Am I the only person who thinks parents should feed their kids outside of school?

[HalloweenDoughnutAnyone]

Obviously it goes without saying I don't want any child to go hungry. But. Am I the only person who thinks parents should feed their kids outside of school?

Just that really.. it's free school dinners. Not free lunch all year round.

I don't understand why people think the tax payer should be paying even more? Maybe, if you can't afford to cover the basics (food and clothing) you should think twice before having a child?

Or should we extend free school dinners, to cover all the food a child needs inside and outside of school ?

I'm not tarring everyone with the same brush but I know people who rely on free school dinners. But have sky tv, expensive mobile contracts etc

Let the poor kids starve they are unworthy anyway....

I despise this attitude and I actually do hope you experience such poverty OP as then you maybe more forgiving of those who find themselves in impossible situations.

So can you tell me why we don’t stop subsidising the commons canteens first then?

@bloddingalong

I agree OP.

I think it’s important to be able to see the bigger picture and balance the various interests in the nation, without getting swayed by moral panics or sob stories. In my observation sentimentalism always makes bad policy and always has unintended consequences.

Which interests, specifically, and which unintended consequences?

Kids need to be fed, regardless of the circumstances as to why it's not happening. It's not their fault. And there's little point in saying that the parents shouldn't have had kids. Maybe some shouldn't have done. And others have fallen on hard times. It happens. And the kids are here now, whatever the circumstances, and society has a duty to keep them safe regardless.

There needs to be a system in place to ensure that children don't have to starve.
I don't think handing out supermarket vouchers to parents is a way of stopping all children starving, however. Some of the parents will flog the vouchers. I actually think there should be a network of school kitchens running in the holidays.

Yes in a perfect world every parent would have the means, motivation and capability to give their child everything they needed on a lifetime basis. Unfortunately we don't live in that world. Reality is there's huge poverty and children going without basic necessities - yes we absolutely should step in and help.

I'd extend the same help to anyone that needed it too.

@Coronacockup

Am I the only person who thinks Tory mps should feed themselves instead of putting food under expenses and letting the taxpayer cover it.

And should forego their subsided food and drink.

Maybe followed up by an hour or so of litter picking, for exercise, social responsibility and something to put on the CV?

Soft half measures. Surely to have the impact you want, you’d set them to picking oakum?

It’s very easy for people to moan on the internet how awful it is that we aren’t feeding the children and that the government is evil. However in real life people don’t actually mean that they just want to be seen to have that opinion. Sadly if there was free dinners for the 1st 500 people to approach you’d see the majority happily barge vulnerable kids out their way to get their free food because they are entitled to it.

I don’t think your opinion is unreasonable OP but you’ll never get a good discussion or even people try and tackle the real issues because it’s far to easy for them to be overtly self righteous without any effort whatsoever.

@ohidoliketobe

I assume you haven't been furloughed with 66% wage and having to wait 5 weeks for universal credits to kick in to try and top that up. My very first

I think op should buy their own biscuits.

@JassyRadlett

Maybe followed up by an hour or so of litter picking, for exercise, social responsibility and something to put on the CV?

Soft half measures. Surely to have the impact you want, you’d set them to picking oakum?

Or sweeping chimneys.

its very simple in my view

whatever the parents should do/won’t do/can’t do, should not result in children being punished

its a few million pounds, small change down the side of the Treasury’s sofa

So what is the governments responsibility if it's not to help vulnerable people? for whatever reason, whatever cause

Seems pretty shite if you ask me. Anyway, unless your child has private healthcare and private schooling then the government is helping everyones children. We pay towards it, like we can pay towards this. Im sure we could cut back on certain peoples 5 star lunch menus, with drinks included to make room for the next generation. Ensuring they are healthy enough to clean up this shit show we call governments mess.

People who are worried there are charities that can help, Magic Breakfast is a local one to us that I have volunteered for and regularly donate to, they have worked incredibly hard during CV.

"sense if entitlement" sometimes I feel as If I am living in a different universe to people who spout this shit.

Anyone who is lucky enough to come through this pandemic financially secure should thank their lucky stars. So many people are seeing their livelihoods disappearing before their eyes. Of course we should be helping to feed children in poverty at this moment in time, how anyone can think differently is beyond me.

As for the disgusting MP's who voted against this , I hope you never have a good nights sleep again in your life.

Too much fresh air up those chimneys, @VinylDetective, and a change of scenery multiple times a day! Surely the poor should be walled up as a disincentive to continue being poor?

It is absolutely the right thing to do, HOWEVER - you need to make sure that the kids are actually GETTING THE FOOD.
I know that many of the packed lunches prepared for kids during lockdown at one particular school were NOT PICKED UP - the food was THROWN AWAY.
I don't know what the situation was around the country, and hope that that was really just one exception, but I suspect not. There are sadly quite a number of parents out there who really are shit and couldn't even be bothered to go and pick up (or arrange to have picked up) the food that was provided for their kids.
(No they weren't shielding, because there was drop offs in place for those that were).

The problem goes way beyond just providing free lunches during this really difficult time. The UK should be ashamed that there is even such a thing a child poverty and children going hungry in this country, and it needs to be tackled; something has gone very, very wrong.

I agree with you.i have 3 kids and work part time, and with my benefit top up and child benefit I can afford to give my kids food during holidays. My kids might have beans on toast or cheese on toast for lunch, or tin of soup with sandwich, and I can afford it. The 6 week holiday voucher scheme (for kids who get free school meals) was £15 per child. Well it doesn't cost £15 for a tin of beans, loaf of bread, bag of cheese, bag of apples. I'm not saying I wasn't grateful, I was, but I'm not going to sit here and pretend it cost that much to feed small kids a bit of lunch. Sorry but that's my view.

@flaviaritt Then we can’t afford lockdowns. We can’t take away people’s ability to make a living and then tell their kids to starve.

You’re right, we can’t afford lockdowns. They’re a crazy way of dealing with an illness which has a 99.9% survival rate. Lockdowns and the ensuing poverty, domestic violence, mental health crises, obesity etc will kill more people in the long run than Covid does.

But the Tory government is loving its opportunity to to get all dictatorial over its subjects.

Goady thread using old stupid cliches. I smell a lazy journo of the right.

I'm 50/50 on this.

Me too. I absolutely support short term help during pandemics and when parents fall into circs beyond their control. But, I also see far too many parents having child after child and expecting the rest of us to pick up the tab. That is NOT what the welfare state was set up to do. I have no idea what we can do about it though.

Indeed, go buy your own

Stop reading the Daily Mail

I agree with what I think you're trying to say, which is where does all this end? There isn't endless state money unless we just nationalise everything, get rid of private enterprise and become a communist country where everyone is equally poor, apart from the party top brass. Often seems like that's what people want.

YABVU. This is a shit time for people on low incomes and personally I'd rather we take the risk of some people 'abusing the system' if it means other kids aren't going hungry.

And to answer your OP, circumstances change. Not every pregnancy is planned. Few people go into having a child with enough money in the bank to support that child for their entire life, most of us are vulnerable to changes in circumstance.