AIBU to be sad and shocked by this article?

[LittleDorrit]

Have just been reading this:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/18/child-poverty-labour-eradicate-promise

and I am shocked by the conditions this family is living in, but in particular how little/what sort of food they are able to afford.

It's not so much an AIBU issue, but just wondered whether others in similarly difficult circumstances think this is typical, or whether the mother could try to buy other types of food (e.g. rice, lentils, etc.) or perhaps be able to afford to spend a bigger proportion of her budget on food... £20 is very little.

"these people"

ugh Sorrento

Why do you have to make the woman sound like a criminal.

She's just a mum trying to do the best for her children.

I hope the Guardian paid her for the article. I would expect she would save any money received as a windfall towards Christmas.

OFS when I was on benefits I had a posh looking tv MY GRANDAD GAVE IT TO ME FOR FREE!!! I didn't have a fridge or freezer, I could barely afford to feed myself but I had a tv. And what would have been the point in selling it? For what, to have a but more money that would soon go and I'd be back to square one, but with nothing to while I was sat home alone on an evening.

Get over the fucking TV. She could have gotten that anywhere.

There will be help available to her. But the point is no one tells you about this, you have to ASK. And you have to ask the RIGHT people. Of not many people in her area are using these services, how is she expected to know to ask about them?

I also bought v little fresh food when on benefits because it IS cheaper to go out and buy a bumper pack of cheap fish fingers and bag of value oven chips.

It's all she knows. She doesn't want or need money throwing at her . What she needs is education and incentives to get into education. And people who tell her where she can get this education and support her while she is studying.

That is how you will get children out of poverty, imo.

And fathers need to be made to be held accountable. Dd1's father bought a new car and looked at buying fancy houses while I couldn't afford to eat proper meals each day and she had clothes given to us by the local shop lifters. I told the CSA about him, five years on, we still haven't recieved a penny.

You know what I can afford to give my kids sweets and don't because I know they aren't good for them, so given that the poor wee souls aren't likely to be getting anywhere near the nutrients that my children are getting then I would suggest that any spare cash at all could be better spent.
In a recession sales of take away food and sweets and junk go through the roof and there's a reason for that, if life seems a bit more grim people will cheer themselves up with a small bar of chocolate or something.
The problem is if that is your life forever then your health will suffer as a result.

Balloonslayer........she would have to declare her fee and it would be deducted from her income support. Not saying it's right or wrong....... Just that's the way benefit system is!

Agree education - and a supportive home environment.

I think SureStart have done some good work here, even getting people in to show them how to boil rice. Some of the people on the cooking course I went on their didn't know rice came hard. Only ever seen it cooked from the take away.
A government good idea shocker!!

Well then fine if buying her a bus pass to get to college, giving her a nursery place for those children to get three meals a day and a student union card to get 10% off the local aquarium is throwing money at her, then throw as much as you like

Oh . . . yeah . . .

Ilovetiffany, it's true Kerry Katona's much got charged because she didn't declare it if i remember correctly.

Think jamie Oliver tried that in rotherham treedelivery!

Kerry Katona's Mum, not much lol

Fair enough. But it's not as simple as she's wonderful/ she's appalling.

I lose patience with Guardian articles like this (I read the Guardian every day) which present stories like these as if the people involved had no choice or free will in their own lives.

They ran an article not that long ago about a woman who had four kids aged from toddler to teenager. The teenager couldn't study becuase there was no room in the house, no new house could be found etc etc.

I felt sympathy for her and wouldn't want to be in that situation. But there was an element of choice in that she chose to have 4 kids.

I'm 37 and have only recently felt financially secure enough to ttc. I've owned my own house and earned a good wage for ages, but I'm fully aware of the drain that kids actually are.

What does living in Bristol or being familiar with Hartcliffe have to do with anything?

There are lots of single women living in Council estates all over the UK in exactly the same position.

I think you've deliberately missed my point about the sweets. What about the woman buying her daughter a nice pair of comfortable trendy trainers to wear and maybe make her feel like she fits in with her friends? That was your other example. You'd really begrudge them that if she came into an extra bit of money?

The thing is, these options are open to you. They're not, to her, and likely never will be. I still think your comments on this thread are horrible, especially given you say you've been in her situation.

I was never allowed trendy clothes, and wore jumble sale clothes apart from the M&S stuff my granny bought us.

I wouldn't want to do that to any kids of my own, but trendy clothes aren't a basic human need.

I can't speculate what she would spend her money on if she had more so it's pointless. But there are certainly very many people out there who live on benefits and prioritise things like designer clothes over food etc.

I've worked with them.

Why are the comments horrible mindalina? It's our experience of being in the benefit system

Well as I said I have been in her shoes and been to college with girls just like her, given the same opportunities as me, they are still there and I see on facebook etc that their lives are exactly the same as they were nearly 10 years ago despite all the help they were offered.

I would go into Solihull with them and we'd buy our children clothes, I'd be in Adams, Bhs, Clarkes etc, they'd be spending twice as much in JJB sports on shoes that didn't fit their children, but hey they looked trendy so that's the main thing eh ?

this thread is totally depressing

What really offends me is the attitude that because she is piss-poor and comes from a deprived background and a council estate, her choices and her lifestyle are public property and it's everybody's business to scrutinize her shopping list and her kids' clothes for 'luxuries'. She hasn't committed a crime, why then has she forfeited her right to make whatever limited choices she can? Is it so dastardly that somebody in her position might want to treat her child to a pair of decent shoes or cheer herself up with a bar of chocolate? Does she deserve to live under prison conditions (worse, in fact) because she's poor?

You pay your taxes and the elected government allocates the money. Fortunately we have a welfare state because we're a civilised society with a commitment to our most vulnerable people (although reading this thread makes me despair ) You don't have a personal stake in her life because your taxes contribute to the welfare state. She's legally awarded a pitifully small amount of money according to an agreed system - it's her money, not yours.

I think it's more the fact that a detailed breakdown of her income and spending was put in a national newspaper then linked here that gives us the right to comment on it, not the fact that she's poor.

The article is public property, and we are free to comment as we see fit.

MorrisZapp "I lose patience with Guardian articles like this (I read the Guardian every day) which present stories like these as if the people involved had no choice or free will in their own lives."

I actually seriously wonder sometimes with the Guardian/extreme lefties. If there isn't some ulterior motive going on.

You* tell people they are victims and that they can't get anywhere cause the world is stacked against them, you throw them money that they then spend inappropriately (because hey, what's the point in trying?), you encourage (by way of financial benefits) having more babies that they can realistically provide for and above all they STAY. WHERE. THEY. ARE. Leaving the "real" people to get on with things.

No idea what the answers are because I don't think kids should be left in grinding poverty, but sometimes it seems to me that welfare/benefits are a sort of poisoned chalice.

*General you's obviously.

And you know what is bloody depressing when I moved out of my flat I was selling off my worldly goods, one of which was a buggy that I didn't need for DD.
One of my neighbours asked if she could buy it, being a nosey bugger I said oh is that for you ? No she said it's for our XX when she has a baby, oh right I said looking horrified as the daughter was 16 is she pregnant ? Not yet said the woman but it won't be long. The girl hadn't been with her boyfriend for more than a few weeks and that was her own mothers expectations that she'd need a buggy soon.

'Louise' chose to make her life public property by talking to the journalist. Pity she didn't name and shame her children's dad.

Totally agree that whatever money she has is entirely hers. I rarely spend our money in a way many sensible people would aprove of. Many of us, as soon as we do have a few pounds to spare, do not think of saving or iproving this or that. Many of us decide treats are the way forward - that is the human condition. To try and enjoy ourselves.