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.

There is a really good TED Talks summarising this and how people growing up in poor areas have a lack of hope and feel that whatever they do they don't it won't make any difference to their chances combined with childhood trauma of growing up in unstable or dysfunctional homes (or even a lack of a home):

It explains the situation really well but other than education doesn't offer the solution.

I agree with you OP.

The problem is that the divide between the wealthy and everyone else has become much too wide...

Social care, state schools, projects supporting vulnerable people have all been starved of funding and the cost of housing in this country is a joke.

The benefit system is a nightmare to apply to and people are being made to feel like scroungers when they need support.

Also tuition fees and cutting funding for adult education means it is much harder to improve your situation in life.

We need to rebalance this so that people have more opportunities to improve their daily life.

I think when you have a toxic/neglectful/loveless upbringing it also damages you in so many ways, often for life. For me it ruined my self esteem and ability to form relationships. Parents also badly neglected my health and that means lifelong consequences too.

I think the right wing media we have in this country is also a poison that has demonised vulnerable and disabled people while promoting the rich getting obscenely richer and the back of people's misery.

Let's hope Labour will start redressing some of these inequalities.

People seem to think the simple solution is 'I work hard' and this is why they are successful when frankly many poorer people work twice as hard as they do but are stuck in poverty.

Inheritance is the great divider now. And its monumentally unfair as its so arbitrary. At nearly 60 with no Inheritance, i can see the difference with most friends my age who got left a share in a property. But its no ones fault, its just how it is.

It is monumentally unfair to lose your parents young.

My friend inherited at 22. She did get a nice flat as a result. On the other hand, here I am at 55 with 33 extra years with my parents. How lucky I am!

I don’t think there is a clear divide. I think there is a gradient of situations, which may not always be obvious when looking in from the outside. People who look comfortable, but who live drowning in debt. But yes, fundamentally the family you’re born into can have a huge bearing on your life chances. It’s sad, but we are not all equal.

Your only way out is education and hard work. Never too late!

This advice is out of date. It doesn't apply anymore.

You are very lucky to still have your parents at 55. I can't imagine it.

Interesting op.
In my limited experience I ve noted that having ideally 2 parents who love you no matter what your money background is like is the best foundation for any human. Then having one parent is also extremely supportive for humans but with a missing parent the child will have to deal with feelings of rejection etc.
Or loss.

I've known some very poor family's with a very stable secure family bond and they make do with what they have.
V rich families with selfish parents and instability, addiction and so on and damaged dc because of it.
Instability damages people no matter what their bank balance and people raised without at least one secure parental relationship may suffer.

I always think of the stark difference between two places I had visited in one year. One was Hartlepool and I remember seeing a poor stressed mum with a baby in the buggy and a smaller child chucking things angrily like stones or something. The people hanging around looked miserable and stressed. I felt really uncomfortable and couldn't wait to leave
Everyone felt stressed and tense and the landscape was grim and the poverty looked grim.
Then I had an incredible visit to a country in Africa and we went to a village and it was far poorer than the estate in Hartlepool.
The children had not shoes, lived in huts etc certainly no modern amenities let alone TV.
In those terms there township children were definitely 100% poorer. However the vibe there, and I appreciate it won't be the same everywhere, was happy.
The sun was setting, the landscape was utterly beautiful, the kids were smiling and waving at us, many babies were strapped to mum and the mums looked much calmer and happier.

I'll never forget those two contrasts.

I think one of the differences there was the mention of no tv in the African village. It always reminds of of a like from a James song from the early 90s "if i didnt see such riches i could live with being poor".

In this country there's too much to compare yourself to. Im presuming in the African village people were more or less all the same. My dad said similar, during ww2 he was in Africa and he said the people there would give you their last penny. And most of them had very little.

This advice is out of date. It doesn't apply anymore.

Why is it out of date @flashbac
The people I know mainly are doing well as professionals. They had to have qualifications for that. This is still the advice I'm giving my dc.
Please tell me what advice applies now.

The classification of people as rich or poor can be misleading though, often it's not a constant state of being one or the other, it fluctuates for all but the very rich.

My parents both born into poverty, my mum one of 5 to a single parent in the 50's, at a time when benefits were very limited. She walked 5 miles to school every day in shoes with holes in, worn clothes, very limited food and still has respiratory issues from developing several serious childhood illnesses associated with poor nutrition, poor living conditions. My Dad was born to an alcoholic father and a narcissistic mother and had a job from 10 to buy food for him and his younger brother as all money spent on booze, beaten and thrown out of home at 16, left school sofa surfed and then had 4 jobs including an apprenticeship which got him into uni at 19, trained to be an engineer and worked his way up the ladder through sheer slog, various set backs along the way, but is now a millionaire. Not through luck, or an easy start, but through hard work and integrity. He now mentors younger people trying to get into engineering.

In what way?

Education is highly valued, is the way out of poverty and will always be so. Skills and knowledge will always offer opportunities.

It's not always about just working hard, it's about working smart. 2 of my close friends were born into poverty, had babies young, ended up single parents, didn't go to uni in the traditional way. But they both committed to apprenticeship type qualifications, at very low pay, which they knew would help them in long run, studied after chipdren in bed. Both now have degrees paid for by their employers, are an accountant and a lawyer and earn far far more than me, who had to easier route of going straight to uni with supportive parents and into a vocational role. Their difficult starts inspired them to make sure their children didn't have to struggle in the way they did.

But not a guarantee of success, sadly.

I think it's on us as adults to steer our own path and I don't think we can always blame our shitty childhoods.
My DS and I grew up in an impoverished, abusive household. DSis has - in societal terms - done really well for herself and, to look at her now, you wouldn't believe what she came from.
Me? I spent far too much of my life thinking the world owed me a living because of my crappy upbringing and it kept me very stuck.
I can't help what happened to me as a child, but I could have helped myself in my early adulthood by not carrying a chip on my shoulder.

@Crazycatlady79 'I can't help what happened to me as a child, but I could have helped myself in my early adulthood by not carrying a chip on my shoulder.'

Very simplistic.

People who are victim of child abuse or lived with parents who were addicted to drugs or alcohol don't simply 'carry a chip on their shoulder' that they can easily shrug off.

Early trauma can affect the development of your brain, emotions and how you form relationships or cause some lasting mental health issues.

Yes adults have more control on their life, but having to deal with this type of past is a huge burden for many people.

DH had nothing growing up. We came from India to the UK and built a life for ourselves.

DH literally had 0 but he worked hard and got to where he is today.

@Startingagainandagain perhaps simplistic, as I didn't have the time to elucidate upon my childhood.

However having been subjected to physical, verbal and emotional abuse by my alcoholic Mother and sexually abused by one of her boyfriends at 7, I do know what it is to carry the burden of pretty severe trauma.

@ruethewhirl

"@JoyousPinkPeer
Your only way out is education and hard work. Never too late!"

"But not a guarantee of success, sadly."

True success is not guaranteed through education and hard work but it sure as hell gives you a better chance than sitting on the sofa whining that life is unfair, wallowing in victim hood and building envy and resentment at those are better off.

The right believes in ambition and personal responsibility which the left criticise as selfishness and greed.

The left believes in equality and fairness which the right criticises as envy and relying on the state, destroying ambition.