To think that 'middle class' parents get away with murder

[catfunk]

I grew up in a beautiful but modest part of the north with a fair amount of poverty and unemployment. Lots of families were under social services' care (?) police called out a lot, etc.

I now live in a fairly expensive city in the south, a fairly left wing liberal place where people party, lots of mums are 'trendy' types and generational wealth is quite common.

It struck me the other day that if the parents in my home town behaved like the parents in my current home there'd be real repercussions.
Noisy house parties whilst kids are in bed upstairs, parents getting drunk and staying out all night, recreational drug taking and being too hungover to do the school run. But it's ok because they're drinking champagne and expensive gin instead of tenants, and expensive cannabis tinctures instead of smoking resin?

None of the kids seem unhappy or affected and they do have lovely family times together of course but AIBU To think this is not fair ?

Had it been sharon& Steve from the estate

Had it been just Sharon and her 4 kids, it would have been worse.

If Sharon had been mixed race and had connections with prostitution they would have thrown the bloody book at her.

So, is the argument that wealthy people should get away with less, or that less well off people should get away with more? Or, that wealth and power inequalities shouldn’t exist in the first place? It seems pointless just to comment on the bleeding obvious - that wealth and connections are useful to those who have them, especially to pay for others to take on responsibilities that don’t interest you. Also, what is the argument with regards to the children of such families - that they would all be better off without any social services or police involvement, or all be better off with it?

I know a middle-class Mum who isn't all she seems to be. Her "spirited child" bit mine and unbeknownst to me had already bitten 3 other children. If she'd lived in HA stock they'd have thrown the book at her.

Nothing happened when he deliberately broke the £80.00 interactive globe that the entire class loved.

He had a lovely little girl in floods of tears - his 5th victim - she left the school.

Just shows life isn't fair

There is no measure for emotional input from parents. Those who are disinterested or dislike their children might be denigrated by society, but if they care for their children’s practical needs and keep them safe, then they aren’t falling below the bar.

Lots of children have parents who lack emotional intelligence, empathy or real involvement. Often those children don’t even know it until they look back as adults because it is their norm.

The key thing is whether parents are able to keep children safe and meet their practical needs. Concern arises when parents put their own needs above the basic needs of a child. With small children there are more basic needs. So where a parent puts their own desires to get drunk and go out above having an adult in the house for small children, or their own desire to stay in bed rather than getting their baby up in the morning for food and a nappy change, there would be concern.

Parents who cause concern often say they love their children but they find it impossible to prioritise their children’s basic needs ahead of their own desires. When parents are assessed and care is being considered, this is the kind of thing that’s looked at.

Another common thing to draw attention is women who might not be great mothers but just about cope, but who choose to remain with abusive and violent partners. Sadly, even when their children are at risk of going into care or are in care and a condition of them returning home, is no abusive relationship, some women are unable to choose to reject the abusive man. Low self esteem and often other issues mean they cannot put the needs of their kids and their safety first.

It is this kind of bar we are talking about. SS are not interested in people not providing balanced meals or regular clean clothes or going out and leaving children alone for short periods or having a drunken night out, especially if these things happen in isolation. If something has happened to flag a family though, a wide range of things can be used as indicators to assess how families are doing and what support might be needed ......but remember that in most cases SS interest and even involvement isn’t the road to children going into care. People often assume that is what SS are looking to do and do easily and on little evidence. They don’t.

@Walkaround

So, is the argument that wealthy people should get away with less, or that less well off people should get away with more? Or, that wealth and power inequalities shouldn’t exist in the first place? It seems pointless just to comment on the bleeding obvious - that wealth and connections are useful to those who have them, especially to pay for others to take on responsibilities that don’t interest you. Also, what is the argument with regards to the children of such families - that they would all be better off without any social services or police involvement, or all be better off with it?

You can’t possibly make any general statement regarding your last sentence. There are children who are tortured and killed by their own families. Nobody in their right mind would argue that there should be no child protection service.

The argument is that professionals should be conscious of bias that benefits middle and upper class parents, so as not to overlook problems because the parents come across well or are articulate or wealthy. Many social workers who feel at ease challenging and investigating working class parents suspected of neglect or abuse find themselves anxious and unsure/wrongfooted when they’re tasked with the same job but with parents who are well spoken, highly educated and know their rights. It’s not difficult to imagine that a social worker might be more keen to accept an explanation of injury from a medical consultant mother and lawyer father. It may be subconscious, it may be fear of backlash to their own professional career, it may be sheer intimidation and fear in case they get it wrong and piss off someone who’s likely to have the resources and time to come after them with a complaint or worse.

catfunk:
None of the kids seem unhappy or affected and they do have lovely family times together of course but AIBU To think this is not fair ?
.........

Unfair that the kids seem happy and unaffected and have lovely times?

I think that is the key. There is no perfect parent but there are 'good enough' parents. As long as the children are all right I see little problem.

What you describe is nothing to do with being middle class. Some people just like to 'party' regardless of their social standing.

It also seems very unlikely that 'all' the parents you know booze, take drugs and have noisy parties; some obviously do but I've never heard of an area in which everyone does that. I never did and am what could be described as 'middle class' (by others, I resent labels); neither did friends or neighbours. There was the odd thing when we were younger which was quite amusing but we never neglected our children.

Part of my work means that I am involved in supporting parents who are going through child protection procedures.The whole of the family situation is taken into account when assessing.So if the child is well fed,clothed, lives in a clean house ..these are all plus points.The fact that the parents party would only be part of the assessment and would not trigger the threshold for neglect etc.

Many social workers who feel at ease challenging and investigating working class parents suspected of neglect or abuse find themselves anxious and unsure/wrongfooted when they’re tasked with the same job but with parents who are well spoken, highly educated and know their rights. It’s not difficult to imagine that a social worker might be more keen to accept an explanation of injury from a medical consultant mother and lawyer father. It may be subconscious, it may be fear of backlash to their own professional career, it may be sheer intimidation and fear in case they get it wrong and piss off someone who’s likely to have the resources and time to come after them with a complaint or worse.

If that's the case, that's really bloody awful.

@MissM2912 perhaps I didn’t word that as well as I wanted to. I said they’re under the radar precisely because they aren’t reported, not because social workers turn a blind eye. And this is because they have money! Their children are well fed and clothed and their houses are big and expensive. No one sees the emotional neglect or abuse in these situations. Society has been conditioned to equate well-being with being well off.

Social workers obviously need cause to investigate. But they’re more likely to investigate Chantelle and Ryan - the working class family who’s child is fed from Farmfoods, clothed from Primark hand me downs and the house is decorated using B&M bargains. The child is shown love and attention as much as a hardworking, low income, working all hours family can muster but the eye is on them because someone has noticed the child’s shoes are too small or is eating too much beige food.

In comparison to Melodie and Mortimer who’s child is fed from Waitrose, clothed by designers and have a big expensive house but whose children are left to their own devices, brought up by nannies, emotionally neglected and lacking in time and attention from their high flying parents who prefer to socialise and have cocktail hour every night with their rich pals or ditch them for months at a time while they cruise round the Mediterranean on their yacht.

We know who is always going to be judged in these situations.

@DingDongThongs

I know a middle-class Mum who isn't all she seems to be. Her "spirited child" bit mine and unbeknownst to me had already bitten 3 other children. If she'd lived in HA stock they'd have thrown the book at her.

Nothing happened when he deliberately broke the £80.00 interactive globe that the entire class loved.

He had a lovely little girl in floods of tears - his 5th victim - she left the school.

Just shows life isn't fair

That is nothing to do with being middle class though,. There are badly behaved children in all strata and, on here alone, we have people complaining about children biting and being destructive (sometimes their own). The child usually outgrows it, if not they need some help. Who would throw the book at any parent unless they were definitely neglectful in some way?

Your neighbours sound awful. I live in a super posh part of London and none of my friends behave like that.

"t struck me the other day that if the parents in my home town behaved like the parents in my current home there'd be real repercussions.
Noisy house parties whilst kids are in bed upstairs, parents getting drunk and staying out all night, recreational drug taking and being too hungover to do the school run. But it's ok because they're drinking champagne and expensive gin instead of tenants, and expensive cannabis tinctures instead of smoking resin?"

Yes, lots of dope, alcohol and loud parties. Many of the children partake too with parents consent. SS would have a field day if on social housing estate. Different rules for some. One 17 year old of a family I know overdosed accidentally on E - the posts of wonderful boy, an accident etc but the parents allowed use and used party drugs themselves - so basically aided in the death of their own son. If a family known to SS the other children would be removed but these people are professionals.

@DingDongThongs

I know a middle-class Mum who isn't all she seems to be. Her "spirited child" bit mine and unbeknownst to me had already bitten 3 other children. If she'd lived in HA stock they'd have thrown the book at her.

Nothing happened when he deliberately broke the £80.00 interactive globe that the entire class loved.

He had a lovely little girl in floods of tears - his 5th victim - she left the school.

Just shows life isn't fair

Badly behaved kids come from all sectors of society.

And surely one child biting another child doesn't mean you'd "get the book thrown at you"

Such a load of rubbish on this thread.

If poor Maddie McCann was left alone with 2 younger siblings whilst parents were at local taverna and child of single mum on benefits then other children would be removed and book thrown at her. Two GP's with wealth and connections and it's a different story.

The child is the one that suffered though.

Yep it's why my mum who spent every single weekend getting off her face on coke, drank every single night with my stepdad and fed me on 20p ready meals, never explained to me how to wash - or bought me the necessary hygiene products - and told me that I didn't really 'need' underwear I could just wear the age 5-6 ones I had when I was 13 was regarded as a lovely mum I was so lucky to have. Who would think a teacher - an upstanding member of the community - would be failing to meet her child's needs. I had tissue paper for sanitary products from the age of 9 until I turned 16 and was able to get a job, I had a school teacher give me my first deoderant because my mum wouldn't buy it for me, and often went without lunch at school, I was shy and withdrawn and I should have been flagged up. Even when I had a miscarriage at the age of 15 with a 19 year old boyfriend, the school thought my mother was on the ball as a parent. I have no doubt if we had been poor, those teachers would have had more concerns.

@Monday26July - why do you think it benefits a parent to evade the help of social services?

It is difficult to always know what 'affects' children isn't it.

When the PP said the parents had booze parties and were hung over next day, but the kids seemed well fed,msupoorted and unaffected.....we don't really know if they are affected.

There are all kinds of things that we as ither parents think do and don't impact children. Some think it is shocking for a child to see a parent drinking or drunk and others consider it perfectly normal. Some consider kids seeing parents rowing as abusive and for others it is very much part of their lives.

SS get reports of all kinds of things.....from the daft piddly things like 'I heard my neighbour next door using bad language when their child was in the room' or 'I have seen the takeaway man arrive every day for a week' to the fact people have seen/heard or suspect murder of a child or extreme physical abuse.

Are neighbours, friends, professionals more likely to see worrying behaviour and write it off as okay, if a family are middle class? I think there is an element if this and perhaps we all do it......you look twice when you see the drunk parent throwing up in the pub gardens with their kids nearby, but when the middle class professional laughingly refers to having too many the night before whilst at home, it seems perhaps amusing....but actually the experience for the kids might be very similar.

I think the key issues again are whether the child is being kept safe and whether their needs are being met. Ongoing and significant drunkeness is likely to result in parental behaviour where this isn't possible and it's why addiction is a key feature in many child protection cases. Lots of parents do have alcohol issues hat they are keen to parlay down and not acknowledge, but sadly lots of children grow up in families with an alcoholic parent - creating an atmosphere of fear of either physical violence or rowing or emotional abuse or quite simply unpredictability. Those things DO affect a child and their well being, even if they remain well fed and in a nice or not so nice home.

Happycow37 is it not just in that example that there is actually very little social services can do?
Being in poverty alone is not enough to remove a child, just as lack of parental interest from the well off parents isn’t either!
The poverty one is more of a risk as there is a chance the child’s basic needs won’t be met, but let’s face it, unless the child in the rich household is at the point of obvious severe emotional distress Social Services will leave them to it.
I have personal experience of both having had children at private school and working in some of the most deprived areas of the UK. Absolutely neglect occurs in both scenarios but it is all about thresholds. I have seen very the well off just move kids to boarding school when own lives are a mess rather than parent, and I have seen kids removed as they simply don’t have the resources to do this.

@thenewduchessofhastings

Thé Mccann s and their child leaving mates are a classic example of this.

Had it been sharon& Steve from the estate on a cheap package deal who got together with a bunch of similar friends at the all you can eat buffet at night all leaving their kids in hotel rooms and little Logan got lifted by a kidnapper the British police would have been waiting at the airport to arrest them with social services in tow to put their other kids in foster care and their mates would have been investigated by social services too.

Do people really, genuinely believe that if a working class child is abducted, social services would remove the family's other children?!?

Yeah I went to school (MC area) with a girl who was the daughter of two doctors. They were well-known in the area for being rich and eccentric.

The poor girl’s clothes never fit her. She smelled to high heaven. She was so bullied and unhappy that I never heard her speak. Form teacher used to take her out every morning and ask her if she’d had her breakfast etc.

And yet no one ever helped her. They were “pillars of the community” after all. There was no SS referral. Looking back, I can’t get my head around it at all.

There was no SS referral
How do you know?

[quote sadperson16]@Dacquoise, thats sounds terrible.

I think MC kids suffer because every minute is packed full of entertainment or learning and they are presented with ridiculous amount of choices from about 3. They can't cope with it all.That and the faux eating disorders and syndromes.[/quote]
Are eating disorders and anxiety and other MH conditions more prevalent in middle class teens?

I totally get that children from traumatic backgrounds and in care would have a multitude of things to deal with and so MH issues.

I have no idea what the actual data is.

Teacher here at a private school. Parental neglect will always affect the child. Doesn't mastter how much money parentes have. We see it a fair bit.

@Bryonyshcmyony

Oh yes. If a child was abducted whilst single mum not watching her and left in an unlock apartment with other young children whilst mum was drinking in a bar they would question the mum's ability to keep children safe!