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.

To extend the argument:

Ok, it's absolutely true that on bad estates (schemes as we call them in Scotland) there will usually be a couple of crap shops selling junk food, fags and booze, and no shops selling anything fresh.

I live in a posh suburb where you can buy anything you like fresh, though it's not cheap.

But that isn't because I've been rewarded for my poshness by being given a free branch of Waitrose. It's simple capitalism: supply and demand.

If there was demand for fresh/ healthy food in any commercially viable amount in these areas then some enterprising soul would exploit that.

PT- Or rather, the children eat horrible food because their mother deals with her precarious financial situation in the way she knows best, by spending no more than £1 per item. For that per item price, unless you were an above-average cook, which few people are in this country, you would find it very hard to buy fresh ingredients. She was very young when she had the children, her mother was very young when she had her, and through two generations of grinding poverty and poor education. In short, her mum had little to teach her, and she is having to learn most of it from scratch. The family's social capital is being depleted generation by generation.

Fwiw, I agree with MorrisZapp about the market forces in fruit and veg thing as well.

Ah but Riven, it was noted earlier in the thread that this woman was from Hartcliffe (Bristol)

sad thing is, if she spent more per item she'd gat a hell of a lot more food. a chicken can do for 2/3 meals, a value pack of mince can do 2 meals easily, a small pack of diced beef can make enough caserole to do at least 2 nights. and all those are things pretty much all kids will eat, especially hungry kids.

PT - 4ltrs of milk last me a day with 3 DC's and myself (and I don't eat breakfast cereal so don't use much).

and Riven is right - why risk buying something new that may end up getting thrown away? It's not like she can just pop down the shop and buy something else if they don't like it.

The woman bought bread, she bough orange juice (could easily have bought squash which would have lasted 4x as long), she bought apples, she bought bananas, once a month she buys ingredients to make fresh meals.

I also think this quote from a work at the local community centre raises most of the issues.

"The biggest problem is breaking the cycle of lack of educational attainment that leads to poverty. If they could read and write then we could get them into work. As it is, there are real problems with their understanding of things and their retention. It's not something we can help with overnight."

In the 60s, some of the children who went to the local schools in Hartcliffe became bankers and accountants, she says. That doesn't happen now. "Good teachers don't want to teach here. But that's not the only issue. Because we've had generations of poverty here, it means your parents won't have the skills to help you fill in a basic job application," she says.But that's not the only issue. Because we've had generations of poverty here, it means your parents won't have the skills to help you fill in a basic job application," she says.

"Your health will suffer because you won't be eating sufficiently nutritious food. People on a low income don't buy the right food. If you've got a pound, you can buy three packets of biscuits or two bananas. Which are you going to buy if you're not eating very much?"

Louise is already worried that her daughter, Abigail, will soon find herself in the same cycle of deprivation that Blair promised to eliminate. "There is a stigma attached to this area. The teachers think that the children from here are all thick and they don't bother with them. I'm worried that my daughter won't do as well as she could. She's a clever little girl but all that's offered is a basic level of learning," she says."

Is very interesting,

This thread has been very interesting to read. I feel I am not really entitled to voice an opinion because I am not from the UK. I lived and worked in England for 10years and my DH is English, I love the people and the country and it doesn't seem right for me to talk about a country where I was just a "guest" IYSWIM.

However, maybe I can give my point of view as an outsider.

Someone quoted the following earlier: "...same cycle of deprivation that Blair promised to eliminate..."

I think one of the big issues with the UK is that people expect the government to solve the problem. Nobody can eliminate your cycle of deprivation but yourself.
The government already gives you free education, free health service, tax credits, etc. Believe me, that is much more than what families get from where I come from where if you don't work you don't eat. Where I come from education is the most important thing because it is the only way to move forward.
Young girls (at least the majority) study and work before getting married and starting a family, because the government will not be giving them financial support. Has the fantastic social security system that the UK been abused by some of it's people? To the point that inhibiting people's own inner drive to grow and look after themselves.

I've heard the waste argument before and I'm not buying it.

Most parents who could technically afford to offer their children three dinners to choose from abhor waste just as much as anybody else, and possibly more so if they are ecologically aware.

I have to laugh at the idea of better off families offering a healthy meal, chucking it out and resorting to pizza night after night becuase financially they can afford to do it. Who cooks more then one meal for their kids? It's not the money, it's the time, the principle etc etc.

If there isn't anything else, they'll eat it. That's how I was brought up anyway.

Morris - yes works on paper- not in practice.

3yrs ago I frequently had £15 to buy nappies and food for a family of 4.

I had to resort to absolutely anything, DS1 would not eat some of the meals I cooked - he didn't like them. I was absolutely worried sick that he wasn't eating what was on offer and I had no money to go and buy mince or some chicken to give him instead (he's still a real "meat and 2 veg" type boy at 8yrs old ).

We had the same issues when trying to get him off jars of baby food when he was younger - I held out a week with him only having very weak squash before I gave in and went back to cooking him what he liked, he grew out of it and eats a much more varied diet now.

Some of the meals I didn't like but the DS's and DH did - so I would still cook it but skip that meal myself- not very healthy for me really.

If a family with more money cooks something which their children genuinely don't like then chances are they have something else in the fridge or freezer/cupboard - even if it's just a slice of toast - they can offer without it screwing up the rest of the weeks budget.

I cook more than one meal for my kids. Dd1 is having cheese and broccolli pasta and dd2 is having spicy tomato pasta with me and DH.

If I didn't have as much money left over this week, say because I spent half my wages on a puppy dd1 would be having Tesco mini Pizza's that cost 45p each.

If I was living on benefits again dd1 would eat a lot of mini pizzas because she won't eat stews or casseroles or home made soups. And I can't afford for her not to eat, she is too thin.

and as for her "resorting" to pizza each night - well I can see 3 "ready" meals on their - hot dogs, pizza and the pies, I presume she used the potatoes for something else (perhaps jacket potato?).

If she was really that unconcious of the healthy eating factor she wouldn't be using her CB once a month to buy ingredients to make lasagne etc, and she certainly wouldn't be buying cartson of orange juice, apples and bananas!

But pink tulips - you need to have more to spend in some cases before you can spend more than a £1 on each item, plus be able to cook and know that the gas will last that long and the meter not run out before the meal is cooked. It is problems we dont think about because we are not having to face those types of problems on a daily basis.

I would do things the way pink tupil says but that would be my choose, my money to send how I want to on food.

I would buy flour and make the bread as for the price of one loaf I could make three loaves, agian that would be my choice though. I would not want someone telling me You Have To make Bread as it is better for your children than plastic wrap bread.

I would make stew with or without meat, my dc would have to eat it and lump it or like it but agian that would be my choice and if someone was interfering and judging my choices then I would be right piss*d off.

Infact if someone stood at the bottom of every isle in the supermarket and told me to take certain food out as I shouldn't buy it I would tell them where to go.

What goes in my trolley and what gets cooked in my kitchen is still my choice

well, yes, good she's buying fruit, juice etc but only cooking 1x a month is ridiculous! Rather than oven chips she could buy pots by the kilo and get lots of meals - baked potato & beans, chips, cottage pie etc. She's got the time to cook and shop properly and should do so imho.

I get that in reality kids can be picky etc but I understood the waste issue to be that you can only afford to give the kids what they like, because in richer families you can chuck out the healthy food they've rejected and then cook another meal, which is not what any parent really does.

It's not the same as catering to each childs needs. Most parents do that anyway.

It's the idea that somehow poor kids can't be expected to swallow healthy fresh foods but better off kids have a choice of two dinners? Sorry, not sure if I'm making sense.

I grew up in a handwoven lentil type household and if I didn't eat my food there were lectures about the third world, emotional scenes etc. Sometimes my parents cracked and made us chips just for some peace, but mostly we followed their rules.

I just get the impression that some people think that in better off homes kids can waste food and there's no concern or comeback. There was plenty of comeback in my family and I know my friends parents were the same.

Rantothehills, are you gonna drive her and her by the kilo shopping home? Or pay her taxi fare home?

You buy what you can carry home. I once carried home a huge sack of potatos. I ahve never forgiven DH for telling me to do 'a proper shop' on my own . My shoulders ached for days.

We internet shop as niether of us drive and it's easier than lugging home heavy bags and cheaper than paying for taxi fare. But we have a debit card so are able to do that. Lousie probably won't. I didn't when I was on benefits. The bank wouldn't give me one.

ranto - how exactly is she going to get a large sack of potatoes home?

and presumably she uses the potatoes she bought for something??

We don't have a list of her meals - so in realit we have no idea what she cooks.

Ivy - you make a good point about the gas/electric running out - many proper cooked meals take longer to cook - which uses more gas/electric. She's on a meter so long usage of the oven is going to eat up the money she's put on it.

And will she have enough gas/electric to have the cooker on long enough to cook the bread? A half cooked loaf of bread isn't much good to anyone.

ivykaty I suspect that's how most parents would feel about our very well intentioned attempts to educate them on how to feed their kids better.

Surely it's just human nature to feel naturally defensive when somebody says 'Hi, I know better then you. But I can show you how to be as good as me' which is what this would most likely sound like to somebody else.

See I would probably try to work it so I cooked two meals at once each time and work out how much gas I was using each time I cooked for say 2 hours - by checking the meter at the start and checking again at the end - but have you ever started to make a meal and the electric has gone off (my gas cooker will not work without electric)

Do you know how bad it is to sit and look at a meal that would have been lovely and is not cooked so you cant eat or risk getting food poisning?

I dont even have to think about using petrol to get my shopping in the car, how long I can stand in the shower or the show going cold, or if I have enough gas/elc to cook a meal/bread/ cakes - I take it all for granted.

But I think they could educate us - I think there would be a few shocks if we had to tread there streets and live in ther shoes for a week or two and it would open eyes to how things are not so easy to solve as poepl think.

Whats shocked me most is that I know people who are working full time who have similar to live on as this woman once they have paid their rent and working associated costs such as running a car that is essential to their job, protective clothing, licences etc. I havent been entirely convinced that working is the answer these days - not since my friend who is a student nurse and her husband, a farm worker, split and she went on benefits with two children and had disposable income for the first time since having children. Remember that in addition to the actual income support etc there are free prescriptions, council tax relief, free school meals etc, and she got so much free milk that she had to give it to the dog. It all adds up, and if you are working, even on a low wage, you dont get it.

We could probably technically "afford to waste food", but just like my lentil-weaving wartime parents before me, my children are expected to eat what is put in front of them. If they don't eat it, tough, there isn't anything else. They won't starve missing one meal.

I assume that this woman's little girl receives free school meals (and they're probably OK since she's in primary school- they have stopped doing turkey twizzlers in most schools haven't they?) but obviously the little boy's diet is more of a concern.

seems to be a lot of people who could spend 20 quid better on shopping and magic up more freshly cooked meals and ingredients. well done those people have a gold star. also a lot of fuss over lady choosing frying chips over a bag of potatoes if you read the shopping list again she did buy potatoes but from iceland not morrisons as morrisons had run out. imn sure there a few here that would begrudge her a chocolate bar on occasion if she bought one to make her feel better for 30 seconds... only a few people seem to have actually read the article i think. this poverty is no surprise to me living in portsmouth im glad the thread is on here and hopefully will serve as a genuine shock to those with little idea of some of the conditions people have to deal with and live in.

I wonder if some of the posters on here would enjoy this book

Times have changed very little, it seems to me.

The poor are still struggling. And rich women still love to tell them how they are doing it all wrong.

I think it's very interesting what tinysocks said about basically having everything provided for you, that you take it for granted. I mean we are lucky we have the system where (theoretically) you should never have to go hungry if the worst happens. The problem lies in that because it is easier for girls to come out of school, get pregnant and then be provided for without having to worry that because they have no qualifications they are screwed. If it wasn't so easy to get everything provided for you, people would work harder at school, knowing it's their way out of poverty. Instead there is no real incentive. I also think that the teenagers only look forward a year or 2, and to them they think it looks great. A little flat, a lovely baby, they don't look forward 15 yrs and realise that one day they are going to want more than this.

Wow, that book looks fascinating.

I read one called 'Call the Midwife' about a student midwife working in London Docklands in the 1930's, it was a horrifying yet compelling, moving read.

The poverty endured within our grandparents lifetimes is truly jaw dropping.