Page 16 | To ask why there is such food poverty.

Helendee · 2020-10-21T17:33:45+00:00

Please no flaming as I genuinely am seeking answers as to why so many children are going to school hungry these days. This is not a critical or inflammatory post, I just want to know what’s gone wrong. Obviously many of us are struggling financially because of Covid but food poverty was a huge problem before that. Is it that benefit levels are too low to adequately feed our children? What can we do to ameliorate the situation?

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 22/10/2020 12:25

WitchesGlove
1- because we as a society will always need cleaners, retail staff etc
2- because not everyone has the ability to improve themselves: either intellectually or financially so.

PatriciaPerch · 22/10/2020 12:28

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BoudiccasBoudoir · 22/10/2020 12:28

When you're poor those little luxuries matter more. When you're living pay cheque to pay cheque and/or benefit payment day to benefit payment day, life is planned in intervals. You don't look beyond the next pay date into the abyss of a holiday less car less house less luxury less future, you look forward to getting paid next. And which minor luxuries you will buy. Which chocolate, which toiletries, which new cleaning product you will try, which £15 takeaway you will get. You decide to pay a bill late, but take the kids bowling because they've been good all through the half term and deserve a treat, even though weeks before you were at the second hand uniform sale barely able to afford uniforms. You live in a world or urgency and contradiction. Where if you sit down and budget you can only afford the daily bread and not a tiny bit of luxury, but right now today you have a fiver for the sweet shop on the way home, or a cheap bottle of wine after a long week trying not to look into the abyss. A few hours of not worrying about what surprise bill or broken appliance or unavoidable expense will send your whole life to shit, because it is nothing but a house of badly stacked cards and it wouldn't take much. You don't have one year plans or five year plans or Bucket Lists, your planning energies are reserved for the urgent issues. Make a mistake, and it all falls apart. School shoes or the tv license? Gas bill or groceries? How many days can £3 last on the electricity meter? How can you feed a family of 5 for 8 days on £11? All the time aware that no matter how hard you try, you could be sacked, or evicted, your health problem could recur, etc. Poverty is like a war. You can't see what's beyond it, you either work towards a peace you may never get, for your children's sake, because it's the 'right thing to do' or you give in to the fear and sit staring into the abyss until your body gives out prematurely from health problems other people think are 'unavoidable.' Poor diet, smoking, inactivity, etc. But you don't get to decide how poverty effects you, like war, it changes people in ways they couldn't have imagined.

WitchesGlove · 22/10/2020 12:33

@PatriciaPerch

I find it positively frightening that people bat eugenics around so freely :(

A 3 year implant is not sterilisation or eugenics.

What’s your suggestion? Get everybody to have baby after baby until the body is wrecked?

The implant has no user failure so people can’t claim a condom split or they threw up their pill. Be grateful that you live in a country where we have free, fail-safe contraception!

sashh · 22/10/2020 12:36

Why can people ‘only’ ever earn minimum wage?

If you earn much more then you have to cut your hours down, you are only allowed to work a set number of hours and earn under a small amount to keep benefits. If you are moving to a full time, well paid and stable job great, but if itis temporary then afterwards you will spend weeks reclaiming and in the meantime you don't have the money for rent.

What’s to stop them studying/ gaining promotion/ building up a business?

For a lot of people disabilities and / or caring duties. If you have a child who is tube fed you can't work or you can only do a few hours. UC works against you because if your business isn't making a profit (how many do in the first 6 months?) you will loose entitlement.

Did anyone else watch the Sandi Toksvig programme about adult literacy? One of the people learning to read had been an Englisha nd Drama teacher, a brain injury robbed him of his ability to read.

I don't think many people realise just how weighted against people the system is

I'm disabled, I have a full 25+ years of national insurance so I'm entitled to contribution based ESA.

When I was working I paid into a pension, I was able to claim my pension early because of permanent disability.

The government takes half my ESA, that I have paid for, because I get a pension I also paid for.

By the time I get my old age pension I expect that will be reduced by the amount of my private pension.

Be afraid, if you don't have a huge private pension fund or own lots of property you are looking forward to old age in poverty.

BoudiccasBoudoir · 22/10/2020 12:38

Yes there were food banks before 2010. Just much less of them, and it was seen as a disaster for a family with children to use one. They were mostly habituated by adults who had secondary issues, like homelessness/addiction/mental health. Now whole families go on a regular basis and nobody blinks an eye, it's become the norm.

I remember years ago helping a family of refugees who needed food and that was by food bank through a church , but it was delivered because children could not be bought to the food bank. They got lots of bags. Now families in that position queue with all the other families, to get one toilet roll, a few tins. The donations are spread thinner, there is no way to keep up with the demand to drop parcels off. It has become like another public service. It's shocking, honestly how much the narrative has changed.

firedragon101 · 22/10/2020 12:40

I agree with "mostly down to luck", but I think that starts at conception. If you are born into a chaotic household it's going to be much more of a challenge to get out of it (not in all cases obviously)
Education is a huge factor, children need to be taught money management / economics, but also daily living tasks, organisational skills, time management...,these are all thing which those that decide the curriculum take fore granted. So much of what is taught by schools is dictated by people who are naturally academic and aim for a academic achievement instead of practical attainment and often don't understand the poverty cycle.
Mental health needs to have proper investment as many chaotic lifestyles are due to mental health issues, and feeling so overwhelmed that a parent cannot function which then has a huge impact on the child.
I've worked in many deprived areas, and so, so many times mental health and / or physical illness, breakdown of the family, and / or poor education are significant triggers for falling into, or staying in poverty, and once in the poverty trap, it's king difficult to get out of it.
The overwhelming majority of people in poverty are not their because they are lazy scrounges, they are there because they have been failed by society, and are often very vulnerable. The benefits system fails those most in need, particularly when sudden illness (mental or physical) happen. As a society we are quick to judge and not so quick with the compassion, often with a Victorian attitude towards those who struggle. Much easier to blame and think people are feckless than understand that poverty to can strike anyone at anytime, we (particularly politicians) should perhaps remember that.

WitchesGlove · 22/10/2020 12:40

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

WitchesGlove 1- because we as a society will always need cleaners, retail staff etc 2- because not everyone has the ability to improve themselves: either intellectually or financially so.

1) We can just invite immigrants to do them

You don’t need to be ‘intelligent’ to improve yourself- some degrees are a load of bollocks and anyone can get into uni.
Why would you need money to work hard and eventually gain promotion?
Apprenticeships are available at no cost

kittykat35 · 22/10/2020 12:42

Why can people ‘only’ ever earn minimum wage?

What’s to stop them studying/ gaining promotion/ building up a business

Money, not having any? Poverty?
Studying costs alot of money. Use google A dol f and google how much it costs to do 1 A level at college or a HNC/BTEC or even a C&G

Are there no free back to education courses in the U.K.?? Here in Ireland we have springboardcourses.ie that are free or heavily subsidised for those wanting to retrain or up skill! They are great!!

BoudiccasBoudoir · 22/10/2020 12:43

@WitchesGlove

*Its not sterilisation
*
But the point is that it works as temporary sterilisation, surely?

*Or eugenics
*
It is if you only want poor people to be given it.

BoudiccasBoudoir · 22/10/2020 12:45

Most people don't have 'baby after baby' until their bodies are wrecked, those are lazy stereotypes. As will as misogynistic and nasty.

OnlyFoolsnMothers · 22/10/2020 12:46

WitchesGlove ok clearly you’re not being serious at this point so I won’t bother refuting the joke suggestions you’ve made

dontdisturbmenow · 22/10/2020 12:47

@PamDemic, I totally disagree. At one point if time, I was earning £2,200 a month and took just over £1,900 after pension. I was only entitled to £45 a month tax credits. No child maintenance.

But I had a bill of £650 for childcare and my mortgage was £750. I was left with about £700 a month with costs associated with the house and yet my kids never ever went without food.

I don't agree that it's not possible to feed your kids healthy in benefits. It is but it needs to come before everything else because after shelter it IS whats most important.

I'd like to know what family recieving full benefits are left with nothing at all once they've paid their rent, electricity, gas and CT.

I sympathise fully with families who are awaiting to receive their benefits, but once on regular benefits, there is no excuse not to feed your kids.

WitchesGlove · 22/10/2020 12:48

@sashh