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.

alemci My point is that like Louise Casey, Jamie Oliver is keen on making a big splash without thinking things through.

Of course it's miles cheaper to cook your own stuff rather than buying 'crap' takeaways - as long as you have the facilities to cook your own stuff. If you don't then it's not cheap.

To cook one modest meal such as sausages and mash and a boiled vegetable for herself and her son from scratch the girl St James of Oliver helped would have had to buy:

1 Frying Pan or grill
2 saucepans
1 potato peeler
1 chopping knife
1 large spoon
1lb sausages of which she would use 2-4
an onion (optional)
8oz to 1lb potatoes
broccoli, cabbage, peas, carrots whatever
oil for frying
butter 8oz in total (optional to make the potatoes taste palatable)
milk as above for mashing
salt (SAinsbury's sell 1kg in Basics range)
pepper (no idea how much because luckily I don't have to care)

2 plates
knives and forks x 2

washing up liquid

Gas or electricity to power the hob
Electricity to power a fridge
Electricity to power the hot water

Long term plans:

Enough money for electricity to power a freezer in which to store frozen vegetables.

Enough money to buy modestly-priced food such as mince, cheap chicken, cheap cuts of beef, pork and lamb (if local shops sell it) and the skill to prepare it into meals to batch-cook ahead and and store.

Bus fare to get to shops selling the above.
Trolley if you can afford only one journey.
Freezer bag to safely transport frozen food.

Selection of seasonings to make modest batch-cooked meals:
Pepper
Salt : You already have these
Chilli powder
Curry powder
Tinned tomatoes
Tomato puree
Stock cubes
Mixed herbs
Onions
Garlic (if liked)
Vegetable oil

CArbohydrates for starters

2kg rice
2kg pasta
5kg potatoes

Other carbs- it's your choice whether you go for the relatively cheap tinned option or the even cheaper dried option that takes more fuel costs to cook:
lentils
chickpeas
butter beans etc

Sundries:

Loaf of bread every two days
Cheese
butter
tea/coffee
Milk

Frozen veg if you have a freezer. Probably no veg if you have to buy fresh as it would be too expensive and wasteful.

Freezer-friendly tin foil or plastic trays to put nutritious batch-cooked meals in.

The will to batch cook when most people, including me, can't be arsed.

How far down that list do you think your £65 a week JSA would run out? Before or after your will to live?

I take your point limited and appreciate the long list of cons.

TBH though they are creating their own poverty to a certain extent if they keep on having children they cannot afford.

also there may be other factors which are draining their finances. I think people do create their own situations and they old cliche you reap what you sow.

I cannot believe people in this day and age do not have plates and knives and forks.

If you have one child though don't you get about £110 a week (this is what i got when i was a single parent about a decade ago). Granted its not much, but its enough to be able to get the basics every week. Eating solely on takeouts would be really expensive, compared to even just buying processed foods, like fish fingers etc. Not having essentials like pots/pans/tin openers I find really hard to believe, and I dont think can be blamed on being on benefits, but just really shitty housekeeping imo.

I'm not sure there's anywhere in the UK that's 30 miles from stables, I grew up in London and rode - and not in Hyde park! ;)

Tell me roughly where you live and perhaps I can point you in the right direction.

alemci/titty when I was a child we had charity shop cutlery bought a piece at a time. As an adult I've bought teaspoon one at a time from the supermarket. Surprisingly cheap if you don't opt for the silver-plated.

For some there is always an excuse.

Alpine - the nearest one IS 30 miles from here, I used to work in stables myself, even as a 15yo, where I used to live, and I KNOW how to find them. Not much you can do in that situation! I can find 4 stables, all 30-35 miles away, each in a different, inaccessible by public transport, direction.

And before I list my well-paid job due to my disability, and my driving license for the same reason, DD was having riding lessons at one of them. Which had to stop as I could a) No longer get her there because of a lack of transport, and b) Couldn't afford it due to lack of funds.

It was good Physio for her Hypermobility Syndrome too.

LOL at the idea that the only thing precluding somebody from taking up riding might be distance to stables.

Wow Xenia dislikes someone because they're common.... #thisisnotbreakingnews

merry If you're referring to cost - again, where there's a will there's a way. I used to spend all weekend working in a stables in return for a 30 minute free ride on a sunday evening. Then I hit the big time when I was 14 and got paid 7 pounds a day.

Couth I'm positive there are horses within 30 miles. Even if you're 50 miles north of Inverness you could still lassoo a Highland.

I think it's often easy to forget/be ignorant of just how hard everything is when you're less well off.

Alpine, it's all well and good saying 'where there's a will there's a way' and you're right. But it's a philosophy that someone like Couthy will have to apply to pretty much every area of her life, and people only have finite reserves.

When you have to apply imagination and innovation just to get the simplest things done, such as your shopping, getting the DC to school, making a hospital appt, asking you to apply extra innovation and willpower to make something non-essential happening is just asking too much.

I understand that, but there are opportunities - I've been through two pregnancies where I was unable to find someone to ride my horse for free, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

But you have to put the effort into finding those opportunities, and if you're already putting the effort into finding solutions for another 50 'impossible' problems, where is that time and effort going to come from?

It's funny, Alpine - when I DID live North of Inverness, there were many more stables a lot closer to me. Kind of obvious if you live in the centre of a large town or city. If you don't live rurally, and can't get transport to a more rural area, there is not much that you can do.

And I wouldn't get DD used to riding again to cover while someone is pg, only for her to have to stop again when her services were no longer required. That would be immeasurably cruel.

Actually I'd have loved to find someone to continue to ride after my pregnancy... with 2 under 2, working ft and running my own business I don't have a huge amount of time. ;) You're taking a very defeatist attitude wrt this.

To get through my day today, I need to catch : a bus to town. Do the things I need in town. Catch a bus to Aldi to do some shopping. Catch a bus back to town. Catch a bus back to my house. Catch a bus to Tesco to first get the bits that I can't get from Aldi, then get everyone's eye tests done. Then I have to catch a bus home. Then I have to catch a bus to the dentist as my DS1 needs emergency dental treatment. As the dentist he had been seeing with his father is obviously a charlatan, as he has let a baby tooth crack so badly that it needs removal. Then I have to catch another bus home.

I KNOW that DS1 has seen both the dentist AND the orthodontist in that time. I am going to have to breach the Court Order that says that his father deals with Dental and I deal with Medical in order to get him emergency dental treatment.

That is eight buses, with 4 DC in tow, and a breach of a court order in one day.

Yes, I have amazing reserves of strength to fit in arranging horse riding lessons and transport to stables on top.

And that is an AVERAGE day Chez Couthy.

And I'm still in, waiting for the HA surveyor to assess the work done by their repair team who came straight from Bodjit and Bill.

So I can't even get started on all this yet...the surveyor is currently 23 minutes late...

Alpine I live in an area surrounded by stables (and horses). They charge little girls to come and muck out. (I think its called 'stable management'.) I can quite believe that you couldn't find somebody to ride your horse for free, but I am not sure that you would have wanted just anyone who turned up to ride your horse.

When I was a student I biked/bused to the local stables. They weren't 30 miles away, but the whole thing was a round trip of 3-4 hours. Not always practical when other children have to be looked after. Anyway, Couthy is, I'm sure very adept at managing her own life. She is just trying to point out how simple little things can be an awful lot harder when you have no money. Pointing out how she could accomplish each of these things with some effort, is, as Dahlen says, rather missing the point.

exactly Alpine. The thing is the money may be spent on other things. you can get things very cheaply for the kitchen.

I do appreciate things are more tricky when you are short of money but wasting money on a takeaway is just crazy.

Good posts by limited and Couthy. When I stopped being rich and became poor, I was shocked by the price of things I hadn't questioned before - store cupboard ingredients, bus fares, electricity - by how much more expensive everything is when you have to pay in small increments - and how long it takes to do stuff you barely thought about, like popping to the supermarket with no car. I remember meeting a friend who lived 'nearby' in London, and it took 2 hours to get there by bus. I stopped meeting her.

It really starts to bite after about six months, when all your backups are exhausted, then again a year later when you can't pay the insurances or get your discounts for upfront payment, etc, and small items start to break - tin opener was a good example! Dental treatment is virtually non-existent. I've waited three years for a Dental Access appointment, which will only treat health risks. The chipped front teeth, which I used to have veneered, will have to stay chipped & discoloured.

It's easy to economise while you're well-off, because you're generally only looking at one area to make savings and you have fallbacks. After a while it has to become everything, which is a grinding, full-time job. Every bloody move you make is weighted with financial implications. When things break, you have to replace them with the cheapest possible despite knowing it will break sooner. Housework takes longer as you're using cheap all-purpose cleaning fluid instead of single-purpose products and wipes. You have to wear 'adequate' clothes and cut your own hair - not for a while, but all the time. You're always cold. It's tedious and easily becomes joyless.

And this is assuming you're fit & well. A lot of the most deprived have never been completely on top of things; don't have the resources to make the wise choice EVERY time. And a single unwise choice can set you back months, or years. The fear of making that unwise choice wears away at the previously healthy, causing anxiety and depression which further limit your capabilities. I've recently spent loads on credit. I needed everything I bought. But I bought them at 50% APR, which will be around 130% interest by the time it's paid off - unwise, and prompted by a deep depression. It's costing me in food, electricity and quality of life. (I have to go look at my nice new underwear to cheer me up! Argh.)

I think we need reversals in the ethic that makes it more expensive to be poor than rich. Maximising profit from the low spenders causes long-term misery and I would like to see this addressed with legislation - there have been improvements since I first got in this mess (prepaid electricity pegged at contract price, for example, and value ranges) but nowhere near enough. We need ground-level intervention for mental health and life skills. Better low-cost housing; public transport that works as a service instead of a cash cow; more free basics like dental health and meeting places. And more compassion.

My own experience tells me it is really hard to grasp what a fundamental impact borderline poverty has on lives. It is easy to come across as pompous, out of simple misapprehension. But, really, there are enough people saying what I've just said.

Ironically, I find it easier to buy things like cheap cuts of meat and fish and pulses in my local Waitrose (4 miles away) than in the local convenience store (not a plain tin of sardines in sight yesterday).

I actually can see the logic of a bag of chips and a mars bar under the duvet over putting money in the meter for cooking (and I will be cooking something involving chickpeas from Hugh FW's vegetable book tonight). Whilst knowing that there are plenty of people in poverty who eat healthily, I have enough self knowledge, not to imagine that I would always be one of them.

It breaks my heart and makes me very angry that some families have such a hard time in this country! It's not fair, and it's not on.

We've got to make the government look again at their priorities.

Social distress only breeds more of the same, until people hit rock bottom and feel they have nothing to lose.

For a start, they have chosen a very extreme example. I think this is harmful to all single mothers who have to claim benefits. This is scapegoating and demonising them in much the same way that the disabled and unemployed have recently been singled out. Wasn't there a famous poem about groups being persecuted while people say nothing and then nobody is left to stick up for them?

What about men? Why is it that women are always shamed when it comes to parenting. What are they planning to do about absent fathers who don't give a toss about their kids?

They haven't chosen an extreme example, the type of family chosen is one that they are looking at different strategies for, tbh, what is happening at present isn't working.

This has nothing to do with run of the mill LP's.

These families often do contain two parents, until one is incarcerated or the family breaks down.