To have cried!

[7dayslater]

I'm 19. DS is 18 months.

I live with DP & DS. I work hard, I have 2 jobs. DP works too. So, no we don't just sit on our arses, but we still need UC help to pay the bills. I want(ed) to train and work in the NHS. I'm also interested in politics.

So yeah, when I woke up this morning and saw the election result I cried. Austerity is very real, it's not a joke or a fictional story. With the way it is right now, I cannot afford an education. I cannot afford to study for a career. I'm stuck where I am.

Sadder still, others have it far worse. There are children in poverty, a homelessness crisis, the NHS is crumbling when people need it more than ever. I can respect democracy. I can respect the vote. But I have to ask, for people like me - what now?

Broken legs are not a priority for the NHS.

😂

Some really shocking, cruel and unnecessarily negative comments on this thread.

Shame on those posters!

This is a young woman in difficult circumstances who WANTS to do better for her and her family but needs help & support to do so and your immediate reaction is to kick her while she’s down?!

Again - shame on you!

Op please speak to your local uni student support service, they’re usually very well informed on what’s available to support potential students in various circumstances.

You might also consider a move here to Scotland in order to

I went back to uni in my 30’s as a single parent, wasn’t easy and at first I thought it wouldn’t be possible but the student support people were able to tell me about some grants and other help that I hadn’t heard of and which weren’t widely advertised.

As it’s healthcare you want to go into then nhs recruitment may also have info on such things.

I know lots of cuts have meant it’s harder now but I’d hate for you to give up on your ambition without having the full facts.

The country is in desperate need of committed, enthusiastic hcps. It’s an utter disgrace that the very people who could become those and contribute so much are not getting the support to do so. Crazy!

Gloves are off, no need to show empathy or understanding, anyone struggling has only their "poor choices" to blame. Yep! And it’s thoroughly disgusting!

And I don’t believe there is one person on here who has never relied on people being kind, or just been fortunate in where the chips fell. Neither do I! Far too many people who are doing ok to very well refuse to acknowledge its largely down to pure luck!!

https://digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/privileged-kids-on-a-plate-pencilsword-toby-morris/

@Addictedtochoc - as nhs staff I’d have hoped you’d have a more compassionate and empathic outlook and also a better understanding of the need for support to train future staff.

@Yappityyapyap - totally agree! My nearly 19 yo dd is working full time it’s a fucking disgrace she gets paid £5k a year LESS than her same level colleagues for doing EXACTLY the same job and therefore making just as much profit for her employer as them, actually she makes more as she’s one of the better employees, she’s had recognition for that but not in monetary ways which is kind of insulting actually. The wage laws are despicably ageist!

having even the slightest leg up makes all the difference. Definitely!

I wonder how many of the posters criticising the op for being a mother (on Mumsnet!) were also sexually active at 16-19? I certainly was, my first pregnancy I was 18, it ended in mc but if it hadn’t I’m pretty sure I’d have continued the pregnancy. Contraceptive failure (on combined pill, taking religiously no stomach upset no contraindicated meds). Could happen to anyone.

I’ve worked hard for my nice life

HATE that bullshit - are you seriously trying to say cleaners, bin men, retail workers, nurses, teaching assistants, janitors, factory workers etc DON’T work hard?! Come off it! LUCK has far more to do with it - right from to whom and where you are born and genetics of health.

People need more options and that starts with education. Totally agree

Such policies and lack of support aren’t just failing people like op they’re failing our country as a whole - where exactly do you think our nurses and other hcps are going to come from if we aren’t as a nation willing to fund their training?!

I’m an ex nurse myself with friends/ex colleagues still working in the nhs and I can assure you the candidates from better off backgrounds are not necessarily the best recruits into such roles.

Some of my relatives left school at 14/15 to enter into FT work
Stories of times before NHS (large families with high infant mortality)
No electricity
Rationing, growing food, hunting rabbits
No modern appliances like fridges, washing machines, cars
No benefits

There are opportunities now

I'm glad that I'm not living in the past !

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I’m a doctor in the NHS. I can see so clearly how desperate the situation has become under the last decade of Tory rule. How could people vote for more of this? Sorry for your situation OP. I would never vote for the conservatives. I can’t understand why anyone would.

Such policies and lack of support aren’t just failing people like op they’re failing our country as a whole - where exactly do you think our nurses and other hcps are going to come from if we aren’t as a nation willing to fund their training?!

And then we end up with unkind, slightly strange and not entirely with it, people working in HCP roles... not that there's evidence of that on here...ahem.

OP I would suggest that you could do with some career advice from someone knowledgable. Both my cousin and ex-SIL did degrees after having children, Ex-SIL had 2 children and cousin had 3, both had all their babies by their early 20s, both gained degrees from good unis in their late 20s. It’s not too late for you to start. It will be harder with a child but not impossible. Any kind of education costs money these days, but some courses add much more value to your long term earning potential than others. I’d recommend looking carefully at any possible courses to make sure it will be worthwhile both from a future earnings and a job satisfaction POV.

timetorun

Yes, my friends and family who are doctors have told me to get private health care. I have. Terrifying.

graphista

Great post.

I don't know what's happened to MN. It's been invaded.

Be a dental nurse- Not hard and pays well if you're in the right place.

And you get paid while you train

Graphista has excellent advice.

You can do this, OP! Not because this government will help you but despite them. I work in the NHS and the best staff tend to be those who got there by grit and determination.

@TheBlueStocking Love people who try and twist things. Mine was an encouraging post to the op. I seriously doubt in your lifetime you could imagine the horrors I’ve had in mine so you just carry on being over dramatic. To the OP, again most posters are trying to encourage you that there is always a way forward so don’t get disheartened.

I had my dd when I was 19 I qualified as a nurse this year it was rough I had to work bank shifts aswell as the placement hours. It's hard but worth it.

You're 19. Quit crying and start planning. So far you've made terrible decisions. Having a baby so young without appropriate financial back up in place being one of them it definitely puts you behind but if you rely solely on the state you'll be behind forever and most likely set your dc up to be behind as well given the outcome today.

Research all college courses or part time roles that may include a course or even better a pt job and a college course on the 'free days' once your lo starts nursery with the free childcare hours.

Make the most of the nursery years, I myself had to give up my career when dd went to school because I couldn't find appropriate wrap around care but if you establish real work experience by then you can take a break and restart much more quickly than waiting many years. The nursery year childcare availability were a doddle compared to school hours for me anyway and I worked ft until dd started school, now I'm pt.
Be assertive reach out for what you want. Don't be afraid to start at the bottom in anything and work your way up could be a junior PA/admin role or even retail anything that you can start up in so you can say you're employable on paper.

Then just go for it. You're 19 if you don't have the get up and go and energy now you never will. Good luck OP and bloody quit crying about something outside of your control and get a grip on what you do have control over

Christ.

So many cunts on this thread that I thought I’d stumbled onto pornhub by accident.

Just like after the referendum people thought they had the green light to be massively racist, people now feel entitled to be massively cunty.

On the plus side though, it’s going to free up loads of hospital beds as all these cuntychops will obviously be as responsible for themselves as they expect others to be, and will do their own hip replacements from home with a shot of brandy and a stick between their teeth.

You can do this, OP! Not because this government will help you but despite them.

Yes but they will help her, won't they? Even this wicked, callous bunch of cunts who'd step over starving babies in the gutter and probably have plans to sell the elderly to glue factories. Even they will financially support this young woman and her child over and above the normal student loans, in order that she can access higher or further education. It doesn't need to be 'in spite of them' does it? However self righteous it makes you feel to say it.

Which is what makes this whole thread so infuriating. The whole premise of the OP's thread was that because of the Tories and austerity she was being kept out of education. Well that's just plain bollocks.

On the plus side though, it’s going to free up loads of hospital beds as all these cuntychops will obviously be as responsible for themselves as they expect others to be, and will do their own hip replacements from home with a shot of brandy and a stick between their teeth.

The OP is not being kept out of education. She can go back to education when her dc qualifies for free child care in 6 months.

@UtterlyPerfectCartoonGiraffe don't be daft .
This cuntychops will use her private medical insurance

AllideasAndNoAction

You’re right. That was a little inflammatory. I’m trying to be supportive. The truth is, we have no idea what this government is going to cut. The reality is, people are going to need more support now - even if all we can offer is hope

@MrsMerkin

It's not a competition to see who has had the most horrible life. But if you must know, I'm a pretty strong contender.

And if she needs any emergency treatment, stinkycheeseman, she may be surprised about being sent/taken to an NHS hospital and treated just the same as the rest of us proles and drones, because the private hospitals don't have the facilities for emergency treatments.

I know but if I'm going to be called a cunt I will act accordingly.

I know it's the same hospital I just get the pleasure of a private room and no queue

This is truly the most depressing thing I have ever read. I’m bitterly disappointed by the results, but I’m more upset that this now seems to be the way the majority of people think.
The only benefit I have ever claimed (other than my healthcare and childhood education) was my nhs bursery. My metaphorical fishing rod that now let’s me be a band 6 nurse and pay back in to the system.

Op, where do you live? Is moving an option? A few years of ridiculously hard work, could make all the difference. Do you have family to help? Even the free childcare doesn’t always help around shiftwork does it. My advice would be to chose where you want to work, and pick the appropriate course.
My other advice would be, that when you make a success of yourself, don’t turn so bitter and twisted as some of this lot, who seem to have had it so hard, they ended lost their compassion?