Does coming from a deprived background really seal your fate?

[Pinkjenny]

Just wondering, really, listening to Nick Clegg on R5 live. I come from Anfield in Liverpool, not deprived really, but certainly not affluent. My mum worked in a shop, and my dad was (and still is) an engineer.

I credit all of my success (relatively speaking, of course) to the way in which I was brought up, and the attitude of my parents, who told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, as long as I put my mind to it.

Does giving children money for their first shoes and first suit really help break that poverty cycle?

Or does it depend on the attitude of their parents and their general upbringing?

Well charm helps and some people have it and some don't and certainly some just abuse/use it but if we're helping children get on then teaching them how to dress, speak and act is important.

Also mobility is up and down. If X goes up then Y goes down. YOu can't have moving up without others going down unless you're planning on a pure communist state where everyone is a clone.

Right, so we need to satrt valuing all people who amke an effort to exert some control over their lives and be productive, not just idolise a few special, professional jobs.

And yes charm does help: enormously. but only so much. I'm thinnking of the very charming man we used to be friends with who got himself a palce on an aeronatutics degree at an RG Uni by talking himself in (gardes were well below stated minimum) then flunked after a year.

Depends what you mean by value. I hope most of us would respect and appreciate people who do all kinds of things for us. I am sure most of us decide what we think about people by their treatment of others, even the person serving them in the restaurant and their nanny, cleaner etc. However that doesn't mean all people should be paid the same for different types of work.

We could try to improve expectations in schools. Someone on MN posted about going to 11+ open day at state and private schools. In the careers room at the state school they saw posters for hair dressers and plumbers. At the private school it was all about better paid jobs. I've done careers fairs at my children's private schools and seen which types of careers parents are more likely to take the children to and it isn't the lower paid one (actually there would be no stalls for the lower paid jobs because no one would expect their child to take that in those schools although they are very academically selective but even in fee paying schools for less bright children the expectations can be higher). Now that costs nothing at all.

The problem for the very deprived though is that unless they find someone in their lives whether a relative, friend, teacher, mentor they will just sink into them ire. At age 3 they will be neglected they will have limited vocabulary. At 5 they will not thrive too much at school and indeed as they age they may be home a lot looking after a parent or siblings. At 11 they are miles behind. They don't have a role model in their life of a parent working hard, getting out of bed or even able to function well on benefits if the parents are in and out of prison or sending them out to buy drugs or selling them around their friends for sex.

No, same pay for all work would be silly: a living incomeimportantt but the market has to cover so many more factors. Heck. i;ve had jobs where danger money has been part of th deal!

But a lot of people don't value people in lower paid jobs- I was on a horrid thread last night where the poster was gloatingb that disabled and low income famillies will be hit by the cuts; not, you undestand, the unwilling or eckless. Punishment for sense of entitlement apaprenlty. As if ds3 has a sense of anything much!

Oh and we need to define deprived.

DDS1 had a vocab of a 16-21 year ols ad 6; clinically emasured. DS4 is clearly going to be there as well despite not being apparently ASD and being poor. he doesn;t have emotional deprivation though and he is shielded from as much financial worry as we can manage- which at 2 is all of it (not so much ds1 who is currently annoyed with a new maths teacher who started by asking the kids how much was in their bank accounts (yes I did mention it!).

but then deprivation is so variable. DS1 and i are going to view a specilaist asd base that has a good sicth form today; that's as much value to him as a carrer fayre with medical wok advertised. And trust me, we've foughtb as ahrd for him to get a place (and won't know until December).

Social mobility does not have to work on the no gain without pain principle.

The very fact we are not all living nasty, brutish and short medieval lives is a very obvious indicator that it is possible to move upwards all at once.

It's a question of seeing poverty as relative rather than absolute and then trying to reconcile that with a market based society. Not easy, but since 1945 we've not done too badly at this.