Hungry kids and shitty views

[icequeen34]

I apologise as I'm sure there are already threads on this topic. But I feel so so sad and angry today, not only about Marcus Rashfords campaign to feed hungry kids over the holidays being rejected. But some of the horrible views and justifications being spouted - mainly the old 'lazy parents need to take responsibility for feeding their kids' remark. Some utter twat was saying poor families should grow their own food because 'it's not hard' and another Tory MP claimed the blame lies with absent parents (as if his leader isn't one of those).

These are terrible comments from privileged people who clearly don't understand the lack of time, money, outdoor space and education needed to grow your own or shop more savvy. But even in the cases of the worst most lazy parents, why can't people see that the children shouldn't be the ones to suffer? It really boils my blood especially when MPs get so much in terms of expenses for food.

Sorry for the rant I just feel very disappointed and upset today.

[MrsR87]

It’s awful isn’t it? I can see how people have come to the wrong conclusions without actually doing any research or even applying some common sense, but it doesn’t justify it!!! People are choosing to believe that parents are simply choosing not to feed their children, which is clearly not the case at all for the overwhelming majority of families in this situation.

You can blame the parents (rightly or wrongly) but it doesn’t stop the fact that children of all ages are going hungry, which is totally unacceptable. As a teacher, you see first hand the effects this has on them and it breaks my heart knowing how many pupils come to school on a daily basis with no food in them!

It’s been a tough year for many of us but please, if you can, support your local food bank, even just by buying a tin of something or a paquet of pasta as part of your big shop and popping it in the donation box that most supermarkets have at the front of the store.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe]

@PretendLife

I see a lot of posts on MN about useless fathers who get away with paying nothing in maintenance for their kids. Presume that it is single mum's struggling the most. I think Marcus Rashford was bought up by a single mum as well. Perhaps celeb/sports men could start a campaign to shame men that don't pay for their kids. Maybe campaign to make it illegal to avoid paying child maintenance.

I agree with this; shaming men who do not pay for their children is an excellent start.

In the meantime though, we need an appropriate and fair mechanism to feed the children properly and consistently. Then when we have that down pat and working well, we can look at the reasons why the wheels are falling off and support families to do better by their children but, underpinning all this would be to feed the children, first, last and always.

I do not understand why this is such a contentious issue and perhaps if the fixers of the problem want to devote themselves to rounding up feckless fathers whilst the rest of us promote feeding the children, that would be a good use of time, energy - and money.

[LakieLady]

@Missandra

People who point out how cheap certain foods are have no idea what real poverty is like.

Quite.

The benefit cap is crippling families, especially in high rent areas.

[Devlesko]

I agree that it's the fault of absent parents not paying their way.
Question is, what does he intend to do about it?
Anyone fancy a campaign to make them pay then.
Name on the birth cert you cough up, if it isn't DNA test?

If parents are unable to feed or clothe their children the state should step in, but they obviously don't want to.
What a world for our children to inherit.

[SpaceOP]

[quote icequeen34]@SpaceOP even if it were true and there are parents who don't care or provide for their kids (let's face it they do exist) does that make it right for the child to suffer? Surely the government should be there to help protect them.[/quote]
Oh, totally agree with your comment on that. I'm just so outraged by the assumption that poor people are also feckless.

[Nanny0gg]

[quote icequeen34]@SpaceOP even if it were true and there are parents who don't care or provide for their kids (let's face it they do exist) does that make it right for the child to suffer? Surely the government should be there to help protect them.[/quote]
Well, you'd think...

[KnobblyWand]

There aren't loads of them about, but my parents were those stereotypical, feckless, lazy, neglectful arseholes you read about in those comments. Spent more money on fags and bingo than they did on feeding and clothing us, and that's no exaggeration.

But it wasn't our fault. We were blameless. And we were hungry. Most days, our free school meals were our main meal. By the end of the summer holidays we were skin and bone.

I can't get over the callousness of these arseholes who are gleefully admitting they'll happily punish children for their parents' mistakes. But then it won't come as a surprise to these kids, nobody gives a shit about them anyway, just like nobody gave a shit about me and my siblings.

[lockeddownandcrazy]

Is this 'poor' families who have big TV's, X boxes and new iphones? So sorry the benefits system doesnt provide well enough for you and your families but someone else has to pay and money is pretty tight right now for most working people who dont want more taxes. A loaf of bread is about 50p, so toast isnt beyond most people, pasta is cheap too. if branded nutella for the toast is expensive - try aldi home brand

[Pumperthepumper]

@lockeddownandcrazy

Is this 'poor' families who have big TV's, X boxes and new iphones? So sorry the benefits system doesnt provide well enough for you and your families but someone else has to pay and money is pretty tight right now for most working people who dont want more taxes. A loaf of bread is about 50p, so toast isnt beyond most people, pasta is cheap too. if branded nutella for the toast is expensive - try aldi home brand

Clever old you for being the first person to point this out! It’s all bullshit, of course, as you’ll see when you read the thread.

[LondonJax]

I was saying to DH this morning, I never understood free school meals when I was at school and I don't understand them now. I had friends who had free school meals. They got them because they're families had proved they didn't have enough money (or the wherewithal in some cases, it's true) to proved a packed lunch and the hot meal at school was the only hot meal my friends got.

So how does that change in the holidays? How does a parent go from not being able to afford a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a drink or not being able to afford a hot meal for their child in term time and miraculously conjure up the same amount of cash during 12 weeks plus of school holidays? Is there a magic school holiday fairy that leaves a wad of cash at the start of each half term so mum or dad can stock up on lunch 'stuff'?

If a parent can't manage to get lunch together for a Wednesday school day, they can't manage to get lunch together on a Wednesday during the school holiday. Or am I missing something?

As for benefits. DH was unemployed a couple of years ago. He had to sign on every fortnight (and put up with the unemployment service telling him how to get a job - having been a contractor for all his working life and never being out of work he could have written the book on how to get a job but that's another story). To get to the unemployment office he either had to drive (and use petrol) or get a bus. At £6 a trip. He couldn't call in by phone, had to be in person. That's £6 that isn't in a family's pocket. It also took 3 weeks for the first payment to get into his bank account. I would imagine it's even longer now. So a kid can starve for 3 weeks plus and that's OK because it's half term and the half term food fairies have left that lovely wad of cash...

[Eviebeans]

God how depressing this all is. I'm sick of people who carry on like we're all living in a rerun of the darling buds of May...
Ma isn't always at home baking bread and pies and cooking up massive breakfasts from eggs that their hens have laid...

[FreekStar]

Children going to school without breakfast is never a matter of simple poverty. It's usually due to parents who live chaotic disordered lives, have mental illness, drug and alcohol addictions, etc. Simply providing food vouchers for the holiday does little to help some of these families- the problems run deeper in society and can't be fixed by throwing cash their way!

[PlanetSlattern]

Otherwise stop people having kids until they can proved they can look after them.

^This is so dark.

I'm interested to know how a person who takes such a strident stance AGAINST such government intervention that supports the most vulnerable in society, can simultaneously state that the government SHOULD have total control over our fertility and right to procreate.

Go and have a word with yourself.

[BoulangerieBabs]

@lockeddownandcrazy

Is this 'poor' families who have big TV's, X boxes and new iphones? So sorry the benefits system doesnt provide well enough for you and your families but someone else has to pay and money is pretty tight right now for most working people who dont want more taxes. A loaf of bread is about 50p, so toast isnt beyond most people, pasta is cheap too. if branded nutella for the toast is expensive - try aldi home brand

Strangely enough a lot of the people in poverty are actually working.

The benefits system doesn't pay well enough to provide basic standards let alone luxuries.

And a huge tv is massively cheaper than a little one these days.

People like this poster make me want to scream.

[farandfew]

It's ok guys, we have the answer above! Just switch to Aldi Nutella! Gah, why didn't anyone else think of that?!

[jasjas1973]

The absent father may well have a second family and struggling too (even Boris finds it hard on 150k pa) simply taking money from the father isn't really the answer.

Many people cannot read, asking them to cook is unrealistic.

Always comes back to education and life chances but in the meantime and esp during a pandemic, the govt should step in and fund FSM's during any holidays until it is over.

Angela Rayner was spot on (shouldn't have apologised) these Tory MPs are indeed "Scum" but 5 did vote against the Govt, so good on them.

[fassbendersmistress]

@eatsleepread

See, I'm torn on this. I saw something on social media the other day, about breakfasts for school children who wouldn't get one. This got me thinking. No matter how you try and justify it, any parent who sends their child to school on an empty stomach is feckless. Porridge is cheap to make, and value cereal and bread are very inexpensive too.
If you're the sort of parent who doesn't provide breakfast, then you're cutting other parental corners too, and I don't mean only financially.
This won't be a popular view but I stand by it. 100%. There is no excuse for sending your child hungry to school in the mornings.

A ridiculous notion to “stand by 100%”. How about affording some flexibility to the parents whose kids are eating cereal for every meal some weeks as it’s all they can afford? Some parents genuinely have to choose between heating their house and feeding their kids. Or buying new shoes one week instead of eating well.

[Etinox]

If a child is hungry it’s never the child’s fault. All this bluster about about porridge and grow your own is disingenuous misdirection. OP I’m sorry you’ve seen horrible stuff on SM and suggest you don’t look around on the other threads here on fsm. Unfortunately there are lots of shitty views here too

[Pan2]

"This won't be a popular view but I stand by it. 100%. There is no excuse for sending your child hungry to school in the mornings."

That may or may not be the case, BUT as MR Rashford and ALL others indicate, it's NEVER the childs fault. This is a very basic Safeguarding issues which shitty tories and their allies want to ignore as it's the children of poor families.

[NeverAMillionMilesAway]

As a society, we are judged how we treat the vulnerable.
At the moment, we are not looking very good, are we?

[Fajitanita]

You are correct, there are also many threads already on this.

[SpaceOP]

This isn't just about food poverty, this is about zero hour contracts, unpaid child support, illness and disability hindering the ability to work, low benefit payments which aren't in line with inflation, fuel poverty and lack of education, opportunity and stability.

This in spades. And paying for meals for children is, at best, a plaster. But it's a plaster over a hole that is pouring blood and really needs to be stopped.

People commenting on personal experience of working with families where they can't keep jobs, manage basic tasks etc - I get it. It's frustrating. But a) the children shouldn't suffer as a result and b) it's a sign of something much more significantly wrong in our society that this happens. Our social welfare, education and other systems clearly are not doing the job they're supposed to and that is terribly sad. And don't even get me started on how many single parent women-led families are struggling because the children's father has just fucked off somewhere and pays little to nothing.

As for breakfasts - unfortunately it's true that many of the children who need it the most simply wouldn't get it because they wouldn't arrive at school on time. I think mid morning snacks of fruit, (healthy) muffins/cereal bars etc would be more useful. DS' best friend is from a single parent family. His mother is lovely and I know she'd do anything for her kids. But I can't help noticing that their lives are chaotic in a way that I can only assume comes in part from poverty and one of the ways this plays out is that they're late for school almost every day.

[Mollyboom]

This makes me so sad. I see feckless parents every day who piss money up against the wall etc but would I want their children to suffer- no fucking chance. Yes you can be angry at some of the parents ( though not all) but I would have hoped that even the most dyed in the wool tories would want to fee hungry children.

[mrslol]

I worked in an area of deprivation that had a free breakfast club. The attendance was erratic. This wasn't because people didn't need it. So many families lived in a constant state of chaos for so many reasons, that it's hardly surprising they would struggle get to school early enough to access the club. Yeah free school meals through holidays are important but we should also be looking at the bigger picture about the factors that drive poverty.

And MPs voting against feeding hungry children while having their own food subsided by the taxpayer is absolutely disgusting.

[Pan2]

A good thing, have been so incensed by tory govt, and inspired by Marcus Rashford, I've set up a direct debit to @Fareshare, the charity for whom he is an ambassador.
This bunch of cunts make me want to spit, but instead am doing something more effective.