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.

I agree with the principle but sadly I think there is little we can do to help a lot of people in poverty. Sometimes you just can’t ‘educate’ people out of poor life decisions. They will continue to make them over and over. We can’t forcibly sterilise people (rightly) so they’ll keep having children and bringing them up in appalling conditions. Any money given will be spent on drink, drugs, unwise purchases. You can’t give vouchers for food as that’s seen as controlling or patronising. You could arrange work opportunities and they wouldn’t turn up.

I haven’t the foggiest what to do about the situation but I don’t think throwing large amounts of money at it would really help if I’m honest. I fear it would just take away from everyone else who actually earn it. I’m all for free universal school meals and so on, where it can’t be abused and will always benefit the child.

@Rp735 I agree that it does give some people more drive. When I look at my friends who have grown up in wealth, loads of them are entitled and underachievers. They have no drive or ambition. Yet they still live a privileged life and are happy to cast aspersions at those who haven't had the same privilege, as if their own wealth is a result of hard work and others without need to work harder.

@Naptrappedmummy I think your post is absolutely awful. You said that poor people will continue to make bad decisions and pend money on drink and drugs. Eh what!

You're repeating what I have heard rich people say before:" that it is poor peoples fault that their poor. ". Not true

I was extremely poor when I was a child. I was brought up in a single parent family. My mother never drank once. Not once. She never did drugs. She worked full time.

We were poor because our dad left us and didn't pay maintenence. It was nothing to do with drink and drugs.

What i see that contributes hugely to poverty, is whether the father stays around or not. And that is not the mother or children's fault.

Were you lucky enough to have a dad that stayed around?

It is not poor peoples fault that they are poor!

@Naptrappedmummy I think your post is absolutely awful. You said that poor people will continue to make bad decisions and spend money on drink and drugs. Eh what!

You're repeating what I have heard rich people say before:" that it is poor peoples fault that their poor. ". Not true

I was extremely poor when I was a child. I was brought up in a single parent family. My mother never drank once. Not once. She never did drugs. She worked full time.

We were poor because our dad left us and didn't pay maintenence. It was nothing to do with drink and drugs.

What i see that contributes hugely to poverty, is whether the father stays around or not. And that is not the mother or children's fault.

Were you lucky enough to have a dad that stayed around?

It is not poor peoples fault that they are poor!

It's nothing to do with dad's staying around. It's about education. Educated people can get good jobs because they got their GCSEs and A levels at school so they could access training, further and higher education to get good jobs and earn more. It's never too late for education.

I grew up in a deprived area and the number of kids in our school who just didn’t care about getting an education was astounding. It was quite hard to learn as these kids were massively disruptive in class. If they grew up to be adults in living in poverty then I’m sorry but I have limited sympathy. A lot of them brought it on themselves.

Yes it’s virtually impossible to buy a house without the bank of mum and dad these days, but access to education is free to all.

I didn’t say poor people. I said a lot of people in poverty, not all of them. There should absolutely be help in a form that it can’t be abused - free school meals (good quality not the junk they serve currently), free education for those who ‘missed the bus’ initially. I just don’t think handing out large sums of money in the form of very generous financial benefits will make much of a difference.

@gardenflowergirl you said it's about education.

But its not a fair system.

We all know that rich people can pay for better education for their children.

Poor people are trapped in bad education.

People saying that everyone has access to the same free university system is not correct.

You need the correct grades to get into university. And your school education makes you get those grades.

As rich people can pay for better schooling, it keeps people trapped in the rich poor system

It’s not just about education. It’s often about trauma and lack of opportunities.

It’s this kind of lack of understanding that results in the erroneous positions like that of @Naptrappedmummy .

Making poor decisions 😅😂 yes my excellent decision to be conceived by two well educated non-trauma affected healthy parents who had the wherewithal to protect me, love me and provide me with opportunities and a safe supportive net around me (and not die prematurely) has served me well. Well done me!

@Naptrappedmummy maybe it should be looked at - what is causing poverty. There are lots of factors that cause poverty.

Lack of access to equally good schooling is one thing that keep people poor.

Also if the dad isn’t around it could be hard for the mother to get into higher education, without anyone to watch the children.

@Naptrappedmummy I have to say that yoh are displaying a particularly bad attitude towards people in poverty - you're saying we shouldn't just give them lots of money as they will spend it on drink and drugs. That's a bad attitude to have.

I remember when I was in school, there was a poor girl in my year. Her parents did not drink. Never touched drugs. Her mother was not well educated (couldn't afford to go to uni) and was in a low paying job.

Poverty is nothing to with drink and drugs a lot of the time

@FatFatMary exactly. It's very hard for the mother to go back to education, if the father has left, and she has kids to look after

Not wanting to be rude, but you yourself admitted unwisely spending large sum of money until you actually ended up poor again, so pp has some point about some people, no.
You went to university as far as I understand.
You had quite a lots of priviledges thrown at you actually many others, even who didn't grow up in poverty, didn't get.

You keep arguing about poverty trap as if you never had chance to escape it. You did. At least twice

I do think that some of the poorest families I know, we're poor because the dad's left.

That is not the woman's fault. it's very hard to bring up children on one income. And hard for her to stay in a good job.
How is a single mother going to work and afford childcare on one salary. She can't. Its often not possible. So she ends up staying home on benefits for years.

Anyones husband can leave them
A lot of men dont pay maintenence.
And then people look down on single parent families.

Omg No @Zamzamzamdeedah I didn't bring up anything on this thread at all about me inheriting money. Someone found a thread that I posted a year ago and posted it here. I've already answered about it MANY times. I've said I didn't inherit a large amount of money. I made up an incorrect figure at the time and changed a lot of details to ask a question about inheritance. I actually inherited a very small amount. Is this going to be brought up every few posts. I can't keep answering the same thing!

No I didn't go to university. I went to a technical institute in Ireland. They are like a community college

My bad with the uni. I have no idea what community college is, I am assuming like - level and Btec etc? Which is still usable education considering only minority has uni degrees.

Doesn't matter if you said different numbers. You have inherited enough to travel and buy a house.
That is something most people didn't get. So that point stands whether it was 400k or 100k. i am not arguing the sum exactly. I am arguing the point that whatever it was was enough to do all that above. It would also be enough to get the education etc.

The pp didn't say "they will just spend it on drugs", she quite very clearly explained that some people cannot, or don't want to so cannot, be "educated" and would spend money on "drink, drugs, unwise purchases" hence it is difficult to pull some children and people out of poverty. That is correct though. She didn't say that everyone poor is alcoholic or on drugs.

Oh and means test grammar school places to homes that earn under £100k. Yes I know that a household on 90k isn’t poor but neither are they private school wealthy, it would be a blunt instrument but would weed out some of the very rich families taking the mick by using the places.

Hi OP, I’m surprised how many think YABU!

I don’t know how many of those voters are in a bubble and how many reacting to tones of (understandable) defeatism.

It’s proven what a profound impact poverty and family dysfunction in childhood have on a long term basis but little appetite to level the playing field and support children and families.

Currently these issues exacerbated by a long run of old Etonians running the public sector in to the ground…and from your PP public sector support is even worse in Ireland.

Sorry you’ve had such a bad experience of therapy though, it doesn’t mean therapy doesn’t work for you, just those individuals. Could you ask to be referred to a psychologist instead perhaps (is this available)?

Writing exercises around your personally limited beliefs may be useful as well as guided meditations and mindfulness exercises are freely accessible. These may take months of a daily practice to help though and likely to actually feel worse in the short term, but worth persevering for long term.

Limiting contact with those who feed habitual patterns and keep you stuck as well.

Teaching and nursing would be a high investment high emotional toil and not well paid either.

40 still young IMO but a good time to take new actions and reset things that aren’t working as much as is within your control. All the best OP.

Why shouldn’t rich people take grammar school places? They’ve paid a heck of a lot more than poor people in taxes to provide for these schools. Why’s it fair to stop them using them?

I do think education is wasted on the young and so many lack the maturity at school to realise how important it is to get your head down and learn. The ability to sit a-levels etc distance learning / night school should be expanded.

there are so many people I know who have successes from poverty by not having a massive chip on their shoulder weighing them down.

I think this is a really good point. More funding should be available to part- time learners/ people doing evening or distance learning courses

Because it defeats the point of them existing. They’re supposed to be an excellent education for motivated bright kids who otherwise wouldn’t have one because they’re not rich. I would make the cap pretty generous but the very wealthy who can easily afford private without cutting even luxuries should not be able to access them.

Life is unfair. I come from a similarly troubled background with 2 alcoholic parents and 6 siblings we grew up in poverty. Its only now at 36 years old I realise just how lucky I was that I have 2friends who come from normal families and dis all the normal things you said, it motivated me to not be left behind, I fought tooth and nail and worked multiple jobs to grt my self through college in my late 20s, I now have kids that I know won't go through the same thing. They have a comfortable life with 2 supportive parents with 2 good jobs. I am so thankful for my friends influence and my own unwavering determination to break the cycle.

The thing no one likes to hear about poverty is that a lot of the time it's bloody hard work to get out of it and they are already in the mindset of "I work so harrrrd" that they can't fathom working harder to actually break the cycle. But as hard as you're already working, you need to double it to get out of the hole. You have to stop blaming everyone and everything else and find the wherewithal inside you to do something with your life.

@BiscuitsandPuffin some people are already working two or more jobs and still barely making ends meet. How exactly do you propose they 'double' that? Stop sleeping/eating/caring for their children?

Although I don't really know why I'm asking you this when your juvenile "I work so harrrrd" tells me exactly what you think of people less fortunate than yourself.

And soon we can add 'bad teeth' to the visible signs of being 'poor'. Not just because of the headlines describing the lack of access to dental services but for the lack of treatment given by Dentists to NHS patients/clients.

NHS Dentistry is paid by Units of Dental Activity and it has been found that it is more cost-effective to extract than treat. By the time I realized that my NHS Dentist was going to leave my teeth untreated only willing to provide extractions and subsequent clumpy dentures depending on rare appointment availability it was too late to find a private dentist.

Now you can't even find one of those round here. So in a few months I'm going to be a toothless hag, hardly helpful in my constant search for more work. I may as well get a face tattoo, wear an eye-patch with ACAB inscribed along my knuckles - the socio-economic-psychological effect is just the same, only not my preference.