To wonder WHY parents can't afford to feed their kids isn't being addressed?

[BearPomBear]

Just that really....

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes I agree about both parents working full time. There’s a lot to be said and your absolutely right children need to be raised. But with the cost of living is so high I do think some people have not much choice.

It's perfectly possible to bring up children AND work full time you know. People have been doing it for generations.

The worst behaved kids I know are the ones where one or both parents don't work. The kids are unruly and have no purpose in life because they grow up with the idea that benefits are free money.

I agree if you cannot manage financially you should work ft. I know lots of lone parents who say it's not possible to work ft So they only take jobs that are 16 or so hours, rely on benefit and child maintainance top ups and then complain they are short of money. I've always worked ft from when my children were 6-8 months. Yes it's not easy but the result is now we are financially comfortable which wouldn't have been possible had I told myself during their school years it was too difficult to work ft.

I think it stems from many factors;

Eg Poor education, difficult upbringing, lack of support from parents, few life skills, having kids young (often without a partner or career). Having too many kids without the means to feed/clothe them etc.

Then you have immigrants who may be unable to work due to refugee status or who had high earning jobs in their country of origin but are hampered by language barrier, degrees not being recognised in UK etc.

And then the people who were managing fine until covid but suddenly lost their jobs or income.

Or people may have lost a spouse or suddenly have an accident/illness and find they are disabled and without income (unless they had insurance).

Women often flee abusive partners and struggle to make ends meet, feed kids etc,

There are so many reasons for child poverty. I’m not sure what the government can do. We’re in a global pandemic (and recession) so where does the extra money come from? How do you stop people abusing benefits systems? The squeezed middle resent extra tax (current thinking seems to be why should we pay more the more we work) and the super rich just move to countries that charge less tax!

Plus the cost of living is rising!

Personally I think schools need to educate teenagers about budgeting, careers, taking out insurance, family planning, the costs of raising a family etc. Won’t solve the issue but may help some young people sort out their lives before adding kids into the mix.

Things badly deteriorated when Blair launched his war on the disabled. I must one day find and post some old screenshots I've got from media reports at the time of his disability 'benefit' reforms. They note the narrative encouraged.

The right wing trying to pin the blame on someone else?

Lets ignore the £12 billion cuts of the 2012 welfare reform act and the striver vs shirker narrative introduced by the Cameron government along with the punitive sanctions regime, replacing DLA with PIP, and the punishing universal credit system, none of those can be pinned on that tosser Blair

Ah all of the stereotypes are out in force.

Such cynical and nasty views of other people in abundance (not everyone mind).

Our economy is based on paying people peanuts and somehow people think they should be grateful for the pennies.

People think that those who earn loads somehow deserve to hoard that wealth. But they’ve earned it off of the backs of others.

Money and wealth are not infinite. The more that it’s concentrated in the hands of a few, the less for everyone else.

I would love to see the reasons behind it. It would be very helpful to have statistics on what proportion of people are not feeding their dc for each reason. This would help highlight what the reasons are and which ones need immediate attention.

I was one of the dc who's parents could afford to feed me and my siblings but my mother was too lazy. These parents must still exist. My dad was often away and travelling for work and would tell her off when he returned and we'd look starved.

I think I went about three years at primary school without breakfast, dinner did sometimes happen but that was normally nothing like a meal should look like. I looked starved. I look at old pictures and I actually look so thin. But even now nothing would be done about this because a lot of people don't accept that sometimes it's got nothing to do with money and throwing more money doesn't necessarily help every dc.

@spottyshed that's horrendous. Was there nothing in the house you could help yourself to?
I was one of 6 dc and my dm bought as much food as she could afford but was not very imaginative with cooking so we had very basic small meals.
We definitely would have benefited from extra food and both my dp's worked full time. I remember packed lunch was 2 slices of bread and margarine. Nothing else.

@Coffeecak3 no, dinner when it was given was always frozen food out a freezer. Fridge would sometimes have large amounts of mould in it so you didn't bother. My mum used to joke she was growing penicillin for the sick.

@spottyshed

I would love to see the reasons behind it. It would be very helpful to have statistics on what proportion of people are not feeding their dc for each reason. This would help highlight what the reasons are and which ones need immediate attention.

I was one of the dc who's parents could afford to feed me and my siblings but my mother was too lazy. These parents must still exist. My dad was often away and travelling for work and would tell her off when he returned and we'd look starved.

I think I went about three years at primary school without breakfast, dinner did sometimes happen but that was normally nothing like a meal should look like. I looked starved. I look at old pictures and I actually look so thin. But even now nothing would be done about this because a lot of people don't accept that sometimes it's got nothing to do with money and throwing more money doesn't necessarily help every dc.

Was your mum unwell? Because that’s really shocking

*Marmitecrackers

so you could afford your mortgage on one salary for a month or two, what would happen if that became 3 months, 6 months , a year?*

We have illness and life insurance on our mortgage.

If one of us was made unemployed then it would be a case of job hunting and doing whatever we had to even if that meant working in Asda.

Worse case, we sell the house and down size.

People think that those who earn loads somehow deserve to hoard that wealth. But they’ve earned it off of the backs of others

What do you define as earning loads? Being comfortably off, being a higher rate tax payer, or earning 100k plus per year?

Hoarding wealth? I’m not sure what you mean.
Lots of people work, train and study hard, and put extra earnings aside for their children’s futures (eg paying through uni, getting them onto the property ladder).

Or they pay into insurance policies in case they get ill and can nolonger work, or for private health insurance in case a family member can’t access treatment quickly on the NHS.

Others invest in their retirements, so they’re not relying solely on a government pension when the time comes.

And lots of high earners regularly give to charities. Many also work full time, in high pressure high responsibility jobs. Many already pay half their income in tax!

Should they not be allowed to save?

@Iggly

Ah all of the stereotypes are out in force.

Such cynical and nasty views of other people in abundance (not everyone mind).

Our economy is based on paying people peanuts and somehow people think they should be grateful for the pennies.

People think that those who earn loads somehow deserve to hoard that wealth. But they’ve earned it off of the backs of others.

Money and wealth are not infinite. The more that it’s concentrated in the hands of a few, the less for everyone else.

Can you expand on this sweeping statement, would you rather live in a country with no welfare state and get nothing?