to think that being poor is not what it used to be?

[oldenglishspangles]

When I was a child being poor meant
no electricity/gas/water - delete as applicable depending on whether money ran out.
We ate left overs.
No colour tv even though everyone else had it. We had a remote control though - us children!
We didnt have kettle a pan does the same job.
cardboard insoles, to cover holes in shoes holes in shoes
alimited number of non branded, hand me down clothes
Walking (not bus or cars)
No holidays
only a few toys - (a very limited budget which as children we understood and tried to get as mmuch as possible with)

re people expecting more?

Is it a bad thing to expect to be able to eat, and wear clothes that aren't falling apart, or to know that you're not going to suddenly run out of gas or electric,

Admittedly a few do take things too far in their sense of "entitelment" - but personally I think on the whole it's a sign of social progression that it's no longer considered acceptable for people to be living in such dire circumstances.

I worked at 13 in a clothes shop, I was buying the clothes and running it on my own by the time I was 16.

I can't believe that not wasting food is a sign that you are poor! It means you are sensible!

Riven... I am not talking about the 80s though ( you forget I am very very old )
I was groing up very poor in the 60s and early 70s where I think the 'blitz spirit' was still in people conciousness.I remember feeling very ashamed when my mum bought me some new school sandals and my frined recognised them as ones she had given to the jumble .

I was lucky to have three bigger sisters though. Once they started working I was able to nick their stuff.

By the time we hit the 80s 'having shit' had become the thing that defined us so your experiences in the 80s were typical if hideous. It is that attitude that I think is even worse now..

My family was not poor. We lived in comfortable, attractive, four-bedroomed house with a large garden in a very pretty Weald commuter village. We went to private school. We had extra-curricular activities and days out to London and to places of interest.

But we definitely didn't have colour TV, we were often cold (indeed, many of our friends in similar circumstances didn't have heating at all, except for open fires), we wore hand-downs (from my cousin who was 12 years older!) and second-hand school uniform. We had very few toys.

Life isn't what it used to be!

OP we did all of those things and were not poor by the standards of the time. Though where I grew up many people were very poor so it is all relative I guess.

My family is now quite well off, and I still can't throw away food, if I have to I feel guilty for days. We can make a leg of lamb last for 3 or 4 days, just by padding it out with cheaper veg.

It is a good thing that being poor in the UK rarely means not eating etc.

erm, well poverty is not what it used to be - these days the government deines living in poverty (for a child) as 'being in a household with 2/3 of average income' a definition which means -

1. there will always be 'poor' kids, even if being in the lower 2/3 meant you only had a 6 bed mansion..rather than a 9 bed one!
2. that actually many of those kids won't feel particularly poor

the measures of economy we took in our household in childhood (not actually poor whilst Dad was in work, but with 4 kids.....) were extremely carefully measured - limited baths, food carefully budgetted to the end of the month etc etc...

I also think it is wrong to suggest parents weren't under pressure to buy stuff for their kids - though it was different stuff -
parka coats, chopper bikes, barbie......(and the ubiquitous Silver Cross pram..)

though in my folks' childhood it was more along the lines of having a bike, owning a TV (at all)

..the UK is getting wealthier (with starts and stops) and the poor are getting wealthier too, is a good thing.

I'm sure that the memory of WW2 and its aftermath, when food and consumer goods were just not available (even if you had the money to pay for them) coloured people's behaviour to waste for a very long time, right through society.

These days the ubiquitous availability of those things in the shops (even when people don't have the money to pay for them) colours people's behaviour in the opposite direction.

I dont think it is wrong to expect more. Entitlement to 'a wide screen tv' or a DSi, Nike trainers does stick in my narrowminded throat though'. We have 'voluntary' (The principle is that if you can afford it you pay, if you cant you dont' contributions for school trips, some parents can afford it, some wont pay because of a sense of entitlement. We were poor but the expectation was that we could do better but that we would have to work hard for it, you did'nt get anything for nothing. for your dd riven, I am on my children like a ton of bricks if ever I hear them tease someone looks / appearance etc. Sadly some parents are just a bad and their children are mini versions.

Well, when my gran was poor, there were workhouses and starvation, high infant and maternal mortality, men could rape their wives all they pleased and beat them, too.

When DH's gran was poor (and Irish into the bargain!), she went on holiday, though! She followed the family she slaved for to their summer home in Scotland. Bet she licked their boots in gratitude.

So, OP, you don't know you were born.

[rolls eyes]

My dad was born poor, and, having been born in 1934, distinctly remembers WWII and rationing.

He thinks people who spout off about how good the poor have it compared to back in the day are talking out their arse.

He can't imagine anyone finding improvements in standard of living for all a bad thing.

He finds comparisons like this mean-spirited, soul-destroying and vile.

IMO, he's right.

Should read: I dont think it is wrong to expect more. Entitlement to 'a wide screen tv' or a 'DSi', 'Nike trainers' does stick in my narrowminded throat though' ,. I wanted a chopper, sindy pippa, a silver cross pram. We didnt have the money we didnt get it. We were poor but the expectation was that we could do better but that we would have to work hard for it, you did'nt get anything for nothing.
We have 'voluntary' (The principle is that if you can afford it you pay, if you cant you dont) policy for contributions for school trips. Some parents can afford it and pay , some can afford it and wont pay because of a sense of entitlement. for your dd riven, I am on my children like a ton of bricks if ever I hear them tease someone looks / appearance etc. Sadly some parents are just a bad and their children are mini versions.

We can't really 'afford' school trips as such. mainly because you hardly get any notice from them. But I still pay the fee even though it voluntary, because I know I can afford it a lot easier than some could. I don't like taking what other people could benefit from, if they need it more.

There are very few people who have the sense of 'entitlement' you are talking about op.

Expat, my Gran went AWOL from a work house in Yugoslavia after the family she worked as a Nanny for went into hiding from the Nazis . She brought us all up to believe that you work hard for what you have and if you want more you should work harder to get it.

RIVEN Asda has mens trousers for £6. I just bought a couple of pairs for ds school trousers. Am certainly not paying £22 for them from the school suppliers.

Here are the stats:

burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-poor-got-richer.html

'She brought us all up to believe that you work hard for what you have and if you want more you should work harder to get it.'

We were brought up the same way.

But we were brought up in full knowledge that many, many work very very very hard, but are still in poverty.

For example, many in my grandmother's village worked to no end, they still didn't have enough to eat sometimes. She had to leave after her first husband and child died from Spanish Flu, along with most of the village, because there was no food. She walked to America, it took 4 months and she starved for much of it, in between dodging all sorts of very bad things as a revolution was happening in Mexico at the time.

She had the intelligence and foresight to know that 'working hard' doesn't always equal monetary reward or even relief from hunger.

And that it was, in her opinion, a sin against God to be critical of the poor people because indeed, many toiled and toiled.

One of her daughters is married to a man from India. There, billions of people work all the hours God sends and barely feed themselves.

Are they to blame for not bettering themselves?

" you were poor in the 70's and 80's you would go without food, maybe only be able to heat one room which is where the children would live and sleep, not have any luxuries at all certainly no kids bikes (not even second hand ones) no trips to the cinema ever, no after school activities that involved subs or paying for a uniform. Nowadays it is possible to be poor and to still have a few luxuries or to go Brownies or to ensure every member of the family eats everyday."

that still happens today.

Expat - your dad is spot on - and I can see where you how you've come to walk the walk with a dad like that

My DS's go on all their school trips, DS1 is even going on the YR4 residential next month. But it's taking a hell of a lot of scrimping and saving, and not looking after myself properly to enable it.

Sadly Shiney there are a few a my school. I dont have a problem with making the contributions to the trips. We are just unfortunate to have a contingent at our school who dont get that the more we help the school the better for all our children) I am sure it the same for a lot of parents at other schools on that front. My original post is not just levelled at those on benefits / lower incomes there is generally a sense of entitlement across the board. I have met a few graduates with a sense of entitlement to £40k a year starting salary because they had a degree and had gone to a good university . Those that didnt get it considered themselves poor and struggle to manage.

I'll never forget a framed cross-stitch sampler hanging in her kitchen:

Thank God for dirty dishes
They have a tale to tell.
While others are going hungry,
We all are eating well.

I don't understand people who pillory the poor and attach blame to their station in life as a personal failing.

You wouldn't dream of thinking that to a child who works in rubbish heaps in India digging out scrap. You wouldn't tell him or her that is his fate because he/she doesn't better himeslf, pull him up by the bootlaces, etc.

But it seems okay to do so to your own country's children.

How bizarre.

How spiritually poor, too.

No, they are not. My Gran now claims state benefit because she is agoraphobic and 90 years old. She can't work. She is thankful that she lives in a country where she won't be left to starve.

She also knows, more than most, that hard work does not automatically, make you rich, or even ease your suffering much. But at least you are trying to do something about it and not just whining. There were no benefits in her country. If you wanted to eat, you had to work. There was no other option. You would do manual labour in exchange for food if necessary.

In this country though, generally, when you work hard, you are rewarded for it. Fair enough, there are exceptions to this, but they are few and far between, imo.

Definitely agree Expat.

The flipside to people blaming poverty on the poor is that some people view their own good fortune as a sign of their personal worth.

Too often people seem to give themselves plaudits for what is just good fortune, or the absence of misfortune.

I love that Sampler Expat (even though my excuse for dirty dishes is that I'm a lazy arse)