To believe that providing free meals for children

[Completelyfrozen]

Is not enough!
I hear people saying that children shouldn't go hungry and I wholeheartedly agree. It is a travesty in 2020 that any child goes hungry, regardless of the reason behind it, but is that where our responsibility as a society ends?
I want to live in a society where children are provided with a hot meal every day.
A warm dry bed to sleep in at night.
Warm clean dry clothes.
Facilities to wash and brush their teeth.
Warm dry shoes.
An adequate education.
Opportunities to play and socialise.
A safe environment to grow up in.
A home free from damp or mould.
I want to live in a society where adults have access to hot water and washing facilities so they can keep themselves and their children clean.
What can we do, as a nation to address these issues so that children have their most basic requirements met?
YABU - Providing one hot meal per day is enough and parents should provide the rest, despite their circumstances. It is not the govts responsibility to provide anything more.
YANBU - Providing one free meal a day is just the start but as a society, we need to do much much more to ensure children are provided these basic needs and if the parents cannot provide these basic items for any reason, then the govt has a responsibility to step in and provide them.

I’m not at all against free school lunches for appropriately selected children in school btw. Just asking the question.

“some parents have different priorities, such as drugs, drink, cigarettes, eyelashes, new clothes”

Anyone who even considers buying any of these things, as well as new puppies, tattoos, lip filler, eyebrows, etc before buying food for their kids does not even deserve to be called a parent.

It is not fair that people like this get lumped in with those who are genuinely struggling, and means that resources to help are more stretched.

I think building many many more properties so that supply and demand whether rented or owned are more balanced would be a good starting point

Where are these places supposed to be built.

Personally I think making council housing more fluid would help a lot. So a council house is not for life but for a set period of time.
Maybe signing a contract so you can have a council property for 5, 10, or 20 years etc and rents being lower for the less time you sign for might concentrate the minds of some people on moving on and buying and leaving the home free for those just starting out who need a helping hand.

I think for some council housing is a safety blanket that they pass on to their children.

So basically it's taken coronavirus to show that lots of adults either cannot or cannot be arsed to feed their kids.

I'm not supportive of continuing to make this a school / government issue.

@fauvist in the West Midlands you can get a three bedroom house for £725 pcm, rented privately. I rent out one with 3 decent sized bedrooms, kitchen diner with American style fridge freezer, washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer, Rangemaster stove and Belfast sink, and downstairs cloakroom and front and back gardens. There are huge variations in rent across uk. I don't know if benefits accounts for this or not.

In our area many businesses and individuals have been collecting food and making up packed lunches for people to take for free, no questions asked.

It is advertised all over Facebook, with absolutely tonnes of sandwiches, fruit, cakes, crisps etc.

While I think this is a lovely thing to do (plus good marketing for the business), my question is how do they know how many people need this? What if loads go to waste? How do they target the right demographic?

The other thing is that I thought there was supposed to be a childhood obesity crisis? I’m not being funny, but having fish and chips every day (which has been advertised round here), or crisps, sweets and chocolate which are all in the packed lunches is not going to help this.....

@caringcarer I've said this before that there are massive variations in rental prices, and outside the London bubble you can get a nice property in a decent area for £600-700. However that gets shouted down with people saying how terrible it is to suggest anyone should live outside London...!

@Watermelon999 lots of people local to me (individuals and businesses) are offering free food this week - cooked meals or packed lunches. Very limited take up so far apparently, despite the fact food banks are heavily in demand.

If I see one more of my local cafe's offering free lunches for the 'local hungry children' I will scream !! We are not in Dickensian times or a third world country, food is cheap, there is no excuse not to feed your kids. What about all the 'hungry children' at weekends ? Are we going to start offering free food for them then as well?? I'm a single working mum struggling but my daughter never goes hungry.

@lollipoprainbow good for you, I'm also a single working mum and my son never goes hungry but I actually recognise that everyone is in a unique situation. Open your mind a bit.

I think we all want those things for children, and others, OP. But why does the state have to provide them? Why isn't this the parent's responsibility? The more money we spend now simply means we take longer to pay off the debt which is a burden on future generations.

I think Rashford et al., should stick to football because whilst I think they can touch heart strings and have a good sound bite for the news, I don't believe their requests are the best thing for the long term spending plans for a country.

I think we all want those things for children, and others, OP. But why does the state have to provide them? Why isn't this the parent's responsibility

I agree.

The more parents opt out of providing, the less responsibility they will have and we should surely be promoting quite the opposite. Breaking the cycle so future generations will think twice about the huge responsibilities of having children and not think others will provide for them.

Too easy to say it’s all the governments responsibility.

I don't live in London or anywhere near and a 3 bedroom house is at least £900a month and most are over £1000.
What makes the situation laughable is that the area is considered deprived and houses are up for rent for a long time before someone moves in. LL round here seem to be rather greedy with no understanding of how much most people earn. Will only get worse with all the job losses
So I totally get why some parents can barely afford a roof over their children's head and food is a luxury.
I can't bear hearing this rubbish about how you shouldn't have children if you can't afford them. Most people can at the time. No one knew a word wide pandemic and recession would happen.