To think its really selfish to dress your kids in rags when you yourself have a new outfit on every day!!

[memoo]

Yes I am judging but can't help it.

I know a mum though the school that I work in. One of her DC is in my class. Every day he arrives wearing clothes that are literally falling apart.

He wears the same trousers every day that have a big hole in the knee and his jumper has frayed that much on one sleve that it is almost half way up his arm.

She never sends any lunch money in or a pack lunch. School of course won't let them go hungry so give them a dinner anyway, at the last count she owes school £70.

Now I know some people genuinely struggle finacially, I have been there myself. But this women honesty has new clothes on every week and she drives a new people carrier.

I know her clothes could be from primark or even oxfam but why can't she make the same effort for her DC!!!

Last week we were getting changed for PE and her DS was upset and embarressed because his underpans had a gapping hole at the front.

EH? This makes no sense to me. Why doesn't the teacher stop the mother and say "Where is his lunchbox?" and send him home if he doesn't have one? Likewise a proper uniform.

Makes no sense to me - why put up with it?

i dont think there are any good excuses for it when school uniforms are so cheap and wash well.
personally i take pride in making my children look nice and however they decide to get mucky is up to them but no child deserves to look scruffy and absolutely not if their selfish mother doesnt.
i look like a tramp but my kids dont. they eat well i dont. its simply what parents do.

V good point, mp. I would have thought that a "hey missus we need some dinner money please and btw your boy's pants were holey the other day and I think he was a bit embarrassed..." from teacher would be a far better approach than calling on social services.

I'm not saying don't call ss if you think the child actually is neglected. I'm just very aware that my 9yo is habitually scruffy and grubby, and she regularly forgets her dinner money and the school phones me at work about it. All the other children in her class can apparently remember to bring in their lunch tickets, but she forgets. Everything. Constantly. So I'm not sure that just those two issues are a problem if the child seems happy and loved in other ways.

(My 7yo is neater, and has a better memory, and my 5yo looks quite well groomed. It's just my oldest who revels in grime and holes.)

I have a boilwash ds too .

Anyone struggling with frayed cuffs on sweaters might like to know this 'trick' turn the cuff under and tack it - the cuffs will be half the size but they look much smarter.

My children go to school looking scruffy, and so do a lot of their friends.

Sometimes they take lunches and sometimes have school dinners. I pay in big chunks of money and when I think it is probably almost gone, I pay some more. But once I didn't realise it had run out and the school sent me a preprinted note saying I owed money. The fact that it was preprinted suggests they send them out to parents quite a lot.

It turned out I owed £50!

Like the parent in question, we also have a fairly new car and dress smartly because we are going to work (unlike our children). When I am not at work I dress as scruffily as the children.

But so what? How does having your children in frayed clothes and owing the school money amount to neglect? It doesn't make any difference to the children's happiness. It certainly isn't abuse or neglect.

YABU

my dc often have clothes that look and are completely new in all respects, other than the gaping hole in the knee regiojn, where he fell down and got hurt in the playground. the knee bled but healed. the trouser leg didnt. or the jumper, where they eat away at the sleeve, but the rest of thej umper is still newish.

i really cannot replace clothes every week. and i am not as hard up as many people.

school lunch money? i forget

one of my boys looks like he has been dragged out of a skip.
His trousers are waving above the ankle, he wears holey socks, he's always covered in paint, and glue and unfortunately he always has a runny nose.
I don't know how this happens.
He seems to squirrel clothes away so I can't chuck them, ignores the nice new trousers I bought a fortnight ago and only seems to have a clean nose one week a year.
It doesn't mean I don't adore him...
doesn't mean I don't spend time trying to tidy him up (or screaming at him to do it)
he still looks like this...
please don't judge just on his appearance.

I hope the mum of the little boy who was 'embarressed' about the 'gapping ' hole in in his 'underpans' isn't so judgmental about the classroom staff who will be teaching her boy to spell !

Dd's teacher had a word along those lines with me as dd had dirty toe nails once . She had been in the garden in bare feet the day before and hadn't let me scrub them in the bath, and I had forgotten it was PE the next day. She also is so smelly after a day at school due to 4 y/o's independent toileting you would think she had never bathed in her life. However we have no holey clothes (unless she rips them on things, which is actually very common!!).