means well off money wise but I'm so lucky that my children don't go hungry and that I can feed my family. I work in retail and the amount people give to food banks in my store is amazing. I just think it's sad that it still has to be done in 2017.

You know what, no one forced you to have children you can’t afford.

And how many of these parents now in these circumstances were once in full time work when they had their children? How many have fled DV? How many had an unexpected death of a partner? I know of someone who was a real high flyer, until a freak accident on a rare work night out left them paralysed from the waist down. (not drunk - was a posh dinner do type thing). Their wife had to give up her work to be his full time carer.

No amount of planning will cover you for every eventuality in the future.

People are quick to blame everybody bar themselves. Easier to do that than admit it's because they have made and continue to make poor choices and don't want to do much when it's easier to stay home not working or one of them just part time etc.

Nobody has to have a crystal ball, life does indeed change but you would have to be pretty niave to believe nothing will ever change and that choices made now won't affect a future life.

For many, circumstances haven't changed. They had children with no means or intentions of supporting them and it's now acceptable to do so. Poor parenting is excused by so many rather than society saying it's not acceptable and doing something about it. Until them, it will keep happening.

People are quick to blame everybody bar themselves

It could be said that you are doing just that also though yellow. You appear quick to blame everything on shit parenting without entertaining the very idea sometimes, it's just not.

Yellow I'm sorry but what/who made you the judge of parenting?

I imagine you're the most amazing parent that's ever existed and you've never done anything wrong or struggled a day in your life.

I'm not blaming everyone else though, I'm saying it's down to the parents. If I didn't feed my children or adequately clothe them, it would be down to me. I'd not be looking to blame the government, my own parents etc as they only person that chose to have children is me.

The vast majority is down to the parents. Some choosing to have children without the financial means to support them as they can't be expected to work surely as a parent , some not entertaining the thought of working more than sixteen/twenty hours a week etc.

If responsible, any parent finding themselves unable to feed or clothe a child would do everything possible to change the situation by gaining more hours, second job etc rather than sit around moaning the government won't give them any more money or expecting a few hours work to cover all their costs.

Yellow how about a parent who earns say £10 ph but it costs them £15 in childcare?

I'm not blaming everyone else though, I'm saying it's down to the parents. If I didn't feed my children or adequately clothe them, it would be down to me.

That's blaming them.

Blaming parents for a child who refuses to eat breakfast is absurd.

So much fucking ignorance.

I was a young, lone parent, with a troubled background and no money. Now I'm hardly wealthy but I'm just above tc level. And have the quals and career opportunities that mean once dd is 18 I can move up the ladder more. Or as I'll still be young I could go and do a different degree for an even higher paid career.

But let's be honest that has fuck all to do with me being a better person than the vast majority who are still in poverty. Just a luckier one.

I got great a-levels because I found them easy despite my abusive home life. Other people wouldn't have passed GCSEs without supportive homes.

I did a degree with a preschool child, again because I've never had to put in lots of time and effort to get good academic results.

I could access the pt job I did alongside it because I could take dd along to save on childcare and didn't spend that much time on my studies. I'm also vv physically active and don't need much sleep. I could do the job because my affluent background left me with the skills for a niche job. Someone relying on rural public transport to get to a job, or only being able to get shift work in a pub or shop that didn't fit with childcare couldn't have worked.

I also clung like fuck to the car I already had, again the luck of being able to work enough alongside sixth form to pay for lessons, insurance and vehicles.

I also benefit from fact we have a class based society. An educated, well spoken person gets opportunities that someone who also looks deprived doesn't. When dd started school and I needed more work than my niche job provided, or when I was looking for an in to my field, I used to joke that I could always get an interview if I 'phoned or visited in person, even though on paper I didn't particularly stand out.

Someone without all that isn't a lesser person than me. And certainly not some scrounging stereotype. Of all the families in poverty I've met only a tiny, tiny minority are the mail stereotype.

@Lurkedforever1 great post. I've often felt similar about myself. Academics come easily to me and I'm articulate and well spoken. So when my life blew up (death of DH when pregnant with DC2) the middle class safety net caught me. My lovely, flexible niche job supported me in returning to work. No housing worries as we were middle class and so had a mortgage and life insurance to cover it. Whereas I know other young widows who weren't born with similar luck who have ended up at food banks.

This thread has made me contact a food bank to volunteer..

The government is to blame. 'Austerity' is appallingly bad economics, and the only reason they are pressing on with it is because most government officials, now, genuinely think the poor are subhuman, feral scum who need to be kept in their place.

cheminotte not all primaries in Wales have free breakfast clubs.
It is up to the schools to take up the offer.

Ours didn't as there was a pre-existing paid-for breakfast club in place so we had to pay if we needed to use it whether we could afford it or not.

Thank you grobags. I didn't have the mortgage or house, but I did discover that landlords/ agents who specified no hb were quite happy to accept me if I met them prior to informing them. I also found the ability to negotiate the system helped when I was on benefits.

Yellow

A lot of people actually can't afford to work though childcare can be extortionate, the cheapest where I live and can do the hours I need is £80 a day I'm lucky I can afford it but lots of families cannot afford that. Working two jobs wouldn't help In these cases because they would still need childcare and costs would just continue to rise.

Food is a basic necessity so part of benefits system for those with children should be in the form of vouchers or credits to buy food & household items. No one should be going to school or bed hungry. Like it or not some people just do not to prioritise feeding their kids over other things so having specific funds allocated for this means there are no excuses.

Thanks for clarifying lifesaver - I didn't realise that.