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]

Do you think wealthier parents are better parents? Poor parents are shit? Because thats what you’re implying.

Of course it’s not.

sure start was still going when mine was very young (born 2010) but was pretty much gone in our area by time he was 2. I used to take ds to some play sessions that were really good, My ds turned out to be autistic, diagnosed at 6, I used to have suspicions when he was younger but there’s no where really to go for advice unless your suspicions are strong enough to warrant a gp visit but then a lot of the time they’d put in down to being a first time mum, same if asking for advice about stuff on Mumsnet when suspicions of autism people say all kids do that. I just think it would have been a good place to ask at the play sessions and get their opinions but maybe I’m looking back with rose tinted glasses having had a very good but short experience of sure start. However it is undeniable that there had been an overall rise in children requiring ehcps at an older age which I firming believe is due to lack of early intervention, be this due to sure start, funding in schools, criteria that school are asssessed on meaning they don’t want children with Sen etc, maybe a combination of them all

Well said!

I think you’re taking a rosy view. I was at school in the 80s and there were plenty of kids with bad teeth or unwashed clothes.
Poverty isn’t just about having no money. It’s about being drained by the constant struggle to exist and sometimes even the smallest things can be overwhelming. People in that situation need support, not moral judgement, which was very much the ethos of Surestart (and I’d imagine a large contributory factor towards its removal by the coalition government).

Ah but we don’t have welfare in the UK. We have a system of social security, benefits, as a part of the wider welfare state. And yes it needs reform, it’s no longer fit for purpose, being almost completely hollowed out over the past 14 years.
Incidentally the increase in out of work disability benefits seems to almost exactly mirror the rise in NHS waiting lists so we definitely don’t need less of the welfare state; it needs to be strengthened to stop people falling through the gaps.

You are surely joking?
Literally nobody lives in luxury in 3 star hotels as a migrant. In fact, if the hotel provides food (and I use the term loosely and the quality is generally extremely poor), an individual is entitled to monetary support of just under £9 a week.
I don’t think we need to hear divisive misinformation, whoever it’s coming from, and I don’t think the appalling poverty and racist mistreatment endured by the Windrush generation is any justification for perpetuating that approach in the 21st century.

I was out with a friend last night, who runs a school for young people who have struggled in mainstream - multiple exclusions, disruptive, violent etc.

She was talking about how great the Sure Start centers used to be, and the measurable difference it made to children’s lives. This wasn’t about middle class parents (so what if it was) meeting for a brew .. but young fathers groups, multi-agency support, and interventions before things got too bad.

It was really sad that the Tories got rid of them, and am hoping that early years provision gets a real boost now

(and asylum seekers are not staying in plush hotels … but that is a different story)

When the Windrush generation arrived in the UK they didn't get a warm welcome and they mostly ended up in overcrowded houses, flats, bedsits and lodging houses that nobody else wanted to live in, doing the kind of jobs that not many others wanted to do - unsocial hours, low pay, dirty, exhausting etc etc. They had it tough, no doubt about that, as every wave of immigrants to the UK always has.

Asylum seekers, however, are not allowed to work (legally). They live in limbo, often for years, waiting for their cases to be resolved, with very little money or free choice and agency over where they can live and how they spend their time. It's a stupid system. Lots of them have qualifications, experience and skills that we could be making good use of.

My parents were poor. They worked in factories all their lives and had no qualifications.

Every week they bought me a comic and every week took me to the library.
I saw my mum reading a library book all the time and my dad read a paper almost daily.

There was always reading matter in the house and I saw them reading and read myself. The reading matter was either cheap or free.

They toilet trained me before I went to school and when I went to school, I was already able to read.

So, poor parenting is not connected to money and to say so is fucking, fucking insulting.

It is connected to lazy no hopers who expect everything to be done for them-for their children to be taught to use the toilet by someone else and who won't even provide a cut of toast for their kids in the morning-they expect someone else to do it.

Time to stop connecting lack of money with poor parenting and address the elephant in the room. There are people out there who see no reason to bring up their kids and expect someone else to do it. To keep connecting it to poverty is an insult and a spit on people like my parents.

Books are free, bread is cheap, toilet training is free. Parents-do it yourselves.

Sorry but this is absolute rubbish. Surestart centres were not about moral judgement whatsoever. They were open to all parents from all backgrounds for a start, as has been discussed on this thread. Their influence was measurable. The 'coalition' government closed them because they don't give a shit about women and children.

It was absolutely not about moral judgement. The (false) claim that it was solely used by middle class parents proves that.

That’s not my experience.

In my area it was fantastic and not dominated by middle class parents at all. Lots of people in real need.

Apologies, I’ve read back and I was entirely unclear! I was trying to say that the ethos of Surestart was about support and not moral judgement but I can see how that became garbled in my post.

Someone mentioned earlier that cutting SureStart was an ideological decision by the Conservative government and I agree. The swingeing cuts of 2010 onwards didn’t look to just save money. They were targeted at reducing central and local government’s involvement in people’s lives in line with the idea of small government. It was sheer vandalism to dismantle SureStart.

Exactly

Is this a joke? There's always been children with rotten teeth back in the day it was a lot worse than now kids would literally die from sepsis because of infected rotten teeth. Obviously I'm talking way back in the day but even 20 years ago when I started school there were a far amount of kids with rotten teeth because parents gave them too many sweets and didn't brush them.

Also, it was cost effective. We are spending far more on childcare provision for all children now, because they want caregivers (mostly mothers) to work rather than parenting. This article from IFS is quite a good summary. Apologies if it's been linked already

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/sure-start-achieved-its-aims-then-we-threw-it-away

No not a joke. I'm asking why is it now so bad that we have to have teeth brushing brought in as a mandatory part of the school day. Links to my point about the more the state does then the less responsibility lies with parents.
Why can't we just say that some parents are shit and those are the ones who need targeted support rather than have whole classes brushing their teeth when it isn't needed for the majority because their parents know it is their responsibility to do these things with their kids?

Not true where I live. We still have one but limited. It was a proper mix of everyone in the neighborhood. We also had a good homestart service that would help people less likely to go to attend. A lot of the reason people don't go who potentially could do with the help is that they are very under confident. If you're not used to walking into unknown situation it can be quite intimidating.

At what school is toothbrushing part of the school Day? Certainly not my kids school or the school I used to work at.

I agree that some parents are just clueless when it comes to dental health though. The idea that children should constantly be allowed to eat sweets and chocolate is very toxic as I've tried telling certain grandparents but you know what they're like 🙄.

I think certain parents who's kids have severely rotten teeth and constant headlice should have a little pressure from social services as a kick up the backside to get their shit together sometimes all that's needed is a phone call from them to scare them into getting their shit together. Honestly I know a family with chronic headlice and the school won't even say anything to them even though EVERYONE knows it

1 of Labour's flagship ideas is mandatory teethbrushing in all primary schools

www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/10/keir-starmer-announces-plan-for-supervised-toothbrushing-in-schools

Same here had one of these places where I used to take DC as a baby only about 6 years ago so it's not really true they're all closing I don't recall speaking to any of the mums at the baby groups who seemed "wealthy".

Mind you there isn't a "wealthy side of town" here the wealthy people in this area live in a separate town about 15 miles aways. Why the hell would they travel so far just for baby groups and advice groups etc. They most likely have similar in their own area

Intresting.

I notice it's something he said before he was elected so most likely irrelevant waffling, I'm not sure how this would even work with 30 kids and only one sink in the average classroom would they all line up to brush their teeth? Which would take up a whole hour or would they do it in the toilets?

Of course it won't work