To think the rich/poor divide is so unfair

[Mooshamoo]

I know people who were born into lovely comfortable families.

These people had enough money. They also had two supportive caring parents. No worries or stres at all..Every one of those people went on to college, and went on to have really good jobs. They have a good social life, they get to socialise with people who also came from comfortable families.

I came from a troubled family. My father abandoned us. Which left us in poverty. So we had no money. I also had no emotional support whatsoever. My mother was an emotional mess and couldn't cope on her own with anything, I basically had to be her mother from a very young age. I had a lot of emotional worries and stress. As a young woman, early twenties, I remembered seeing other young women enjoy nights out. I never got to have anything like that as I was just struggling to survive.

I didn't have support to achieve anything in my life, and I ended up in dead end jobs and I still now don't have a lot of money, I don't have good relationships. I don't have great friendships, as I find the rich affluemt comfortable people don't want to socialise with me. I remember one person saying to me "oh is that a shitty little job that you do".

And if I socialise with people from a similar troubled background to myself, these peollw have so many problems of their own, that these never turn out to be good healthy friendships for me. We just add to each others problems. For example we will sit with each other and one person will say "I lived in foster care and it was horrendous, the family were abusive" I will say "one time i lived in emergency accommodation as a young woman and it was awful". Our lives were so bad that to be around each other, we just make each other sadder and worse.

It just feels like being trapped in a cycle of poverty and suffering that's not fair and there is no way out.

It's luck of birth.

@Mooshamoo I completely get it. I have had a very similar experience to you. Although J did do a decent degree traumatic experiences after ai qualified threw me off course despite a promising start and I have been in low paid unfulfilling jobs since. My CV is just random with gaps everywhere. It reflects my life and mind!

I think what could be good is SPECIFIC guidance and a mentor of sorts. Just saying yeah go off and do some education is just too general and won't help you. You still need to actually get a job at the end of it and without experience and a network it's not guaranteed. A mentor scheme would be so beneficial to people who lack connections and knowledge of HOW to get into well-paid industries.

@FatFatMary that is another good point about education.

If you go to school in a deprived area it is hard to do well academically because of bullying. Other kids want to drag you down with them.

I remember if I, or any girl ever did well on an exam, then we would be severely bullied for being a swot. So then you purposefully start to do worse at lessons to fit in and not get bullied. It's a bad system.

Its hard to do well in those schools, when everyone around you bullies you if you do well.

In better schools I'd imagine you are able to study and achieve, and it is respected.

Thanks @shottter

Oh and pat yourself on the back. Despite your horrible beginnings you tried your damn best and got your degree. The fact it wasn't a very good one to study is further evidence of not having the guidance of knowledgeable, wise people in your corner. However you still did it!

Maybe a charity could support you to improve your life opportunities. If anyone knows of any in ROI, hopefully they could advise you - ai only know ones in the UK.

I had a horrible childhood. My parents were teen parents, with crap families. They were both abusive to us in different ways. We were very poor, we witnessed things children shouldn’t and life was very shit.

Somehow, I was academically very able and got a good education which I think made all the difference to me. I didn’t mix with people who were caught up in the things going on in the area I grew up in. It was quite a lonely existence, I had a couple of nice friends at school but we didn’t mix much outside of school, because it was hard to exist in an area with so much anti social behaviour if you didn’t want to get involved in it. You can see why most kids just go down that road.

Staying home was also shit of course because of what was happening there, I kept my head down as much as possible, got out at 18 and never went back.

I met my partner young, which helped a lot both emotionally and financially. We lived together, saved and bought a house in our early 20s. My partner has been very successful career wise, I was doing well at work until I chose to be a SAHM as I couldn’t trust anyone with our children after my childhood. 😔

Whilst bringing them up I ended up needing help with mental health issues due to my own childhood trauma. It all caught up on me after years of just focusing on getting out and on education. What allowed me to get real help? Money. Private mental health care. You can see why life stays shit for so many without access to that.

I don’t know where I’d have been if I hadn’t been bright and been able to escape the poor area and all that came with it. Or without meeting my partner. Of without the money to deal with my mental health problems.

Yes, I worked really hard and made a conscious choice to avoid drugs and all the things in my hometown, but there was also the ‘luck’ of being bright which was key to it all for me.

I refuse to see it all as luck as my life was so fucking hard til I was in my twenties, but I can see all the reasons why others can’t escape it. There is so much against them. If you haven’t lived it, you can’t possibly know.

I don’t see my parents at all and it’s hard seeing others with supportive families. I feel very different to a lot of people as I just can’t imagine having a family to rely on. We have children who we have given a very different life to both emotionally and financially, our life now couldn’t be more different to what mine was growing up.

It’s not fair, but no one said it was. If you have good parents and are well off, statistically you’ll do better. Unfortunately most richer people either don’t care enough, don’t really realise how bad some people’s lives are or can’t really do much to help anyway. They can’t change the whole system.

My kids know my background but can’t really possibly imagine how tough things were. I can’t imagine they would be capable of navigating what I did at their age. They’re loved, secure, have our full support and financial backing. They may as well be in a different world to kids that had my background. Very few people come out of backgrounds like mine well and I can understand why.

I’d love it to change but I don’t hold my breath.

@FatFatMary

Or the assumption that every child is not just academically able, but so bright they can achieve well despite everything. Pure ignorance.

For crying out loud! Do you honestly believe it's that simple for everybody?

Oh, and education isn't free past 18 btw.

Some of the comments on this thread are insane, and so blinkered and naive.

Great post @DecafTeaForMe I agree with every bit of that. Especially the access to proper mental health help. People who's minds have been shattered by abuse are basically told to get on with it. Some can, some can't. The point you made that being bright is a huge factor in overcoming the odds, is so true.

You really don't have a clue, do you?

Surely it’s harder to “get out” now? I know people that escaped abusive homes by getting social housing or getting lucky landing a job before certain qualifications were required.

I know this organisation has a branch near me that has lovely people. This is about a Dublin branch. https://www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/the-mental-health-mates-walk-isnt-a-place-where-you-get-help-its-just-a-space-to-share/41705996.html

Well, you can damn the Tories all you like, but it was still a Labour Government that introduced tuition fees, and made the bank of England more independent so house prices rose at a ridiculous level, and allowed mass immigration which whatever we think about it, has diluted our public service efficiency. People have such short memories.

And solidarity OP, once your stuck on a trajectory caused by a crap childhood it's near impossible to change. I'm with you on that one.

Not sure. I was bullied in a grammar school in a good
area for being effortlessly top of class but rubbish at games. So it's not about being academically successful in a deprived area.

@DecafTeaForMe

Also as soon as you open your mouth and say where you come from you are doomed. Socially profiled . When I bought my first house in a decent area it was truly shocking to find out what other people thought of folk from the area that I came from . Im convinced this is what stops people from getting promotions etc . Obviously they didn't know I had once lived there . This is why I was determined to better myself . I didn't want people looking down on my kids and writing them off before they even opened their mouths .

OP, you inherited a huge sum of money in your 30s and blew it all in four years:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4608776-anyone-inherit-money-and-it-wasnt-good-for-you

Since then you have posted endless variants of "is it too late to start again at 40?" Every time, people tell you it's not too late. Why aren't you listening? You can change your situation. No one else can. Sorry you had a shit childhood, but many of us do, and very few of us who grow up poor then inherit large amounts of money.

PS when I worked as an English language teacher in Spain I earned around 1700€ a month. Now I live in a SE Asian country where I earn significantly more. The only time I heard of people working for as little as 800€ a month was in auxiliar de conversación programmes, which are aimed at new graduates and are really just one step up from a working holiday.

@Drdoomish your post says it's not a 4 yo's fault if parents are too chaotic to get them to school and end with "damn the Tories". Why is it the fault of people sitting in Westminster if Betty from Hull doesn't get her kid to school? As I said many pages ago, not everything that causes inequality is within a gov power to fix and I think we have reached an unhealthy level of dependency where we think they can, just by throwing money at issues.

@BibbleandSqwauk no but a government could make education more accessible for adults

OP I feel you are conflating a lot of things.

There are many, many stories of people from inner city Dublin etc doing really really well. Lots of mothers strive to do the very best for their children despite poverty. Unfortunately your parents didn’t/weren’t able to, but to me that’s the key, not necessarily poverty.

You are now years later looking at your opportunities. You are 39 still fairly young, if you really want to do teaching what about the Hibernian online course & work at the same time. Why focus on losing job seekers, can you instead get a job & study?

I feel for your own sake you need to stop focusing on fairness and start focusing on what is possible.

Life isn’t fair, this isn’t news to anyone. Don’t waste time focusing on it. You want to improve - go for it.

Suggest if you want to make friends volunteer. You meet all kinds of interesting people volunteering.

Because those sitting in Westminster have cut Surestart centres and other preventative services to the bone @BibbleandSqwauk

Betty in Hull has very little around her to support her trying to change her chaotic lifestyle and help her to find a way up and out. The research is all there as to how these services were helping break the cycle.

A child with trauma in their life doesn't suddenly become a functioning adult in society when they turn 18. With money to pay for these sorts of support services, there's a chance they can.

@macrowave where did you get 1700 euro for teaching in Spain? What region were you working in? When I was working in Spain I never met anyone earning more than 1000 euro per month

I had a look at jobs in Spain today. If you look at english teaching jobs in Spain now today on the TEFL websites, the salaries I see are still 1000 euro net per month. I don't see any jobs with a salary of 1700 euto

What region of Spain were you working in to get 1700 euro. That's great if you got that

Hang on a minute...

I've just been served an old thread from last year about inheriting a large sum of money and frittering it all away. It looks as though you are the OP.

By all means, have a whinge about the rich/poor divide not being fair. Neither is inheriting a significant six figure sum, when others can only dream of that kind of money.

Life is not fair. You had a rough start, but you also had an incredible amount of luck in inheriting that kind of money. That you frittered it away may or may not be down to poor choices as a result of poor upbringing, but, man, that was one big leg up you got there. Sometimes you have to own the choices you make and you can't blame anyone but yourself for poor decisions.

This ☝🏻
If you choose to perceive yourself as a victim in a situation where you received great privilege the only barrier to improving your life is you. Not poverty. Not society. Just you. The first steps to meaningful change are recognising you need to change and then taking responsibility for making those changes.

Galicia and Catalunya. Even when I worked in the south I made 1400€ (these sums are all net btw).

When I first started out I was taking home 2300€ but that was in the days of the Zapatero govt. Never came close to it again even after gaining more experience, but equally I don't know anyone who would settle for 800€ a month!

@macrowave Yes could you please give specific details of the company that you worked for that paid this salary?

Like I said I think OP needs some hand-holding and support, she sounds lonely, lost and vulnerable. It's all very well fit a bunch of people on the internet to tell her to get a grip etc, but some can't do it alone. General vague advice is usually because people aren't willing to be generous with contacts or specific advice that will actually get you there or perhaps they don't know how they would navigate being in OP's position themselves.

Like I said OP vague anecdotes and well I did it so you should be able to won't help you, as it's too nuanced. Try your hardest to get a professional or charitable service to support you to the end goal. Rather than someone saying "just do tech."

@SWSO This is spot on. I moved to a really nice area and they do indeed profile you. I was even told they do this! I do not have "the accent" they have and I notice they question you at first, but then never want anything to do with you after they have made up their minds about you and barely even greet you afterwards.

I also agree with you regarding promotions. It's usually nepotism and who they like rather than who is great at the job.

As everyone has said life isn't fair though, so you have to carve out your way.