AIBU to think that this is just wrong?

[HiddingMyIdentity]

A girl I know, lets call her K, recently had a baby. K has just turned 18, and she was living with her sister and nephew. K and baby clearly had their own room judging by the 500+ photos she shares on shapchat daily.

K just shared a photo of her new house keys. Apparently for her and baby, government funded of course as K has never worked a day in her life.

Ireland are having a massive homeless crisis, hostels and hotels are full to the brim with families, and K a few weeks after her 18th birthday gets given a house??

I work 50 hours a week, and had to move county to afford to rent a house. Yet this one pops out a kid at 17 and gets handed a house, that I and all the outer tax payers of Ireland are paying for, as her 18th birthday present from the State!

There are families out there in much worse living conditions than K, who have been on housing lists for years, why should she get a house ahead of them??

Is it just me who thinks that this is wrong?

Sorry I needed a bit of a rant!

As for poor life choices - have you swallowed the Iain Duncan Smith Guide to Compassion, NottheQueen? You know - the one that says poor people are to blame for their own poverty?

These type of tenancies are rarely straightforward.... People see... An 18yr old single parent getting a house immediately... Clutching pearls...

I can see it IS frustrating 😤...

But What no one will tell you... (they re confidential after all....)

That 18 year old is very ill and needs the space.
That 18 year old has paedophile /schedule 1 offender in immeidsite family and she cant live there with baby...

She is escaping significant violence...

Etx etc...

@donelikeakipper No, no money from my parents and no bursary - large family, not enough to go around, and no child benefit / allowances. I turned 16 before my junior cert, so didn’t even get that before I was sent out door knocking. I took a loan at 17.9% for my fees, which I paid back as I had to work full time to keep a roof over my head.

The point of a handup period would be for training and education; if she fails to learn and achieve, I have no sympathy.

@ILoveMaxiBondi Thank you for your considered insightful contribution The point is, there is a sector of society that focuses on their entitlements and forgets their responsibilities to society. What motivation is there for someone to work hard and support themselves when you can simply get a free life from the taxpayer? Eventually workers will be outnumbered by people living in social housing collecting benefits. There is a limited number of valid claimants such as those who are disabled or are caring for disabled children - and I support those 150%. It’s those in the OPs post who have a baby and get handed a council house. It’s making single parenthood attractive to young girls, and it’s letting young men frequently escape the consequences.

You want to live in an utopia where taxpayers pay for houses for everyone yet still have to support themselves, often to a lower standard of life than those claiming social housing. I want to live in the real world where public funds are finite and are spent on healthcare, caring for the elderly etc

You cannot win against this daily mail reader type. They don't get it.

I got a private rental in a rural village, was recently divorced, and on benefits. It was no fucking jolly, the house - no heating other than a open fire, and two plug in oil heaters.
Out of my benefits I had to pay for coal and wood for the one and only fire in the house. Winter, the fire needed it to be lit all day...

I spent 3 years learning how to keep my house and child warm on government money.... it is no fucking walk in the park.

NotTheQueen are you a single parent thought? Because your point of view doesn’t seem to comprehend in the very slightest how employment is virtually impossible for the un/low skilled single mother. All the basic job centre training in the world won’t guarantee a job that pays all the bills, for childcare and is flexible for unforeseen circumstances. If these magical jobs existed, many more women would be in employment.

Eventually workers will be outnumbered by people living in social housing collecting benefits.

😂😂😂

Oh come on! Even you don’t believe that tripe. Or do you have secret information about a huge release of new social housing?

What motivation is there for someone to work hard and support themselves when you can simply get a free life from the taxpayer? Eventually workers will be outnumbered by people living in social housing collecting benefits.

Where is the evidence of this? Most people want to work. Benefits pay for the very basics in life, a good job means holidays, nicer ‘things’, being able to buy new, having a car and so forth. There is plenty of aspiration to work, again I would love to know where you have this utter delusion that people who live solely on benefits live like royalty?

There are very VERY few people who live on benefits because they would rather not work. It is categorically not a ‘free life’ or a pleasant way to live, especially when you have children. Many people these days do work and still have to claim on top, due to shit wages not covering their living costs. Unless the government start handing out mansions and paying ‘scroungers’ 50k a week, like a premier league footballer on sick leave, then I’d say you were talking utterly out of your arse if you evidently didn’t already have a copy of the Daily Mail permanently wedged up there.

The reality of Universal Credit is that anyone who is obliged to claim benefits has to jump through endless hoops, many of them impossible to achieve, and STILL doesn't get enough for bare subsistence - even if they do manage to dodge an arbitrary sanction. It's like a game of snakes and ladders with all the ladders removed. The freeze on benefits means that they are no longer remotely adequate to keep people above the poverty line. That is why so many people are forced to rely on food banks. It's a national disgrace - as the UN Rapporteur on Poverty recently pointed out.

@ilovemaxibondi if we pursue your magical world where social housing is handed out willy billy, that’s exactly what will happen. The working taxpayers will throw in the towel, and demand their free lifestyle too

@donelikeakipper in five years they can learn skills that make them employable Your solution is that they spend a life on benefits with free housing living the life of reily? If there aren’t consequences and expectations, then why should the taxpayer support them? Rewarding them for poor choices?
And no, I’m infertile Not only does the poorly funded health service doesn’t provide fertility treatment but I have a life limiting illness for which I pay €138 a month on medication and €250 on treatments that help me to work The taxman takes almost half of our income, some of which goes on those who don’t support themselves

@donelikeakipper you didn’t read my earlier post NDN are social housing tenants; the maximum rent they pay is €345/ mth on a home that rents for €1650/mth They own a campervan and two cars (151 and 172 regs), and abroad twice a year including back to Nigeria. They work part time as apparently working full time would interfere with their church commitments (no, not priests / vicars) and family life. My DHs cousin who owns a pizza company knows them by name as he delivers there twice a week. Meanwhile we work full time, our yearly tax is more than their rent and we share one car So clearly life on benefits in Ireland (which the original post referred to) does pay!

*@donelikeakipper in five years they can learn skills that make them employable *

You just don’t get it, unless the job centre is running courses on full ‘professional’ jobs that pay above the living wage (they don’t by the way) then it’s not about the basic skills a person can be taught in some crap afternoon seminar - it’s about actually getting appropriate employment. The problem is getting an actual job fitting around all the points I have mentioned several times and you chose to ignore. You just don’t get and are seemingly refusing to understand how near impossible it is for a low skilled, single mother to find decent employment that actually pays the bills needed to raise another human being.

You keep harping on about ‘poor choices’ - now I think we all know the teenager in this case is imaginary, but who says being pregnant was a ‘choice’ in scenario? Regardless of the fact, having a baby is not exactly a ‘oopsie’ moment, is it? Once done, it’s not a reversible ‘mistake’. That child needs a home and feeding, and all your Victorian idealisms on how to deal with such awful women as the one made up in the op doesn’t actually help an innocent kid in the long run.

I had a baby at 17. I was in a one bedroom flat with my partner, just storage heaters that never worked. An alcoholic next door and one over the hallway who tried to break our door down once as he was drunk and wanted to beat his wife and thought our flat was his. It was full of insects and damp. We lived on about £70 a week. We had weeks were we didn't eat quite often. Those times in that flat left their scars on me pretty damn hard to the point where I now suffer so badly with my mental health that I'll probably never work.

I will never have the security of owning my own home, I will have no legacy for my children and I will struggle for my entire life to survive on the generosity of the governemt at least until they decide I'm capable of work and stop my benefits. I will never be able to afford a holiday for my children they've never been on holiday.

You have so many luxuries afforded to you and yet you chose to spend your time degrading others on the internet for their lives. You should cherish what you have and be thankful it's not you in her position and if you do think it's all free money and nice houses then quit your job and take up benefits you'll soon see the unpleasant reality.

working taxpayers, NottheQueen? It’s a complete myth to think that society consists of taxpayers on the one hand and benefits claimants on the other. Most people spend time in both groups, particularly in the gig economy.

I genuinely don’t understand why you’re holding forth about this when you don’t know the first thing about it (aka you’ve heard something second hand from a pizza delivery man). Why would you not want to read up on the welfare system, social housing etc rather that spout crude generalisations on here? You think you’re on the moral high ground but you never allow your opinions to be troubled by the facts. That’s not only lazy, it’s immoral - particularly when it leads to you spreading bile on here.

Yes, please enlighten me. How is this woman a dimwit?
Still waiting to hear why the lady in the OP is a dimwit

Choosing to have a baby at 17/18 is pretty stupid.
Unemployed, even dumber.
Not hearing about a partner either?

And please, let's not throw up 'accidental' pregnancy. Rarely is, not that anyone admits it.

Of course, this is MN where every poorly educated, unemployed teen parent went on to obtain a masters, owns a home, solid marriage etc etc.

NotTheQueen, again, so what? You know one family who are quite possibly playing the system (how many stories do you need of actual people struggling before you realise it’s not the norm), so you think a young mum and baby shouldn’t have a home? Are you actually aware of how inhumane you've sounded on parts of this thread? I actually feel quite sorry for you, it must have been something quite awful for you to completely lose the ability to empathise, or realise that not everything in life is as simple as ‘getting a job’.

What an awful thread.

Choosing to have a baby at 17/18 is pretty stupid.

What exactly was the girl meant to do once she found out she was pregnant then?

If she has just turned 18, most likely she has not worked, as people leave school at 18. Everything you see on facebook is a life with bells and whistles attached to make it look good. Nobody really knows what goes on in any ones life when the camera is off and the night sets in; housing department may have judged her in special need, no support, no parents, no money, no skills and there is a small person who needs to be cared for. Unless you have extra details, I would let this one go.

Please don’t under-estimate the difficulties inherent in this. The uncertainty, the stigma, the restrictions. I would never choose that.

DonelikeaKipper, I agree. I feel sorry for anyone who is so judgmental and lacking in empathy. Empathy is a large part of what makes us human. Try watching A Christmas Carol, OP, or even Trading Places.

How on earth do you know the ins and outs of their finances incoming and outgoing wise?
Are you nosey enough to ask or did they sit down with a spreadsheet and tell you of their own accord?
Or how the campervans could be gifts, or scraped up for, or anything.
Bitterness really isn't a good look, sorry

What exactly was the girl meant to do once she found out she was pregnant then?

Huh? If she chose to have a baby and then go out and get pregnant, why would she 'do' anything? Kinda goes with the whole 'dimwit' thing.
Contraception on the whole, used properly, works just fine. Don't want to be pregnant, use it. Want to be pregnant or don't care, don't.

Therefore, unemployed, single and pregnant. Pretty dumb decision.

I'm ok with a single teenage mum being given housing, I don't take rhe approach that's why she had rhe baby,

I would take issue with someone like you who can afford their own home, inc rented, been given social housing though.

🤷‍♀️

Contraception on the whole, used properly, works just fine.

Yeah and sometimes it doesn’t. Might have been on medication that interferes with the pill and not known, may have the coil and it moved, might have been coherenced into unprotected sex like so many young women. May have even been raped. Once she was pregnant, she wasn’t left much of a choice but to have the baby regardless, so what exactly is the point of berating beyond the fact?

I do think some young girls get the wrong impression when things get posted on social media. It looks easy to be a single mum handed a house and money and not work etc. The reality is very different.

My friends girl is 16. She’s not going to college she refuses to get a job and is trying to get pregnant. She wants a life on benefits 🤦‍♀️