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?

I guess I'm just bitching because it will be us who pay for it. We are the proverbial family where I earn £43k with SAHD who will lost 10% of income. If my daughter needs reading recovery - and she may just squeak through without bc we work hard with her at home (now, belatedly ) she won't get it.

CB is gone forever, it's not going to come back. So money is taken from my pocket to pay for the pupil premium. I will have to earn an extra £5k through extra work just to be where I am today. Maybe we're so wealthy we don't need the help.

I like the points sfx about ideology, role of the state. I think I'm feeling the point about how if benefits are universal everyone is more committed. E.g. I'm happy to pay into the NHS even if (as obviously we all hope) we need it less than many. Because if I did need it, it would be there. With these benefits allocated on income rather than child need, they are not available to us should we need them (eg. reading recovery)

Also a very prosaic example. I think you're all right that it has become impossible to question parenting styles etc. I met a lovely girl (20'ish) once at the Dr. surgery, really bright and bubbly. She was there with her fifth and told me all about the wrap around care she was getting for her child when it reached two and that I should try to get mine in. Obviously income ltd so not available to us. It may be better for the child to be in a public-funded [more] nurturing environment. But it relieved her of childcare responsibilities ... It is a question of ideology. Labour and the Lib Dems say the state will provide because we care about the child - and to a large extent I agree - the Tories just advocate a small state.

So who do I vote for in the middle? Green I thing - the ultimate MC opt out

Ah unprune in that case I apologise (in fairness has been a day of ruffled feathers- see benefit cheats thread running concurrently!)

There is a sector of the press desperate to portray all poor people as never worked council house in chelsea having alcoholics on their 15th boob job.

These articles are great: tehya dvise us that we accidentally selected a rag to read and must read just our paper buying habits.

but sadly a lot of people do beleive it. The phrase I come across on here and in RL is 'I don't mean you..'

yes you do; you just haven;t got the guts to say it.

OOh not green, I tried them (some good policies) but gave up as all I got were onslaughts of bitchy emails that were CC'd to all members: nasty.

I do get where you are coming from- we were decent income, hope to be agin- I well remember the moment of being at a Christening and expecting ds2, when I saw someone I know never worked with teh buggy we had realised we could never afford.

But- I am lucky enough to know all about her and would not wish her life on anyone, and she has since had all 4 kids removed becuase she is so damaged (her dad died on bail for child molestation over 8 years, I exaggerate not!).

And the thing is- it can be ahrd to remember but it could be you tomorrow, really it could- a redundancy and a DX was all it took for us: how many people are truly immune?

We all know of people we feel could do better or whose issues are at elast self inflicted, but most people are like DH and I- try hard types who lucked out a bit.

And we will use ladders ahdned to us to get abck out; if the ladders are pulled though we can't.

"I started a thread the other day about my 15 year old niece. She has already decided she never wants to work and wants children soon. She wants to live on benefits and has no ambition at all. She is quite open about this and is baffled by our concern"

that is so sad, honestly I wonder what is really behind it, how can a 15yr old have the ability to map out her life? they just don't have that much perspective, this is where I agree that a society which values work learning and a sense of communal responsibility can play a part

it seems to be a version of 'I am in it for myself sod the rest'

someone mentioned the glamorisation of empty values of people wanting to be famous and rich while doing nothing

but then again I don't understand why people like reality TV and promote those delusional folk

Interesting stuff.No one in my family or extended family has ever been to university.In dh's family,out of 19 children and grandchildren,only one has been to university.We went to work at 16 and that was it.However dh has worked hard and ended up in a very good job,my sister and I both retrained whilst working and both run successful businesses.

As far as I am concerned,it was our parent's attitude that made us what we are-we had to work hard at school,we were expected to do well and when we left school,it was either go to college or work,being unemployed wasn't an option,and my parents made sure that we knew that.I went on the YTS and worked my way up from there.One thing I vividly remember my dad saying was ,'I don't ever want to hear you using the excuse of 'being a girl 'for not doing something'. It was good advice.

Apart from aspirations though, thee are very [ractical ways poverty limits people.
We lived in a very overcrowded house and only one room was heated; at teh coldest we all slept in there but as we aged not so easy.

I was forever in trouble for not doing my homework; it was just too noisy in the main rrom and too cold elsewhere in winter.

My french etacher decided to find ways around this (she was marvellous) and together with my human bio teacher worked out a plan where I didn;t do striaght homework, and I even led some classes as a revision aid.

The teaching ehad refused to enter me for extended human bio but even then I got the over 90% mark needed for a C (was many, many eyars ago)- and a B in french.

And I learned I could do it, if I found ways around difficulties. And ended up as I am now, doing my MA.

But only becuase of a head of langauges who was also dep head so signed off permission for the classrooms to be open for me for it to all work.

I like others have broken away from a deprived background, got a degree and a decent career, so it is possible, or at least it was 20 years ago. Even in their 30s, friends from affluent families know that they can rely on their family to help financially or in other ways. If I had a disabled child, or became chronically ill, or lost my job in this recession and couldn't find another, I have little back up. I'm not moaning about this, lots of us are probably in the same position, but I think that background can seal your fate at any age, particularly if the welfare that helps those that fall on hard times is scaled back. I can see how it is possible to fall to a place that is very hard to get out of.

I suspect it's not simple.

We are most definitely not a 'deprived' family but until we moved there was nowhere peaceful and quiet for the DC to do their hw. It had to be done at the dining table with all the usual kerfuffle going on. And it was distracting. I know it's a trivial example but the school always emphasised how important it was that the children had a calm space to complete their hw.

And sleep! Again the school emphasises how important a good night's sleep is. When you have more than one sibling in a room - especially when they are different ages - it can make for disruptive sleep in the evenings and in the early hours.

Both can be got over under all circumstances but harder if you are short of space.

I think a lot of it comes down to personality and I suppose that might be inherited.
I was dragged up throu the care (?),system 26 placements in five years, I'm guessing that I got used to relying on myself rather than expecting any support from anywhere.
I think I've done ok if I look at the important things in life.
I know lots of other people who haven't done so well by their own standards.
One good thing is that I got to be a parent and made my own rules rather than apply the ones that I was brought up by.

the dolls house - have you talked to your niece? Children who grow up with such low ambitions probably have good reason for that:
perhaps no-one at her school or home encourages her, so her grades are poor and their expectation is that the kids will not amount to anything.

I hope the pupil premium will enable schools to employ more excellent, inspirational teachers (rather than those who just scrapped through their degrees and had no other options), and to give struggling, potentially disruptive pupils remedial help with reading or SEN.
The money will be for the head to spend iirc, so it could also be targetted at after school clubs to stretch the childrens experience and skills.

I think the child's success in later life is directly related to the parenting and environment that the child grew up in.

My parents are wealthy and after they divorced my father dated a lady whose family was fully supported by the taxpayer. She had five kids to three different men. Her children were very street smart and had a strong knowledge of what they were entitled to. It was shocking that they had so much. They had their heating on all the time, left lights on in rooms, sky tv, tv's in every room, they each had their own bedroom and they went on all sorts of trips. My parents were very strict with us. If you wanted something, you earnt it. Nothing was wasted and bad behaviour was not tolerated.

Compared to her kids my brother, sister and I have done very well and the difference is that we didn't get pregnant before getting qualified, we work hard and we got good grades at school. We have done well financially because we don't waste money. We compete to see who has the lowest utility bills and mortgage balance.

Actually Gore theyc ant be got over under all circumstances: I am in no way complaining, we are lucky to have where we rent, but it's too small- social servies tell us that- oh yes three beds would be OK, except that

DS1 HAS to be alone (aggressive ASD)

ds2 needs plenty opf sleep, dds3 has asd also and disturbs him constantly

we have ds4 in our room and maybe always will whcih is fine, but it's small and can't accomodate any more beds

Boys can't be downstairs, due to ASD we must be close enough to them to ehar them.

It emasn we all live in a sleep deprived haze (hence my sometime rants on here) but is a simple fact. We thought we would be more than in a position to upgrade, we should ahve beem on dh's salary alone- never expected to lose both incomes.

Sorry, yes I guess there are some circumstances where such issues are insuperable peachy What I meant to say that such circumstances don't neccessarily mean that the childrens' fate is sealed.

I work with a man from what anyone would call a deprived background and he has done well for himself through sheer grit and determination. Problem is that he is now a hugely chippy little sod

Absolutely circumstances dont dicatte

But I do think if you ent back 30 20 years and looked at my estate, you;d see the family that was going to make it out of there- mine- and know it.

And I consider that we have done: a bad luck snapshot of us now is not the picture: the decade before, the decades after will be different. Even now as we are both studying, the boys are learning important values about trying to overcome dfficulty I think.

Deprivation is nothing to do with having no money. You can be poor and still not be deprived. IMO having access to education, free thought etc is more important than having money and things.

Also to do with what is seen as shameful or not. If I had got pregnant as a teenager, I know my parents would have felt a great sense of shame, I knew they loved me and would have provided support, but also I knew that certain things were expected of us. My siblings and I have all done things differently (sister v. academic went into law, brother dyslexic, no uni but now runs his own business, I went to uni as mature student) but it was always expected that we would either be working hard or studying hard. So, definitely parental expectations and support, but also what is considered acceptable.

PS from white, middle-class Christian family.

That is an excellent point, contessa.

I think attitude plays a bigger part than poverty. I was talking to a friend a little while ago who used to work in a job which involved her going into very poor households - she described how she would see the children running around half dressed eating nothing but sweets, while there was a huge plasma screen on the wall. They didn't think it was odd because everyone in the estate had similar priorities. Hard to see how extra money would help in that situation - it's only spent on what the parent sees as a priority.

I can see the point of taking them out of an unsupportive environment at 2 to spend more time in a supportive one (i.e. nursery), but my dd at nearly 4 is absolutely exhausted after 4 mornings a week at pre-school - the pre-school takes them from 2 but they rarely come for more than a morning or two a week - maybe places with childminders would be more appropriate for the 2 year olds?

comtessa I often think back to my school days versus now (left High School in 1989) and girls getting pregnant was just something that never happened for the shame it would have brought on your family. There seems to have been such a shift in the other direction that there is no shame in anything anymore. My parents were hard working working class who had little if any spare money but what they did have was the belief their girls would do better than them and we did. My Mum is my hero for her continual support and belief we could accomplish anything and I hope I can do the same for my boys. Good parenting is worth its weight in gold and how diferent would the world be if every child had a parent that rooted for them every step of the way.

I am rambling too I know...

statistically,ones socio-economic background affects health and social,educational outcomes. prosperity and affluence give better health and social outcomes,and unfortunately poor health,co-morbidity are associated with being poorer

yes there are undoubtedly success stories and those who buck the trend,but that does requite opportunities,drive and being focussed,and a system which is encouraging and can bring individual potential on

simply giving money,imo isnt the answer.deeper class/cultural issues.really complicated by individual variables too

bluesatin really? We are same age yet about 12 in my eyar, all friends, left whilst pregnant 9and we din;t have a sixth form, so all before 16)

how things vary.....

I have given more thought about this as I do a lot of work with the charity Dress for Success. A suit and shoes is the final part of the puzzle. What comes before that is far more important. Reflecting on the differences between my upbringing and the children of my fathers girlfriend I notice the big differences in the following areas:

1 - They had access to a better library but never used it. My parents would walk us up to the local library on a Saturday morning for us to pick books. My parents listened to me read daily and tried everything to teach me to read (not figuring out that I was dyslexic!).

2 - We started working at 12 by doing simple tasks. My father and aunt ran their own businesses so work 'found' us. Our pocket money was earbt and a certain percentage was saved. None of my fathers girlfriends kids worked until they were 16+. They were given pocket money every week and didn't have to earn it. None of them had bank accounts.

3 - Homework time was very important. When we came home from school we sat at the kitchen table and either did homework or read a book for an hour while being supervised by my mother or my fathers assistant. There was no background noise and homework was checked. My fathers girlfriend didn't think homework was important. When her kids came home from school the television went on and didn't go off until bed time. In additon, at the age of 15 we were expected to be in bed for 9pm during the week and 9.30pm at weekends. Wake up time was 5am for us as we had to muck out stables before breakfast. Her kids were allowed to sleep in and often went to school without having a proper breakfast (pop tarts).

4 - When my brother and I started falling behind at school my parents were quick to draft in a tutor to go over things with us. When they found me to be dyslexic my parents put their differences aside and did everything they could to help me overcome this problem. My father read lots of books on dyslexia and is probably more knowledgable about the subject than most special need teachers. To be fair he did walk into Yale and set up an appointment with the then leading expert in dyslexia. Not many people have the gumption to do that.

5 - Standards. My parents did not allow us to go out unaccompanied after dinner. They always knew where we were even if they were on the other side of the world. My sister went to Liverpool when she was 16 on a Saturday afternoon after telling my grandmother she was going to Birkenhead. My father found out as a friends wife saw my sister on Bold Street. My father wasn't upset that she was in Liverpool but was furious that she didn't tell our grandmother where she was going and who she was going with. Two of the five children of my fathers girlfriend were pregnant before they were 16 (they were allowed to have boys sleep over in their bedrooms). The other two didn't get pregnant because they are gay and the other one was pregnant at 19. None of them were in stable committed relationships before getting pregnant. Pregnancy wasn't an option for us. My parents were just about ok with me moving in with my DH after we got engaged but before we married.

I care a lot about opportunities being available to all chilren. Places were available at my private school to those from all backgrounds through the assisted places scheme. I wish they still had that system in place as it increased the diversity of students at a school and provided opportunities for children who wanted to better themself. With the charity work that I do I spend about 5 minutes dressing someone for interview, about 40 hours going over basic skills and about another 30 hours practicing interviews and how to communicate within the workplace. I mainly work with teenagers in Newark and my aim is to give them some inspiration to aspire to be the best that they can be.