To wonder what else can be done to break the cycle of generations living off benefits?

[Allonthesametrain]

Sounds harsh because It is. As a former teacher, then eduation social worker, now the past few years more heavily involved with school attendance.

My desire has always been to help children from unprivileged backgrounds to know their worth and achieve the best they can and this has been my career from age 23 to 57.

The number of times I've cried, torn my hair out, is immeasurable. I and colleagues have gone above and beyond to support the families, genuinely care about them, but unfortunately the outcome has been, as I've said in title, it's a continiation of the cycle of being brought up within a small community and low expectations.

So many gorgeous kids (supported throughout their young lives until they leave school) who tell you their dreams of what they want to to achieve in life, we do everything we can to enable it and some have indeed broken out of the circle but unfortunately the reality has been...

Parents who live lifestyles of no bedtime routine, tell their kids not to come back before ...pm, sleep in and don't get them out of bed ready and fed for school and as for weekends, pub and take back a new bloke

Parents who have issues themselves and project them onto DC. The kids soon realise they can stay off school for feigning illness and would actually be a comfort to Mum

The parents who just cba and say shall we just still in bed?

Of course there are so many other mitigating factors but these are the 3 main experiences we've dealt with. Unfortunately it really does come down to poor parenting and no matter what interventions we do to encourage attendance, only a minority are genuine.

So the cycle...DC think education isn't important, parents are hopeless role models and can often be aggressive to teachers, a deflection of blame.

Then oh DD gets pregnant at age 15, DS has been reprimanded by the police for scooting around in a balaclava. Then pure hostility when we try to continue to talk to them and what could be done to help.

Basically it's just such a shame, these sweet young kids who say they want to be ... become so influenced by their homelife, a need to fit in with their family and peers from the same estate, that they ignore the support we give them, don't turn up to appointments etc.

For the genuine cases, DC with SEN, the effort to try and ensure they are in best place is utmost and it's heartbreaking there aren't enough of them. Yes, we do know genuine cases and not just so many parents striving for a diagnosis because they feed DC a terrible diet and let them stay up late so are tired and irritable at school.

Expecting some backlash, whatever anyone says I can reason with.

Did you read my mind? That will be what I call my kids.

Sob stories? You have a habit of popping up on threads to slate people on benefits.

And dogs. Don't forget the dogs.

What relevance do your friends have here?

Yes and people know that before they choose to have children. Yet they have them anyway. "Feckless breeding" is the term I use.

So you expect a lifetime of lost earnings to be between 20-50k? Low expectation there.

If larger numbers of people were at it, given the checks and balances involved, you could logically expect the number of those caught out to be higher.

How on earth would you know ahead of time that something horrific is going to happen. I won't have kids because in 4 years time I'm going to get hit by a lorry and become paralysed

You're not even any good at this! Subtlety is what you need to aim for.

You know when you mentioned sob stories. You were on a recent thread slating people on benefits

One girl on there said that her brother was forced back to work after a breakdown and he killed himself in the workplace. Is that the kind of sob story you are on about?

You don't know, that's the point. So why choose to have 3 kids when you know something horrendous could happen to you?

I think we need to earn the benefit system and move to universal income this will remove the stigma being on benefits and if you want a A better life you go to work. This would remove the burden on the civil service for assessment and the endless assessments of people. It would make our country very efficient

JFC, I remember that one too.

Why bother fucking existing at all? Anything bad could happen to any of us at any time.

Worrying about every eventuality, and restricting your life as such, is a mental health problem.

Why even get out of bed? Ever? And to think I'm in therapy for CPTSD, OCD and anxiety because apparently nihilistic and intrusive thoughts aren't healthy....

No they don't. There are people who lose their partners to suicide. There was a girl in the press last week. She was a dentist. Her husband was too. He went off one day and ended his life. She was so grief stricken she couldn't work and ended up on UC until his estate was sorted. She's still not back at work. Is she a feckless breeder?

My mum had to take time off work after her brother ended his life. She didn't end up on benefits but in other circumstances she might have had to

I certainly did, but I am acutely aware that I entered the full time workforce in 1993. Plenty of jobs about and on a low wage (not NMW, that didn't exist at all) I could afford a decent flat on my own. At the age of 18
Where was that and how much did you earn? Because I was a care assistant in 1996 at 26 years old. I had a degree. I earned £12k gross a year and was a normal income for this sort of job. There is no way I could have afforded a flat on my own. A one bedroom flat would have been £500 a month. After tax and contribution towards my pension, there certainly wasn't enough left. Even when I became an assistant manager, my gross income only rose to £14k.

I know someone who is still off work over a year later after her 15 year old took his life. She got home and could see him hanging in his bedroom window.
It had totally fucked her up. Wrecked her marriage. She will never ever be the same again. No mum should ever have to deal with that. And this was after her begging CAMHS for help for her DS too.
She is on benefits, and she deserves every penny.

ETA it has been 2 years

When you have children, and real responsibilities, planning ahead is the only sensible thing to do.

My bf ended his life and its such a different type of grief to anything else I've experienced with other types of deaths. I hope your mum is doing better now and got some mh support

Worrying about every eventuality, and restricting your life as such, is a mental health problem
That's the attitude of the irresponsible in our society. The same who when shit does hit the fence, put it down to bad luck and accept no responsibility for any of it. They then consider they are owed to be taken out of the shit.

Of course you should always consider worse case scenarios and make life decisions based on them. That doesn't mean you don't restrict your life to the point of not living it, it means you make sensible choices.

You can't plan for every eventuality life doesn't work like that. For e.g. covid. I think i spent more time thinking an asteroid would hit the earth then a global pandemic

You have twisted what I said, and missed the context of the post I was replying to.

But throwing caution to the wind and living every day like your last is stupid as well isn’t it? Thats why we have insurance, get educated, make sensible financial decisions and save. Or we should do.