Troubled families have too many children ?

[BridgetJonesPants]

AIBU to agree with this article written by Louise Casey, the Prime Minister's troubled families tsar?

uk.news.yahoo.com/troubled-families-too-many-children-022219547.html

Although I have no idea how you can get 'these mothers' who have probably had a chaotic upbringing themselves to take responsibility for not having any more children.

As for the whole passing clothes down business, the cheaper the clothing the more likely it's got gender stamped all over it.

Dressing your baby daughter in frilly pink clothes leads to lack of aspiration.

Now I truly have read it all on MN.

I spent all my teen years with horses.

Obviously missing something here.

Ah yes I chose to work on the front line. £10k a year to sort out problem families :(

Going back to the OP, good housing is the one single thing that makes the most important difference as to whether a family sinks or swims, imo.

I've been in houses and flats with no furniture, no electricity, leaks in the roof, broken windows etc. It's hard to explain just how difficult it makes daily life if you don't have a bedroom for the kids or anything to cook on. If you have to walk up five flights of stairs because the lift isn't working, or you have to pass through dangerous, unlit areas every time you come home after dark.

Then there are the consequences for your own and your family's mental health. What about your self-esteem? A man comes in and makes you feel loved for a while, or is just a warm body in a cold bed. You don't have any contraceptives because you don't have any money. You're drowning and you grab hold of anything.

I don't know how those that survive manage at all, tbh.

(I've only read the first two and last two pages, so sorry if I am repeating what others have said).

The point of my post is that there might come a point in a person's life when you simply can't help yourself and you need someone to give you a hand.

That's why we have a welfare state that most of us support. (Although I thought contraceptives were free on the NHS so not sure how someone could not afford them, although I might be wrong about that. We need the less well off who tend to be those who are obese to walk up 5 flights of stairs all the time. The rich in the City make themselves never use lifts - it';s part of the key to a healthy life but I am not trying to suggest life is easy if you have no money. It's certainly not at all.

The welfare state is being systematically dismantled, Xenia. These problems will only get worse as more and more wealth drains away into the hands of the rich tax avoiders.

It certainly is not. Spending has never been as high. It is something all political parties are committed to.

I suppose what we believe depends what figures we look at, what newspapers we read, what our own preconceived ideas are, Xenia. As always.

But at least we agree that we need a Welfare state and we need to spend a lot more on it. Do we?

Spending on the welfare state has certainly increased, but that isn't because more people are getting an ever-cushier lifestyle.

Spending goes up because of inflation meaning that unless cuts are made, spending in any one given year is always going to cost more than in the year before.

Also contributing is the fact that an overwhelming proportion of the welfare bill is housing benefit. Much of this is paid to pensioners because we have an ageing population. The artificially inflated prices of property have also played a part, as many people on full-time NMW still find that their combined income is insufficient to pay rent on even the most basic property for their needs. Only 1 in 9 HB applicants is actually working-age unemployed. IMO it is morally wrong that two people working full time cannot afford to support themselves without state aid.

IMO it is disingenuous to claim that spending on the welfare state is out of control when the factors that lead to people being dependent on it - high housing costs, ageing, poor employment opportunities - do not lie in the hands of the needy. In fact, in the case of housing and lack of employment opportunities you can make a strong case that it was actually caused by those at the top speculating for profit, whether that be with property or currency conversion.

The only way it becomes possible to reduce spending on the welfare state is to reduce the demand for it. You can either do this by reducing eligibility and leaving many people high and dry through no fault of their own. Or you can help make the country a bit fairer, so that more people are given the opportunity to keep themselves out of their own income. But that requires a sensible approach to housing, better education and training opportunities, and some restrictions placed on corporate greed.

Great post, Dahlen.

I don't agree it should be extended. I believe in a small state.

However I don't want no welfare state and it is scare mongering to suggest the Tories and Lib Dems are involved in taking the welfare state to bits. They aren't.

Xenia - my DD would LOVE to go riding and spend her time at stables. Just a few small problems with that, first and foremost that the closest stables are 30 miles away, inaccessible by public transport and I don't drive. I don't live rurally due to my reliance on public transport...

Xenia, of course they are dismantling it, and they wouldn't deny it. As I have said elsewhere, they, like you, believe in a small state. What this means is that the government don't want to tell people what to do or interfere in their lives. What this implies is that they don't want to help people - they want people to help themselves.

This would have the added bonus of lower taxes, which would bribe people to vote for them.

But it's very short-sighted in my view (and a recipe for chaos).

The thing is, unless we more than treble minimum wage without having any corresponding increase in the cost of living reducing taxes and having a small state is only going to benefit the top 25% of the country.

I think the article shows quite adeptly that the large family is responsible for only one fifth of the 120,000 families labelled as 'trouble' in this study group.
So, my opinion that it's not so much to do with the size of the family as much as the parenting skill within it is still held firm.
After all four fifths of these families were dysfunctional drama cases with only the socially acceptable 'normal' amount of children.

We need the less well off who tend to be those who are obese

You are really missing the point Xenia Why on earth do you think it is the "less well off" that are overweight. Because of cheaper unhealthy food thats why.
And they ARE dismantling the welfare state and a LOT of their cutbacks are badly affecting women. Cuts to domestic violence services and surestart being just a couple of examples. Considering i often see you on the feminist boards im a bit surprised at your stance tbh.

I've been in houses and flats with no furniture, no electricity, leaks in the roof, broken windows etc. It's hard to explain just how difficult it makes daily life if you don't have a bedroom for the kids or anything to cook on.

yy solo. Louise Casey isn't the only one who blames people without providing solutions in order to make the rest of us feel better.

It's what I despise so much about Jamie 'pull yerself up by yer bootstraps' Oliver. To be charitable, maybe he's just thick.

On one of his many self-promoting programmes he taught an unemployed single mother who fed her child on takeaway crap eaten out of polystyrene boxes with fingers or plastic spoons to cook. Hurrah!

No mention of the fact that she had to be supplied with the basic utensils for cooking - a chopping knife, tin-opener, couple of saucepans, frying pan, cutlery, crockery etc before we started talking about ingredients and fuel.

No mention of the fact that her mum and gran probably didn't know either.

That little lot would have swallowed up all of her weekly benefits before she got the food on the table. Which she also didn't have. The hateful programme was edited to show her being ever so 'umble and Jamie being modestly proud.

Way to go, Jamie. Meanwhile he helped all his fans to feel a little bit better about hating the feckless just a little bit more.

Cunt.

Love your post Limited. I cant stand JO either for the very reasons you describe and neither can DH. Sanctimonious patronizing git.

I think the point was that larger (? 4+ children) make up 4% of families generally but 20% of the 'troubled families group'. They are clearly over represented in the troubled group.

I work with families like those being discussed. They have intractable problems despite massive input (social workers, health visitors, nursery nurses, portage, home start, CPNs, drug & alcohol services, preschool intervention teachers, specialist nurses, free nursery places from 2 years old or younger, parenting classes). Many simply can not parent effectively, they are incapable of good enough. As far as accessing contraceptive services - we regard family planning (or rather preventing further conceptions) as pretty close to the top of the list of priorities. We arrange appointments at the FP clinic & actually drive them there. Long term contraceptives is the aim, they are usually too disorganised to reliably use the pill for example & once a coil is in place they're unlikely to get themselves to the GP to have it removed - so have a good 5 years free of new babies who will need to be put on child protection plans.

Anyone for contraception!!!!!

but in the long run it must be cheaper to cook than to buy takeaway 'crap' and you can get things to cook with cheaply at Wilkos etc. I think you do need to help people to help themselves.

we very rarely have takeaway, a real waste of money.

OOH JO is a bit much.

I think Louise Casey has a point, and I'm not a conservative.

I am not a JO fan either - he's too common, laughing as I type.

As for cheap food I eat loads of raw carrots and tins of sardines and I only drink tap water. I really really don't think it's hard to eat well on unprocessed foods if you are poor.

Oh Xenia! Raw carrot and sardine cocktail to you too! Cheers!