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.

A bit of both here I think, it is pretty disgusting that we're one of the richest countries in the world and we are sending children to bed hungry to be honest, and whilst incredibly heartwarming, it's pretty poor that members of the community and small businesses are now rallying round to donate meals to these kids during half term whilst the government keep a low profile while the dust settles and they've got away scot free

The problem we face is that there are a lot of parents from low socioeconomic backgrounds that genuinely struggle to parent - and I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I mean they potentially haven't had the best upbringing themselves and haven't picked up on the basics of parenting, they also usually have no support in terms of wider family to help them. I think we should provide compulsory parenting classes, focused on things like budgeting, shopping, cooking, saving money etc. It's similar to the give a man a fish analogy, giving people real practical, everyday support to improve their knowledge and confidence.

I don't by any means agree with socialism in the slightest, but there could be a slightly fairer distribution of wealth in the UK, as in large business owners with obscene amounts of money that they'll never be able to spend should be making sure their staff get a decent living wage and not just the minimum wage

And a quickie for anyone raving that a single parent of two children gets 'handouts' of £1750 per month, so they should be more than able to feed and clothe their children - £1750 (as a round figure, I know on this threat there has been some arguing the exact amount) is really really not that much, it sounds a lot when you're using it as a stick to beat someone with but in reality £1750 to cover rent, council tax, all of your utility bills, food and petrol for an entire month for three people and any childcare requirements, will only just scrape you by, and that's before school uniforms and shoes, new clothes that they grow out of every six months. Which on paper is the absolute absolute basics. It's not enough to build up a 'just incase fund' incase their cooker stops working, or their fridge leaks - this will.mean they then have to pay way over the odds on a pay weekly plan, or take out an extortionate payday loan and then this person is suddenly in a debt spiral because they could only just get by before, which will mean another family in poverty and needing foodbanks. It's a much bigger picture that 'they get £1750 per month and all they do is smoke and get their nails done' that is an incredibly ignorant view of this!

And yet, we go on voting Tory.

And/or cannot be bothered to vex ourselves about PR versus FPTP.

I don’t think tv documentaries about benefits help when you see families with 10 plus kids most with the latest mobiles etc helps.

I don't know where in the country you can get a three bedroom house for £750 a month. Where I live it would be more like £1500 a month for a very small three bedroom Victorian terrace where one of the bedrooms is a very tiny box room. Council tax would be about £180 a month on a property of this size.

According to the Entitled To website, I'd be able to get £2037 a month on Universal Credit if I was a single parent with two children. This includes child benefit and council tax discount. So after rent and council tax, I'd have £357 a month to feed, clothe and look after two children and myself.

I'd spend about £80 a month on electricity and gas bills if I was trying very hard not to use too much, based on my own usage in a similar house with three people living in it and showering/eating/having the lights on at night (could easily be £100 or more). That leaves £277 a month max. That's £3324 per year. Take away some money on school uniform and general clothing expenses. One pair of school shoes per year per child at £40 each (although they might need more than one as they may need trainers for school sport and if you have a child with awkward feet it might be quite a bit more if you want them to fit well). School uniform per year per child at £100 each (less for a primary child, more probably if dealing with logo crap from secondary academies). £50 each per child per year for cheap clothes (a pair of cheap jeans, a couple of T shirts, pants, socks and a hoodie, maybe some cheap pyjamas) and £50 for me for similar.

That leaves £2894 over the year. That is equivalent to about £55 per week for food and household essentials for three people and absolutely nothing left over. I really don't think £55 is a generous food budget for three people. That includes other household essentials of course. Bin bags. Cleaning products. General household repairs and maintenance. Replacing lost school uniform. Maybe your child's feet grow unexpectedly and you need to shell out another £40 on another pair of shoes or even two. I seem to remember it being constant when I was in the primary school years.

No money to buy my kids a warm coat. No money if the fridge breaks or we need bus fare. No money for a birthday or Christmas present. No money for any type of treat ever. No money for a pair of shoes that aren't school shoes. No money to do anything other than just barely survive.

I don't know how anyone in the world can think this is acceptable. I live in a house like the one described above which I am fortunate enough to have been able to buy. I would be very very happy to pay more tax so that families like this in my area or in any other area can afford to do more than just cling on and survive. I can't understand how anyone could be against that.

There are lots of places outside London and the surrounds where a 3 bed house is £600-700 or even less. I live in the outskirts of London, it's more like £1800 here. But there are many other places where rents are significantly lower, and yet there are still lots of amenities, shops and supermarkets within walking distance ie not in the middle of nowhere.

OK, but that's not realistic. Why should poor people have to be uprooted from their support networks and everything they have ever known just to make sure their children aren't hungry? How is that fair or kind? I don't understand why we don't seem to want, as a society, to be kind to people who haven't got much in terms of resources.

Yes, I'm in London. If I were jobless and relying on Universal Credit, the last thing I would want to do is have to move hundreds of miles from my friends and family, disrupt my children's schooling and end up with zero local support. I don't actually think it would help the children either. It would be appallingly disruptive and distressing.

We need fair wages and an enforced cap on private rent costs. Rent is extortionate and private landlords can charge what they like. Private rent costs should be in line with HA rent costs

Both of the above, and a level of benefits (top up or earnings replacement) that enable a decent standard of living.

Well, that assumes they have support networks. Many people don't. It's often said those on benefits struggle to return to the workplace or find employment because they have no support network. You can't have it both ways.

Also there are many people who relocate for work, moving 100s of miles for job opportunities, away from friends and family, to better themselves. Why should it be different for those on benefits?

Plus not everyone on benefits lives in expensive areas. There will be people in areas where the rents are £600 a month who are still struggling to manage their money for various reasons, whose children are still going hungry.

I've raised my children as a single parent without any family of my own, as have many others. If it had been in my children's interest to relocate, I would have done. Again it's no different to many of my peers moving further from London because they couldn't afford to buy locally.

Why wouldn't they have support networks? There can't be many people who don't have a bit of family, a friend they can ask to pick their kids up from school occasionally, a friend they can borrow a tenner off because they have different payment dates for their benefits. The people who don't have those things should not be uprooted even more and I can't understand how you think that would benefit them at all. You're looking at this from the perspective of someone who has choices. Moving for a good job is massively different from moving because otherwise you can't feed yourself or your kids. If you can't see that, you are devoid of empathy, compassion and basic human kindness.

And if people who are living in areas where rents are low are struggling to manage their money, how about we have a little compassion instead of demonising them? I really think it would be beneficial for society as a whole.

I bet you, if we did the breakdown like I did for my area, we would find that those people were not exactly in the lap of luxury. My calculation left my family in poverty. A calculation with lower rents might just leave that family struggling to make ends meet. That's not OK either. No child should be disadvantaged because of their parents' choices.

Really? For daring to suggest that relocating from an expensive area to a less expensive one might offer financial benefits. How horribly remiss of me.

I'm one person, but I have no family and no local friends ergo no support network. But I'm by no means an exception. There are people posting on MN all the time who have no family support, because they are NC with family members for example. Who have no friends. It's not that unusual especially for those with pre school age kids who haven't had the opportunity to try and forge friendships with other parents at the school gate.

I stand by the suggestion that there is a big world outside London (and other expensive parts of the country) where rents aren't £1500+ , where there's more social housing too, and better opportunities, an easier pace of life. Clearly not everyone can move, many people have jobs in London so need to stay close by, but we're not talking about those who are working and managing.

I'm not talking about moving for a good job per se. Sometimes it's for any job, or a better place to live. My OH for example moved 200 miles for no more money (meaning he was actually worse off, as cost of living was higher) but because that job had better prospects. Same as moving out of a central London flat - as many of my relatives did 40-50 years ago - to a council house in the suburbs, so that their kids could have their own rooms and a garden to play in.

This is a tough one for me.

I grew up in a very poor area. I taught the estate kids for over a decade and I still do outreach there. What the government gives you/them isnt enough. Not enough anyway to bring you up to standard of the average wage.

However what I have experienced is a lot of families not spending the money on what they should be spending it on - £1000 prams and tv whilst having no carpet, ( midwife friend agrees) lip fillers but saying they can’t afford baby milk, coming in to school stinking of weed yet their shoe soles are flipping.

This is a problem in society.

Yes there is that mum on BBC news night that struggles to make three meals out one chicken

But there is also that mum/dad that gets hammered because they are so fucked off with life/it’s all they know that puts their child last.

And yes it really does happen.

So whilst I really do think - ‘don’t have kids unless you really can afford them’ - my reality is that many of these kids are accidents or from parents who are irresponsible and it’s not the child’s fault so as a society we must feed them.

OK. Good for you. This is all irrelevant, really. The point is that in fact benefits don't offer a lifestyle that will give anyone everything they want or even need, that in fact people can't actually get by on benefits without significant difficulties and that people like you haven't got enough empathy to understand that sometimes there isn't really a choice.

Yes, I think you are lacking in empathy and compassion.

For the record I'm not demonising anyone, certainly not children who don't deserve to suffer for their parent's problems or poor life choices. But throwing more and more money at the problem won't help. There's no magic figure for benefits at which every child suddenly gets a hot meal, clean clothes and a warm bed.

The solution if there is one has to be more multi faceted. Perhaps paying part of benefits in food vouchers. Certainly teaching all children basic cooking, budgeting and finance, guidance that many won't get at home because their parents in turn never had it from their parents.

Fauvist - read the post from Coldwinds above. I think that sums it up. But feel free to disregard that too as lacking empathy. Also I'm from a poor background, so I do think I have some insight. I'm not falling over myself to make excuses for people though so if that's what you mean by empathy I don't have that, especially for those who consciously prioritise their wants over their children's needs. Of course not all do - but then not all children of parents on low incomes or on benefits go hungry.

@grenlei I know a friend on a waiting list for a house and she wouldn't accept it because she was going to be away from her family. I asked her where her family were while she was financially struggling and sleeping in a bed bug infested bedsit with her two small children? She genuinely struggled but refused to move to an area with cheaper rent and believe me it wasn't remote and it had more job opportunities. I'm lucky to have a good family support network and believe me no one in my family would ever allow me and my child to live in those conditions and if they ever did, I would jump on the first train to get away from them and start a new chapter for my child. Sometimes it's people's choices. I've moved many times with DH because of our jobs and it's very common. I totally agree with your posts. Wherever there's opportunities, that's where my home would be (with or without benefits).

@soffiee if her local authority were anything like mine then she had to live in that bug infested bedsit to get enough points on the housing system. Moving in with family might have moved her to the bottom and taken longer to be housed.

@Northofsomewhere

I feel as though some parts of society are moving backwards, there's an increase in thinking about poor people as either deserving or underserving. A Victorian way of thinking of those in work and of 'good moral standing' (who are we to judge) deserving of aid and those unemployed and maybe with a criminal record, too many children or not white Christian enough undeserving.

Food banks should not be a thing in 2020. There should not be a gap to fill however that gap is only getting greater. People shouldn't be homeless or facing homelessness. A basic standard of living in the UK should include all the things you've covered and even more. Other European countries have a basic universal income and the benefits of it are well documents in terms of happiness and productivity of a society. People shouldn't have to work, they should work because they want to contribute to society.

I come from a poor background and a town with lots of social problems and was raised on benefits by a single parent. I now have 2 degrees and have been fortunate enough, I am now able to help people out who are now in that position and am more than willing to pay higher taxes to do so. Poverty is so much more visible than it was when I was growing up.

This

@TheFormerPorpentinaScamander she was offered a decent property but refused because of the location and of course she's being resilient to the living conditions as she could stay up top of the list but why choose that? That bedsit is absolutely filthy with bed bugs and mould.

I don't know your situation and your circumstances to make any comments whatsoever, please forgive me if I sound blunt or even mean but my friend can easily make her life better than choose that for herself and children even if it's temporarily but she's been there for over a year now. She has a profession, she can get back to work, have her kids looked after, save up for a deposit on a property and move into it a few years later by moving in back to her parents instead of living in this inhabitable bedsit. Her parents are also in a social housing but have spare bedrooms and pay the bedroom taxes. They've shifted focus to get on the social housing ladder instead of owning her own property. Of course this is one example and again, there are many who aren't so lucky to be in that position and yes she can feed her kids but her kids don't sleep in warm clean beds nor do they have any space in that bedsit to do their homework's.

@TheFormerPorpentinaScamander sorry posted too early. What I'm trying to say is that there are also many greedy people clogging up the system and getting ahead of those that are genuinely in need.

Maybe she's just weird then!

I just know that when i was almost homeless my local council told me they would put me in a b and b or a bedsit until I reached the top of the list. But that if I moved in with family I wouldn't be classed as homeless anymore and therefore would go back to to the bottom of the list. If i got offered a house out of area I wouldn't want to take it as I need my family for support. Although I guess I probably would if I was desperate.

Yanbu. As much every DC should have access to this things and if all these things were given on your list you can't guarantee or force the parents to make use of them without policing society well the poorer side of it.
It is a desperate situation.
Again not all DC on FSM have parents who don't feed them, do they supply it to everyone or just the vunerable, they parents of vunerable DC could sell the vouchers half price.
I don't know the answer but fully agree No child should be cold or hungry.

Most people seem to have missed a point that poverty isn't just about the money, it's the entire situation it creates.

Children in the situation, while they may have access to the same education as a child not in poverty their home situation will be significantly different. It's difficult to study and concentrate when you're hungry and cold. You live in a rougher area so you can't go out and play and by educated through experiences because your mum can't afford the bus fare to visit your local museum or she has to work and granny isn't well enough to take you. There was loud car noises during the night and someone banging on your neighbours door at 6am so you haven't slept well. You've also skipped breakfast because there's no bread or the electric is off again. You can't afford to heat the house so your clothes are only semi dry and smell a bit musty and you know the other children can smell it a d it only takes one to start picking on you. You know your one hot meal today will be your school lunch because the situation at home won't have changed while you're at school. You'll go to bed hungry, cold and damp despite your mum trying her hardest to make it a nice place to live with all the food you need but she's been sanctioned again because she couldn't find suitable child care for the evening job they insisted she applied for or the fridge broke last month and she's taken out a loan for it or your landlord doesn't care because there will always be another tennant. School becomes the least of your worries when there's so much going on at home.

These children already put up with enough. During my entire time at secondary school (2004-09) I was forced to collected my fsm token from a lady waiting outside the library to tick of your name each day. It was embarrassing, everyone knew what you were doing and there'd be a line of kids, you could tell which ones were is desperate need and those for which they were just helpful. It singled you out as different, other, from your classmates. Things might be more discreet now but I'm betting everyone still knows. They didn't even buy you much, a sandwich and a drink. That's all the value of them got you, they wouldn't even get you and entire hot meal at my school, you'd have to choose an aspect of it.

No one wants to be in the situation of living in a cold, damp house in a crappy area but poverty removes your options. It shouldn't be a race to the bottom, "well I've got it worse than you and I'm in work". How we take care of the most vulnerable is society is a direct reflection of that society and the UK isn't doing well on anything from mental and physical health to poverty and homelessness.

Regarding the Basic Universal Income - the more disposable income people have the better it is for the economy. We could start funding this simply my enforcing the tax that large corporations such as Amazon, Costa and Starbucks are all supposed to pay in the UK and ensuring businesses are correctly registered in the UK for tax purposes and not purposefully evading it (like the recent move by Asda) by moving it the Jersey.

While I may have 2 degrees I didn't get there just through hard work, there was years of support and input from friends and family that built the foundations for me to succeed. I needed help with homework, support in making my educational decisions, the push to go to university and to do the degree I wanted at the university I desired. Not everyone has that support system or the space/capacity to study. I had a good job for a while but the field I'm in was badly hit by covid and they didn't renew contracts, I'm now back in my student job in a supermarket and would still be willing to pay more of my pay in tax.

This is a super long post but it's after 2am and I realised I was getting angrier about the true lack of empathy and understanding shown by many posters of here about the situations these CHILDREN face. I hope this helps to get it across.

It comes down to two sides at the end of the days. Selfish fuckers and non selfish fuckers. You are either happy to say it's not my problem if kids starve or you're not. The SFs can justify it to themselves by arguing about the costs but let's face it Boris' new PR persons wage would feed a significant number of children or the wasted cash that has been over to the private companies for track and trace. It's about choices at the end of the day. Some people choose to let children starve!