to think that some people just don't get poverty?

[Ohsoworried]

I've seen a few posts recently where people earning a fair bit of money (think around 100k a year) are complaining that they're struggling with money, don't have enough etc. I DO understand that it is all relative but equally, for people like me on a low low wage, in insecure housing, wondering how I'm going to pay rent, having to stop paying in to my pension for the extra £30 a month etc it does make me cringe a little. Things are a little better for me at the moment but it has been hard and my secondment is up soon so back down to low pay. When I left my abusive ex I was living in poverty. And when I mean poverty I mean in a refuge, no job because I had to relocate, no money for a deposit to rent etc. It's the choice between being able to downsize your house, not go on holiday for a couple of years, make sacrifices but still live comfortably etc, compared with not knowing if you'll be able to afford your bills. Of course I'm generalising and I'm sure there are people out there who are genuinely on high wages but have high mortgage payments etc who are struggling. I do sympathise. But I don't always think this is the case...

Efortyjive, my DD and DS are both at prep school and I do some of the above. I was having a bit of a laugh at myself and my friends. Of course we're worried the fees are going up. Of course we're turning our heating down. Of course we cut back on other things to afford the fees. But we'll weather it. Coming on here and complaining about our 'struggles' when, like you say, it's small businesses that will be hit hardest, and some parents can't afford to buy a uniform in Tescos or put money in a pension is bound to piss people off. They're not being unreasonable. If we wanted to, we could put our kids in the local primary and eat steak every night. Our choice.

If you live in the First World, there is a simple and highly effective formula for avoiding poverty:
The success sequence:

Finish high school.
Get a full-time job once you finish school.
Get married before you have children.

George Will wrote last year (in a piece headlined, in part, “Listen up, millennials”), “Of the several causes of descent … into the intergenerational transmission of poverty, one was paramount: family disintegration.” He called the success sequence “insurance against poverty” for young adults.

Much like the marriage thread, I don't want to pay for a society that either argues against a stable family unit or ones that deliberately sabotage their own lives.
Reap what one sows.
Sorry.

@Hrpuffnstuff most Asians follow that formula. I didnt even want to cohabitate let alone have babies before marriage. Yet the rate of Asian poverty is higher than white poverty. Yes some of it might be because their parents are new migrants.

But it can't clearly be a formula. It is cheaper to live communally (and probably does elevate home ownership rates) , Asians traditional emphasis on education does mean many of their children do get out of the poverty trap but it does not solve poverty on itself hence the stats.

Finish high school

Finish high school with no or limited qualifications because you are not clever , or you are in a shit school because of where you live or you had to care for your siblings because your mother was dying, or your asthma was so bad because of your poor living conditions that you missed most of your schools

Get a full time job in an industry which pays so poorly that you end up on benefits as well

Lose that job because your car broke down or the business is sold off for profit or you got sick on the wrong day

No it's not totally under your control , it's not even mostly u set your control

I could think of hundreds of scenarios that are totally realistic abs would mean you end up in poverty

Pessimist then.😂😂
Pointless arguing or even talking to someone with your mindset.
I certainly don't want a portion of my earnings going towards perpetuating such a maudlin outlook.

No it's your mindset that needs to change

Some people in this country through no fault of their own end up in poverty

Real can't afford food to eat poverty

And most of that is a result of society choices

It's the result of people thinking that others had a choice , so thinking anyone in poverty is just a loser who didn't try and so doesn't deserve good treatment so benefits should be as low as possible and hard to get

It's a result of people turning their backs on education and support for children because out of sight out of mind

It's the result of people not wanting to pay more tax to fund mental health support and the child care system

The lies you choose to believe hurt people

@Hrpuffnstuff1
I would have to disagree because I did it the way you say to succeed and due to circumstances outside of my control I lost my full time job then had to have surgery due to an inherited condition which resulted in me being deemed unemployable as it left me disabled but not disabled enough to get disability benefit. I had to sign onto jobseekers and they told me not to tell potential employers about my disability. Luckily I found a part time job who were very good about my disability and then eventually I found the job I'm in now which pays the bills but doesn't leave much money for anything else after everything is paid out. I don't have any luxuries unless you count my mobile phone which I need to communicate with my family who I live miles away from due to moving in with my abusive ex partner who only showed his true colours after we had moved in together and he'd isolated me from everyone who could help me. Luckily I escaped that hell 8 years ago. But all of that was outside of my control

@mudgetastic that success sequence thing is also marketed along with abstinence only education to schools in America. Which I am sure would go down really well with our British teens. Lol.

@mudgetastic I think the idea with that success sequence thing- i read the whole report. That if you finish school, have a job and then marry, even if the job is not well paying or you were looking after kids in mid 20s (kids born in wedlock), having a (working) married partner means you are much less likely to be in poverty by age 28-34. And if you were unmarried and had no kids, you would have fewer barriers to work harder and better yourself.

@Newbie20 I think according to that success sequence, you were not supposed to escape the abusive partner. It's an idea propagated by American conservatives and divorce is taboo. In fact in the report, it is said that married people are more likely to stay together for the good of the children despite momentary infidelity as they know it's 'better for the children'.

You are just supposed to get married and stay married. Very 1950s

@desiringonlychild2022 A lot of people who don't know the inside story say that I was an idiot for leaving him but I was on the verge of suicide just to try and escape and it took my female work colleague giving me a lift home from work one day and him kicking off about it for me to realise that he wasn't going to change and I needed to get out of there before he killed me or I succeeded in suicide.

My grandfather once turned around to my siblings who are unmarried with children and said look Newbie20 did things the right way, she got married and had children not the other way around. It made me cringe a little bit inside. He's only 75 so I don't think I was expecting it but he did go on to explain that because I am married I have a little more stability than my unmarried siblings because we are more likely to work on any problems that crop up in the marriage.

Success sequence... not me

Carry on being 2021-poverty is very progressive.
Abuse is clouding the basic premise-moving away from rational thought to what-ifs. It's fallacious thinking.
All I read is, but, but, but.

I'm divorced BTW, I chose to, however, my whole life is centered around the children. Due to be married shortly. Pooling resources is the best avenue.

@Hrpuffnstuff1 I graduated from university, married my university boyfriend at 22 (who also has a master's degree) in a civil registry wedding as we had little money then, got a job in London, moved into in-laws house, bought a flat in London. In my culture, it isn't good enough to just get a job and marry; you have to get a job, marry and buy a property before kids. I don't even know anyone growing up who wasn't a home owner!

I think that would be quite challenging in the UK with a 33% home ownership rate. Also a lot of people would rather save for the property/are too preoccupied with paying bills than pay for a wedding. And yes you can get married on the cheap like I did in a registry office (but guess what I still had people asking me when they could attend my wedding years later which is why I had the celebration years later after we bought our flat and was more financially established; good thing that in my culture, no one cares it isn't the legal ceremony unlike on Mumsnet where it is apparently a cardinal sin)

So I guess the marriage part falls by the wayside but people' biological instincts don't go away so yes that is how they have babies before marriage. And then if the relationship ends, they may be in a bit of a pickle if the woman does not have high earning power...but you know, I could only do my life my way in a way that made sense to me but to a lot of people, my decisions don't make sense. Why not cohabitate until you have money for the wedding? Why not rent rather than stay with in-laws to save? Well if I rented in London and cohabitated, my chance of having children before marriage would be very high and I expect that's what happens to most women...

*63% home ownership rate woops typo!!!

@Newbie20 that sounds awful, I am sorry that happened! You are free now, that is what matters.

how does getting married before having children avoid poverty? Two 19 year olds with full time mw jobs are not going to avoid poverty if they have children. i had children unmarried but in late 30s with a good job, savings and a home. Rather predictably my children will avoid poverty. Because I was able to plan and set myself up for them.

your prejudice against unmarried mums is just more of the same. Being married in itself doesn’t protect you or your children against poverty.

If prevention of family disintegration is a key determinant that means it's all my fault. As per.

The success sequence:

Finish high school.
Get a full-time job once you finish school.
Get married before you have children.

Did all that. Still ended up poor after divorce

@AchillesPoirot that study only looked at young adults 28-34! Most people probably divorce late 30s to early 40s.

we are lucky in the uk that we have free education and relatively good opportunities for everyone.

Not true. Free education stops at 18 and very many people can't afford to go on into higher education.

I'm divorced BTW, I chose to, however, my whole life is centered around the children. Due to be married shortly. Pooling resources is the best avenue.

Do you co parent with your ex wife, MrHuff?
I thought I recognised you from the 'dating' threads, you were dating a model then I think 👋.

And what if I decided that the best thing for my kids because I put them first was not to date seriously or marry until they were grown ups?

That makes it even more my fault I was poor?

I don't have prejudice, I'm presenting an empirical and statistical fact.

Wang and Wilcox also tell us: “But it’s not just about natural endowments, social structure, and culture; agency also matters. Most men and women have the capacity to make choices, embrace virtues or avoid vices, and otherwise take steps that increase or decrease their odds of doing well in school, finding and keeping a job, or deciding when to marry and have children.”

But can’t we still blame society for failing to foster the bourgeois values necessary to actually adhere to the success sequence? Despite the popularity of this rhetorical question, my answer is an unequivocal no. In ordinary moral reasoning, virtually no one buys such attempts to shift blame for individual misdeeds to “society.”

Socilogy is very popular however such reasoning is a fallacy by its very nature

ifstudies.org/blog/what-does-the-success-sequence-mean

@Hrpuffnstuff1 so it's all my own fault that my ex wasn't a good husband. And it's all my own fault that I did the right thing for my kids.

I don't have vices. Chocolate maybe. But I couldn't afford vices. But it's my fault for the bars of dairy milk. That's why I was poor. Ok. Got it.

And my fault I got disabled. Had 2 disabled kids and have autism.

Ok. Got it.