Modern life doesn’t work

[DeluluTaylor]

I say this reading thread after thread of people trying to work around nigh impossible situations.
I am sitting here with chronic IBS from stress, trying to get the kids out of the door, to a school which can’t meet their need, to go to a job where I’m firefighting as nothing is fit for purpose anymore. Finding care homes for younger and younger people. People who want to work but can’t as they have learning disabilities. Yet in the 20th century an estimated 40-70% of people with LD were employed.
I have 38p in my bank account and all my money goes on paying for a big house that we’re in from 6.30pm 7 the next morning, with a huge garden which none of us have time to do anything in. That I sit in on my own when the kids go to see their father in a bedsit at weekends. Yet there are families down the road with three kids and two parents in one room.

The whole thing is crazy. If you were going to arrive here from another planet and looked at late stage capitalism you would say why do you live like this? Getting in debt to spend two weeks abroad rather than making changes to make the other 50 weeks off the year more bearable.

@Pricelessadvice I agree. Ds just turned 18 and a few weeks beforehand we were counting down and i kept imagining how that countdown would feel during war times. I can't even imagine the sense of dread. Then sending him off terrified praying it will be over before our second DS comes of age. The men who gave their lives were only boys, young scared boys who wanted their mothers.

The ones I know have their wages topped up with Universal Credit.

@MargoLivebetter I said life is expensive for young families in particular. Where did I reference single parents? I’m not sure single parent families are managing? Are more dc from single parent families in poverty? According to Gingerbread they are….

@bathsmat you didn't, I did. Agree, there are lots of reasons for poverty and one of them can be if you are a single parent household.

@EstoyRobandoSuCasa I think there are quite a lot of two parent households topping up with UC too.

So, there's another reason to be grateful for being alive today, that there are state funded safety nets in place. Again, not perfect by any stretch but there aren't many people dying of starvation or hypothermia these days.

@Pricelessadvice
Did you have an 11 year old during lockdown?

Again, not perfect by any stretch but there aren't many people dying of starvation or hypothermia these days

child poverty has increased though, this isn’t a good thing.

I don't believe that is true. Benefits cover the cost of internet access. Also there are grants for laptops for children. What you describe is bad parenting (which needs to be addressed) not money related.

@bathsmat absolute childhood poverty has declined. Relative poverty has increased slightly since 2014, having declined prior to that time (figures from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, published October 2024). I'd like to see it disappear altogether, but I genuinely don't believe that. Poverty in single parent families has declined overall since 1990s.

The current Government are looking to reduce childhood poverty, so lets hope they might achieve that.

And while itmight not be starvation,malnutrition is a real and rising problem. Hypothermia is maybe not a thing, but persistent lack of warmth combined with poor nutrition leads to poorer health overall and exacerbates long term health conditions.

The real question should be why the relatively easy for the majority to achieve basics are slipping from the grasp of people who are doing all the "right" things. The systems built since the end of WW2 are falling apart due to greed and indifference from those at the top towards those at the bottom.

There have been appalling threads on here with commenters espousing eugenics adjacent mind sets in the name of rationing wealth. Opinions that were supposed to have been made unacceptable by the lessons of history. Dehumanisation and othering is becoming scarily commonplace.

@MistressoftheDarkSide say what? The state supports more people today than it ever has done. Why would you think that the systems put in place after WW2, which I'm guessing you mean the NHS, free education etc are being dismantled. My father who was born just before the start of WW2 said he spent most of his childhood being hungry!!!! Nowadays we have a childhood obesity epidemic. There are more overweight children than ever before.

Do you really think that the aristos in the pre-war era had the best interests of the working man in their hearts?

I call privilege being in such a luxury situation you refuse to consider for 1 minute that it's not about "resilience", it's about people having to go through really hard situations and suffering bad consequences from the lockdown.

"They had Netflix, they were all right" what on earth are you on about?

It has nothing to do, but absolutely nothing to do with perseverance, and all to do with being in a position of luxury and enjoy chilled days and playing video games in a jolly atmosphere while mummy and daddy are baking banana bread and tending to the tomatoes in the garden.

Your vision of the lockdown might be your own memories, good for you, but it's utterly ridiculous to pretend it has anything to do with what people went through.

you are on a wind up, no one can be that naive and I am polite.

Previous generations didn't have a choice. They had to be resilient whatever their background. Privilege was not a reason and lack of it would not be used as an excuse.

The real question should be why the relatively easy for the majority to achieve basics are slipping from the grasp of people who are doing all the "right" things. The systems built since the end of WW2 are falling apart due to greed and indifference from those at the top towards those at the bottom

Yep

Childhood obesity is in large part influenced by poor nutrition. You can be "fat" but still nutritionally deficient.

Do you not see the irony of the state "supporting" more people than ever before because apparently the economy doesn't and those being thus supported being one step away from destitution and miles away from progress, which is the reality for a growing number?

And bear in mind, the post WW2 rebuild including health and welfare and education provosion wasn't altruism? It was to avoid civil unrest / revolution, and provide a fitter and better educated army if we needed it, and people better suited to the industrial landscape and growing white collar industries.

@MistressoftheDarkSide I understand that you can be fat and also nutrient deficient. However, that suggests that the problem is not a lack of food. Personally, I would like to see cookery and home economics as a compulsory subject in schools.

I'm not sure what your point is about the institutions that were put in place after WW2.

You originally said "The systems built since the end of WW2 are falling apart due to greed and indifference from those at the top towards those at the bottom."

I countered that by saying that I don't think that is the case and gave my reasons. You have now said that the post-war institutions were put in place for dubious reasons (not altruism), to prevent unrest and ensure a fit and healthy army and increase the number of white collar workers.

So, what is your argument? Do you think those post-war institutions should exist or not? I'm not sure I'm understanding you.

No, but I was once an 11 year old with a serious childhood illness that nearly killed me and rendered me unable to go to school for a long time. Back then there was no phones, social media, texting, internet…
All my friends were at school, moving on without me. I couldn’t contact them bar a 5 minute chat every so often on the landline. I was in and out of hospital. Lonely and desperately ill.
So yeh, I do think I have a pretty good insight into just how crap things can be for some kids.
The Covid lockdowns would have been a bloody holiday compared to what I went through. Sorry.

If the IMF is called in and benefits stopped for a period of time, many people would have no choice but to be resilient whether that be get any job going or be self sufficient. This would be a throwback to previous generations and a lesson of how people cope when it is a necessity.

It's an increasing issue.
I am glad that I am alive during this age. However I really wish my DC could have experienced the carefree childhood I had growing up in the late 70s/80s. There was much more of a community feel and you didn't have to work all the hours just for the basics.

Two main problems are social media/ads encouraging people to spend on things they don't need and painting a picture of what they feel success and happiness look like.

Second is the lack of good politicians who truly want to make society better but not feather the pockets of their backers.

It takes real resilience to step back and say I do not need this and to ignore the voices of condemnation, in order to live your life the way you want to.

Part of the postwar drive towards the betterment of the working man/ woman (and also before the war) was the idea that peoples lives would be better if they could access adult education easily and cheaply.
When I was a kid in the 1980s my parents both went often to various adult classes. Loads of people did. They were in every community centre, school, local college.
Almost all gone now. The enrichment of society isn’t just about cash.
Also, Margo, years ago when I was briefly a lone parent claiming benefits the money had to cover my rent.
The housing allowance was about 500 a month, my rent was 600 (small house, cheap area)
So no, benefits dont cover bills really, its usual to have to take from the money allotted for bills and food to pay the rent (unless in council owned as the rent is cheaper).

https://www.michaelwayneplant.com/inequality-features-robert-reich/

Robert Reich (US professor, researches inequality) has a diagram to show this, it's from a documentary he made in the 00s. It shows how inequality has grown again since the 80s to reach the same level as the Great Depression. I think it's reached the same level as the Gilded Age now. It dropped due to progressive taxation and government's looking after the many instead of the rich few.

This is misunderstood over and over and over again

Do you know who does the majority of those tiny short journeys (which is less than 3 miles, not 1 mile by the way)

Women

Do you know why?

Because they are burdened with the school drop off, then the nursery drop off, then the part time job on from there, then the nip to the chemist to get prescriptions, then the nip to the shop to top up for tea, then the nursery pick up, then the school pick up, the home, then the dance class, then the play date, then this, then that

Thats why there are a lot of journeys less than 3 miles because you couldnt fit all that in if you walked it or cycled it even. Thats even if it was safe enough to cycle it

There are parents without cars or who only use them for longer routes. They manage because they organise their time meticulously. They choose to live near a station so they can get to work easily. Same for nurseries or primaries, chemists.

It was achieved by previous generations and is certainly doable now. Those who live in true rural countryside use their car because chemists, trains, schools are several miles away. That is understandable.

Realistically how many village or town dwellers cannot walk to some essential services.

They choose to live near a station so they can get to work easily. Same for nurseries or primaries, chemists.

Would be nice to have the choice to do that - sadly not affordable. Your privilege is showing here.

The overcrowding makes everything worse. There are just too many people. In 1900 there were a billion human beings. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It’s now eight billion. All the villages near me are being ruined by endless house building, and the country lanes now have the kind of traffic you’d expect on a motorway. We didn’t evolve to live like this. Even driving to the shops is stressful and exhausting. I can’t even sleep because I’m woken up by idiots in souped up cars whose exhausts screech and backfire.

I went for a walk today and stood looking at some horses in a field. They moved so calmly and quietly and slowly that for a second I glimpsed how life used to be. Then it was back to the noisy, crowded hell of modern Britain.