Is it just me or is this article a bit blah

[snowleopard]

article

I can't decide if it's actually genuinely meant to be concerned and serious, or is outrageously snobby and generalistic...

And do you think it's right?

It's depressing, I wouldn't say it was snobby, I would say the writer is concerned but also critical. Unfortunately, I think it is to some extent right.

'..she was boned by Kevin...'

I know I haven't led a sheltered life but I was surprised to read this.

it's massively generalised - a kernel of truth overwrought into caricature for the sake of a good story.

it's badly written, too sarcastic and not focused enough - buuuut I see his point. I think he's mainly angry at the amount of people who have fallen though the cracks.

It does come across as snobby, but sadly I have taught far too many 'Bradleys'.

Kids often have no idea how to cook simple, nutricious meals. they have no idea of what makes up a healthy diet, because they have never eaten one.

Most of my sixth form couldn't peel a potato.

Children with florid gum disease will tell you that they eat a good diet because their Mum gets them Sunny D. And the next day you see them eating breakfast, a coke and a mars bar.

It is very, very sad.

Stewart Dakers was a part-time youth outreach worker for 16 years and now, at 67, advises parents of children with special educational needs and is an outreach worker for a prison crime-diversion scheme. Names have been changed in this article

yeah u dont say.

I'ld be intrigued to know where you can get microwaveable fish and chips .

This article does read very snobby and the names they have chosen just push that feeling home even more. It reminds me of the round robins that we do on here.

It does still make me very sad when I read it and realise that these people are real but think it could have been written in a much more sympathetic way, as a lot of people reading it will just laugh and use it as a tool to take the mickey out of the lower and uneducated classes.

on a more serious note, I do agree with you, Flutterbee. I didn't feel comfortable with the way he wrote about the young girl ?Abba's continence problems following her urethra operation.

How did they come up with those nanmes?? Really stero typical and snobby imo.

I think I thought it couldn't be as snobby and superior as it seemed because it is in the Guardian Society section. (How naive am I?)

I thought using the name "Chardonnay" was very snide and stupid, since people aged 15 are not called Chardonnay - it's a phenomenon started by Footballers' Wives just a few years ago. Though that could just be a dimwitted sub.

I agree the topic is serious and deserves airing but something about the way it is written - I was aghast.

I wouldn't say it was snobby rather startlingly closer to the truth than some would dare. Where we live there are people on benefits who get takeaway every single night, delivered as well, then complain they have no money. Needless to say they are also on the large size (stones, glass houses, I know I know!)

There is this whole thing tied in about lack of money and diet but we have a lot less to live on with dh's wage than some on benefits and I don't feed dst or us a load of rubbish. Convenience meals are actually more expensive if I was to only buy them.

Twoifbysee - I don't think the article is about lack of money or a discussion of how difficult it is to survive on benefits. Its about the inability of people (who he portrays as an underclass) to change the circumstances they are born into because they don't know any different or because they haven't got help which could have made a difference.

My mum has a theory that people like that get so used to everything being done for them they cannot help themselves.

Personally I think it is a fear of failure. So they don't try anything, almost a laziness of the mind because of what they have been told by parents, people around them (why work when you can sit at home and get money anyway, have heard that one more than once.)

I am just having a bit of a grumble at the moment because of a neighbour who is on benefits, with the motability car and everything, who is moaning to me about money like we have any! She is on nearly £200 per week more than us and that is after her rent, council tax, gets paid. I am turning too nasty, I need to move!

Just glanced thru it and it seems a really intersting polemic. It does seem to be sympathetic too, if indirectly. I'm going to try to read it properly tomorrow.

The issues he raises are deeply worrying and sad and we all know they're true.

However, he does come across as some snotty public school journo who reckons he has taken his life in his hands by going to housing estates to interview them and find out how the other half lives.

I understand what the article was trying to point out, but what a load of twaddle!

Very badly written and sarcastic.

IMO there are not enough 'life' classes in schools today - we need to teach young people about how to cook healthy meals, how to budget, and how to have safe sex. There isnt enough
of this in our schools. When I left school at 16, I worked a 40 hr a week job. Couldnt see a 16 year old doing that now!

Most teens want to bum along and have as what they see as an easy life and are careless about it in the process - by this I mean, getting pg or getting STDs, getting drunk, vandalising.

Tony Blair has been preaching recently on respect issues in youngsters - Mr Blair, this is all well and good - but try show your British teens respect in the way of a better 'life' education.

I found this depressing, but not snobby.

The tone was certainly brutal, but I think the matter-of-fact descriptions of the bad luck, ill health and ignorance of these people were quite effective in driving home his point.

And I think he is right about the hopeless vicious circle of social exclusion that blights large numbers of people in this country. The current fashion is to demand ASBO's and parenting orders, but this article really does show how all the solutions being proposed are really moving around the deckchairs on the titanic.

Partonising bullshit..... cringe worthy

Really depressing. Silly name changes detract from the bleakness of these people's situations. It is not snobby, it is tragic. I don't get the feeling this man looks down on these people, I think he despairs for them.

I agree with Spidermama and various other people - the issues it touches on are real, and they are very worrying indeed - but he does come across as enjoying his little journalistic foray into the modern-day slums a bit toom much. It's got horrid overtones of Richard Attenborough about it!!

At risk of getting people's backs up - there has been a lot of noise over the past couple of decades about teaching "citizenship" and "awareness" of British culture and customs to immigrant children. IMO this need applies to ALL children and young people if we are to have any cohesiveness/sense of community at all, and it needs to be across the board! Our children need to be taught how to take care of themselves, how to cook basic meals, how to run a home and manage basic family finances, what a mortgage is, what their legal rights are, how employment/tax works, how to behave in personal and official relationships and what behaviour is appropriate for them in different situations. Perhaps an organisation like the CAB could work with government/the teaching unions to create a new system of social learning which would give our children some chance of not being ploughed under within months of leaving education!!! Part of the problem I think is that extended families/local communities used to provide a fabric which younger people could rely on. This has been fragmented to a large degree in many areas and people lead quite lonely lives in units as couples, singletons or little nuclear families. I left university engaged to another graduate, both of us relatively bright and competent - and neither of us had a clue about how to set up a life and a home. We might as well have been on Mars. We have learned everything the hard way.