I don't know what to think about this - Some parents need to be nannied by the state

[Another2Cats]

An article in yesterday's Times (share token below) with this title. I have thoughts both ways on this.

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d2c38325-db32-4e36-a213-6d84be59a2f0?shareToken=58b28456ef3641836cb2ba7f3f70c791

[redacted by MNHQ for copyright reasons]

The Sure Start centre I used to take my third child to didn't target the people it was suppose to. Was very middle class but the area was so not unexpected

The uncomfortable truth is there is a whole generation of underclass who shouldn’t have children. There are people in poverty who absolutely look after their children and their children do not go without. It’s hugely patronising and offensive to say otherwise.

There are equally people who have no intention of looking after their children. Can’t be arsed to do anything. No work ethic. Won’t get up to sort their children’s breakfast before school. Or get up to help them get dressed or anything else. Expect to bum around on the state’s expense. People can deny it as much as they like. The reality is the number of people like this are increasing.

Parenting type support is never attended by the people who actually really need it. Throwing money at these people doesn’t help. Look at CTC.

Making parenting classes mandatory would help. We don’t put people in cars and expect them to drive well, why would we expect people to take on the mammoth task of raising a tiny child to adulthood without guidance. It is ludicrous when you think about it.

We need to offer much more directed guidance, support, help and hands on instruction. I have no idea why we don’t. It would be a start.

Amongst those middle class families will have been women struggling with any or all of post-natal depression; domestic abuse; controlling behaviour from a partner; poor or no family support; particularly challenging children, often with undiagnosed SEN; health, addiction, financial or housing problems; the list goes on. Didn't they deserve support too? With simpler issues too, like breastfeeding, sleep, potty training, understanding child health and development. Everybody should have access to something like Sure Start.

I think you’re on very dodgy ground when you divide and make assumptions about people based on wealth. I used Surestart and I had a Homestart volunteer. I had 3 under 15 months, was recovering from PND and all my children have autism and adhd. I’m ND too.We needed the support and found it very helpful however I guess on paper we were lower middle class and going by this thread shouldn’t have been there. All demographics of parents will have those that need support and dividing people by wealth is definitely not helpful to anyone.

Sensible response here. I totally agree re driving and it’s the same in any job you do, you’re generally trained for a while because no one just instinctively knows how. The only experience any of us really have of parenting is the way we were parented and you either largely model your parenting on that or you do the total opposite.

Also agree with this. Anyone can struggle with PND, breastfeeding, ND children, those problems are not exclusive to working class people. Everyone is deserving of support, irrespective of class or wealth.

A couple of children's centres near me do Saturday sessions
It's mainly during the week for mums on mat leave but they often have other stay and plays which are good for part time workers and also parents who do not work

These parents are signposted to support by health visitor, gp etc

A lot of London councils had to choose between libraries and children's centres and could only fund one

Partly but it’s not as straightforward as that it’s also due to the schools being selective about the children they take. My child is autistic, we live in an affluent area, he went to the local mainstream as we didn’t know he was autistic till he was about 6, to cut a long story short he ended up getting an ehcp and going to specialist but the head used to regularly say to me to try and get me to withdraw him. So things like mainstream schools are busy noisy places and if a child can’t cope with that they shouldn’t be in one, thst it was my choice to send my child to a mainstream (reality is there is no choice unless you choose to home school) so,I shouldn’t expect support, that a child having an ehcp was taking funding away from other children etc etc. I also know of children with needs identified before they started such as a little girl with downs for example where basically the school put them off before they started and essentially said not to send their child there. It was a fantastic school for kids without needs as they had loads of sports coaches in, extra music sessions etc basically things that make the school look good to the vast majority of people and ofsted. People i know who teach or have taught in more deprived areas say that a lot of things that our school say are unreasonably to expect from a mainstream school even with ehcp were things that they just did anyway in their schools in more deprived areas, so things like movement breaks, use of ear defenders, adult support with games in the playground etc

What an unpleasant post. Those issues are in all schools. Not being by poor doesn’t make you better parent by default.

In my experience this was also true. More to the point the period of maternity is a protected characteristic in legislation. All women can need support to establish breastfeeding, have post natal depression or simply to establish social bonds in a very different phase of life. I also don’t see a problem with children from all backgrounds benefiting from these services as they are children.

No. These issues are not in all schools. I’ve worked in schools with these issues and in schools without them.

I’ve said exactly the same as you - being poor does not make you a bad parent. Of course it doesn’t! And being rich doesn’t make you a good parent. And plenty of rich kids are also, very sadly, neglected. But there are very, very clear links between social deprivation and the issues discussed on this thread.

One of the reasons problems are more apparent in schools where most parents are on low incomes is because wealthy people who are useless parents often pay others to take care of their children or they have more family support. These people are the ones who've made sure the children are toilet trained, know how to use cutlery, take turns, listen to instructions and brush their teeth. It doesn't make the birth parents any better, but it does mean the children start school better prepared than those whose parents had nobody else to step in.

I’m really sorry you had this experience. I have read about this quite a bit on MN - schools forcing children with ASN out - it is a slightly different situation in Scotland I think (where I am) as most kids go to their catchment school regardless of need. No EHCPs and the onus is really on the school to make it work, which of course it doesn’t always with the very limited funds available, to accommodate all children. There are very, very few non mainstream settings and certainly not enough.
But I hear what you’re saying about support being set up in differently in different schools and that is absolutely the case here as well.

Very few schools don’t have these issues. I have worked in a variety of schools too. Not being potty trained or struggling with behavioural issues really is not just limited to poorer families.

@JaneEyreLaughing You seem too blinded by anger to read some of the posts properly. Neither I nor anyone else said that poverty meant people couldn’t parent capably. And by the way you have no idea what my or my parents’ background was. But what is absolutely without dispute is that issues such as tooth decay in kids are linked to social deprivation. That is a very, very different statement. And there are a whole
host of reasons that might be - unable to afford healthier snacks, lack of education around healthy eating, chaotic lives in which getting kids to a dentist appointment is just unrealistic, homelessness forcing moves between neighbourhoods so again not registering with dentist…

I’m glad that your parents were able to teach you everything you needed before you went to school. I wish that all parents could give their kids a positive start like that. But I don’t suppose that shaming and berating people is going to achieve much other than push them further away from accessing the services they need.

@goodkidsmaadhouse

Just because you mumbled your post with your hand over your mouth doesn't mean that those of us with half a brain couldn't see exactly what you are saying. Luckily, a fair few-not just me- have seen exactly what you meant.

Either you can't write clearly or you try to wrap your meaning up in a word salad, precisely so that you can come back and say ,'no that wasn't what I meant.' An old and increasingly ineffective trick.

Too right, I am angry at your belief that poor parents will usually be those who need the state to feed their child, toilet train their child and brush the teeth of their child.

You say I don't know your background. No, I don't but I;ll tell you this for nothing-it wasn't a poor one.

How can I make this assumption.?

I make it because if you had come from a poor background, if your parents had come from a poor background, you wouldn't be spitting on them by declaring it was poor parents who need help.

You carry on wringing your hands but please don't wring them on behalf of poor parents-a lack of cash does not mean a lack of brain cells or a lack of self-respect.

That's why money won't solve this. Poor parents don't need cash to be forced to toilet train or care for their child.

An underclass want money as an incentive to care for their child. Don't make the mistake of thinking those without cash are an underclass that have their hand out all the time and won't even clean their child's arse unless they get it.

That underclass want dealing with and it's not by giving them ever more cash or doing the job for them because you are putting their children at risk. It's by sticking an iron fist in an iron glove

I think what they're trying to say is correlation doesn't mean causation. The type of people who can't be bothered to brush their kids teeth are usually not bothered to go out and get a job so will be poor. These people are a minority though and most poor people are perfectly capable of raising their kids well. But the way you worded it or it may of been someone else that made that comment it sounded like you were just saying bad parenting is just for poor people which probably wasn't your intention just poor wording.

On a side note there's also some children who have weak enamel so their teeth are more likely to rot I was one of them. Still can't even look at a quality street without needing five fillings

100% this. Even billionaires can struggle with these issues.
Tbh though I think it's bs that these baby centres were flooded with wealthy people as implied on this website all the time. I used to visit one six years ago so they're not all closing either and I never spoke to anyone who struck me as "wealthy". There's no wealthy side of town here though the wealthy people live in a separate town 15 miles away and most likely have a similar centre there.
No one's traveling miles out of their way for it. And if they are they're doing it because they really do need help/advice

Children in nursery are not the ones sure start is aimed at........

@JaneEyreLaughing Well, you’re wrong about my family, but that’s fine, because you’re also
wrong if you think I believe that just giving
people money will make them better parents. That’s not what I’ve said either. What I’d actually love to see would be more intensive support from pregnancy all the way through children’s education. There are some amazing models for that eg the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Gosh you’re cross! Were you never taught to manage your feelings?

My husband is the son of one of those Windrush migrants.

They were treated the same way as asylum seekers are today: sneered at, excluded, blamed for crime.

The main difference is that they were allowed to work.

Have you ever been in a migrant hostel? Talked to asylum seekers? The stereotyped that they're 'being waited on hand and foot' is absolutely embarrassing.

Yes - there has been a problem with young economic migrants coming from Albania, but even at their highest number they've only ever made up 16% of the asylum seeker numbers.

To present this group as being representative of all asylum seekers is what you do when you have an agenda to discredit all people seeking asylum. I'm sure you know that the majority of those claiming asylum in the UK come from Afghanistan, Iran and Syria.

Most ordinary people in the UK have had a significant fall in living standards, particularly access to housing and healthcare, caused by 14 years of austerity and 60 years of failure by successive governments to address our supply of affordable homes. Of course they're angry. Throw in a tidal wave of xenophobic media content about asylum seekers and of course you're going to drum up resentment.