AIBU to think we NEED to repair society however we can

[Puffalicious]

I occasionally see posts from the local FB page- good to keep up with things happening etc. Recently there have been many posts with people helping each other for Christmas- signposting people looking to donate toys/ food etc, the odd person asking (very mixed area, big city, so wealthy folk mixed with people struggling & everything in between).

Yesterday a post grabbed me, an anonymous post looking for food to tide them over until 29th when paid. Seemed very genuine. They asked for a PM, which I did, along with a few others it seems. It was a young girl, pregnant who had no-one & no food. I usually give to the local food bank- had just Yesterday done a larger, Christmas donation whilst doing my shop- but she seemed outside the system, working with unexpected costs.

We exchanged a few messages & she said she wasn't fussy, eats most things & whatever I thought would be great. She wasn't askimg for anything else. I did a week's shop including items for breakfast, lunch & dinner & some treats, including plenty fresh fruit & veg, milk, bread, washing powder & shampoo. She said she had no plans for Xmas day, so I offered to plate up & drop off.

When I went to drop the food she met me at the door with a joint in her hand. She's 6 months pregnant. Unfortunately her hallway was full of filthy stuff & the stench that hit me was unbearable. We chatted a bit: she had lived there 4 years & had 5 other children- the eldest lives with the father, the other 4 with her mum. She would be at her mum's for Xmas, she 'never misses one', so did have someone cooking for Xmas. The father of her child is in a city hours away- she's just back from visiting & wants to distance herself.

I wished her a Merry Christmas & asked if she needed things for the baby- I gave her details of local places to contact if needed. She says she cannot work - another thing she was untruthful about, but she may have her reasons.

I know I can't save the world, & I'm pleased she has food, but I feel that I won't do this again? I'm not sure why I feel like this, but I think I'll stick to giving to the local food bank. I feel like I'm not judging, maybe I am in my own way?

Where has society got to where a 25 year old will have 6 children, 5 of which are not in her care & the 6th probably under social work watch? How can we fix this? I work in education & see ACES & trauma in the young people who come from such situations. Where are we going wrong? What can we do? She seemed pleasant & perhaps with half a chance she may have had a different path.

I'm wittering now.

YABU- Society is how it is, we can't change people.

YANBU- We need to try to change society for the sake of that unborn baby & many like it.

Kids are good earners if you are on benefits, multiple children will make her priority for housing.

Except she won't be getting that money because her kids don't live with her.

I would never had ended up in her situation...... because I was born into a middle class family with two loving, supportive parents.

I was born into poverty in a Shiite part of Glasgow and came from a long line of people who earned little and reproduced lots.

I guess I could have ended up in that position, if I hadn't had the sense to realise that the best way out was to not get knocked up as a teenager and to work at school, and get to university.

It worked. I'm a consultant oncologist.

Plenty of children born in shitty conditions get the fuck out of them through hard work at school. Even now my nieces and nephews who are the children of my youngest brothers and sisters are waking up and smelling the roses and getting their heads down and getting the fuck out.

I knew lots of girls like that one. They thought that having babies was their way to an easy and lazy life. Many who I was at school with are still stuck in the never ending cycle of poverty because of it. Yes I judge. No I am not sorry.

And therein lies the problem. Kids a currency to people like these. The taxpayer is literally giving her money to feed her drug habit while she gullible people buy her groceries.

The whole thing is a con. This is state induced dependency to rip off the contributors to prop up the professional scammers.

Well parents like this are usually provided with a number of different parenting programmes.

Sometimes, they can take strategies and advice from them, sometimes they wont and dont

Sometimes they know exactly what a child needs but they dont put it in place, there is no lack of knowlege, they either cant be bothered, or arent motivated or something else stops them, or a combination of those things

Sometimes they just cant compute how their actions or circumstances impact on a child and dont see a problem.

When people pronounce that people have children for benefits, somewhere to live etc etc, they assume far fare more motivation and planning to people like this girl than they are capable of

Im afraid people lurch from one crisis to another, long term impacts and consequences to choices they make or dont make is not part of their thinking.

Often people who are really at the bottom of society are unable to work, by way of simply not being employable, they wouldnt have the skills to be able to engage with employment and you cant teach them either.

It’s just a shame for the poor innocent children and babies caught up in the mess and inadequacy of adults.🙁

I know you're right. It's just so depressing.

Hey,
My life's work has been in a school in an area of Glasgow just like yours. Thankfully I have seen many, many young people like you: working their backsides off to drag themselves out of the shit. We have kids going on to medicine/ STEM/ law; excellent degree & college courses; meaningful work or training. We have an incredible Developing the Young Workforce Team & a Pastoral team that go every mile they can to help.every child in their care. This is why I've stayed in the same school for 28 years.

But we STILL have disengaged kids/ non-attenders/ kids who can barely read/ kids with police records by age 12/ gang problems/ undiagnosed ASN/ kids with massive issues due to ACES or attachment problems and some will end up like this young woman I met. And it's getting worse. It's so upsetting to watch. I know we've helped countless kids, but this experience has made me feel helpless in the face of a broken society getting more broken with every year that passes. It's the same in every big city across the UK.

It seems we went to very similar schools. My year group was quite small with only around 25 in my tutor group. There were only six girls and five were pregnant by the end of the summer following GCSEs. One girl's mother was a grandmother at 32. She herself became a grandmother in her early thirties.

The social and financial impact, resulting from the exponential growth of people completely reliant upon benefits, is huge. When you factor in the full costs of schools, healthcare, housing, benefits, etc, it becomes clear why there is so little money for infrastructure and our public services are so poorly funded.

@beatrix1234 I think you have misunderstood my post. I would never advocate sterilisation. I am however all for improvements in mental health/life coaching provision AND people taking responsibility for their actions.

I hear you, problem is when you’ve grown in poverty with terrible role models. Making bad decisions when you have an education, good resources, a cushy financial matress to fall in or a proper family support is one thing but making bad decisions when you have none of those is another thing. When you’ve seen mom in benefits having children with different men you don’t really see much wrong in that, like the OP said it’s a cycle of poverty that is very difficult to break. Childhood trauma will also push you into bad decisions, how do you break that?

I think the answer is to focus on the children, give them the opportunities to flourish and achieve their potential

What does ‘making people take responsibility for their actions’ look like though?

It seems we went to very similar schools. My year group was quite small with only around 25 in my tutor group. There were only six girls and five were pregnant by the end of the summer following GCSEs. One girl's mother was a grandmother at 32. She herself became a grandmother in her early thirties.

Yep, sounds familiar. I'm 51 now and someone I went to school with is a great grandmother. It's mind blowing.

And no, people don't realise the true cost of the support they get even though I'm a life long labour supporter and believe in a welfare state and public services....but some people really do take the piss.

The benefits system isn’t to blame.

What’s to blame is the fact that often the only jobs that people with little or no qualifications can do are things like care work or childcare - jobs which should be highly paid as they are jobs that involve the most vulnerable in society (children , the elderly and disabled) yet these workers are not valued as they should be.

High private rents are a huge issue too driving up the benefits cost to the taxpayer and causing resentment BUT that big chunk of money paid to a claimant for housing just goes straight into the pocket of a landlord who is never judged and called a scrounger.

The only thing you can do is donate more to foodbanks that don’t require a referral and have no limits on how many times they help someone

In my experience, making people take responsibility for their actions means either being strong enough to ignore the shite society as a whole throws at you for somehow not living up to expectations, or working yourself into the ground to prove (lord only knows who to) that you make the grade (which has moving parameters, particularly if you are a woman).

@TisnottheseasontobeND

You're taking about people that work. I'm taking about people that exploit the system and spend decades not working.

A friend's sister's fella hasn't worked since the 90's because he fell off a motorbike on holiday in Greece. There is absolutely nothing wrong with him, but he's on the sick.

How much has that cost over the past 30 years? How much more will he cost us before he dies?

Sorry I’m not clear. So if a person makes poor decisions repeatedly, what should actually happen to make them take responsibility?

What are you suggesting happens?

How fucking depressing. I wish more than anything that she could be sterilised, so that there can never be a 'next time'.
You've been very kind, OP, but I can understand how you must be feeling right now and would support your decision to donate to food banks rather than individuals.

Just keep donating to food banks that don’t require a professional referral - these are easy to access for anyone cutting out the in between bit as a lot are put off asking for help from hv/ss/gp and direct access food schemes are the best option to help.

I never donate to individuals, especially not those asking on social media. They are mostly scammers or people who don't wish to take responsibility.

And how do they prevent people spending their money on drugs, as per the woman referenced in this thread, and then grabbing free food from the non-referral food bank?

I don’t see how ‘personal responsibility’ can ever be an effective solution to a systemic problem.