Rude Girls

[fernyburn]

OMG has anyone watched this ???
on bbc2 tonight, all about girl gangs -

I wanna cry, that poor baby girl, what kind of life is it going to have ??

Couldn't agree more, that poor poor baby, did you see the way her mum yanked her around, unfortunatly wait another 16 years and she also have a documentary about how F88ked up she is.

The whole thing has made me feel so so down, where are we as a society failing!

How scary was that. TBH I try not to be judgemental but what kind of life are those girls going to have and their mums were basically encouraging the behaviour.

That poor baby as well, being yanked around like that. The mum had already found some soft touch to take on the father role.

i was nearly in tears when i saw her handle that poor baby, it's head was all over the place and she was so rough with it

was the baby in the car when they were both smoking and driving like mad round the place

Yes!

I was horrified - DH saw the bit with them in the car spinning around - all he kept saying was "is that baby in the car???". He left at that point - couldn't watch anymore.

I went to bed after feeling c*. Also, did I miss a bit - didn't the mum let go of the pushchair near a road and her friend had to chase after it?? Out of the room at that point, but saw friend and her arguing about her "trying to kill her baby".

Also what about that disgusting girl who was shouting abuse at the Jewish kids/men? Then she had a go, swearing and shouting at a couple of women walking by with umbrellas! Her mum took the mick, laughing etc. My mum would have given me a clip round the ear!!!

What a sorry place this country is going to be

It is frightening to think that these children are part of our society really.

The only one I felt really sorry for was "Rudy" - the one whose father was murdered in front of her when she was 8.

Underneath her "hardened" exterior was a sweet little thing who needed a little help - she'd obviously witnessed some horrific things .

The baby should be whipped away and given to people who would love and dote on her. At least she'd have some chance of a better life.

I couldn't believe it when the two girls went to the police station to grass their friend up. They thought that they were doing such a good thing and looked so silly when the policewoman said "I think that she is pulling your leg!"

When you saw the mum of the girl with the baby you could completely understand why she was the way she was (hope that makes sense).

I saw it too. Makes you understand what social services is for.

I don't care how hard that girl's upbringing was, many of us have had less than perfect upbringings, but you don't take it out on defenceless baby. That little girl was not treated like a human being.

The poor little thing stuck in that car filled with smoke. What state must her little lungs be in?

I must be very naive, but why are they being allowed to keep this baby? Their treatment of the poor thing has now been shown on national tv - what more evidence do social services need?
Or do they need to see actual abuse? Although even then, they don't always seem to act.

Can't agree that society has failed them. We fail the victims by not giving them support, rights etc, but not the perpetrators. Society owes you nothing - it's what you owe society.

I keep thinking if that was the way she treated that baby on national tv how's she treating it when the camera's aren't there? How's she feeling having to get up twice in the night to feed and change her???

from todays times

THE holiday weekend ended with a most depressing television programme, Rude Girls, on BBC Two. Many readers will have switched off, so I?ll summarise. Over several months the director, Morgan Matthews, followed gangs of teenage girls in Hackney, Dagenham, Luton.
Grotesque female specimens of the nihilistic underclass uttered the je m?en foutisme their backgrounds had taught them: ?I?m bad. I?ve always been bad. I don?t care about nothing.

?I don?t care about death. I can face death.?

In trainers and tracksuits, Dee and Stacey dragged their enormous arses aimlessly through unlovely streets, kicking litter-bins as they passed, arguing and threatening each other, dropping their junk food cartons, looking for fights to pick, to fill in the acres of boredom. What else was there to do? ?Beat people up, nick whatever they?ve got, whack ?em on the head.?

?They talked about it in such a matter-of-fact way, it made me wonder whether it was true,? came the voice of Morgan Matthews. Indeed. For 90 minutes we heard the violent bragging and empty bravado about taking on the world. These girls were 16. Pasty, humourless, expressionless, they smoked, took drugs and drove around recklessly in cars. Their vocabulary was limited to the foul. They didn?t go to school. Sherry and Rachel, sharp 14-year-old girls in Stamford Hill, went around looking for Hasidic Jews to bully and shriek abuse at, including Hasidic schoolchildren, whom they taunted. This was painful to watch. To their credit the Jews kept their dignity and ignored the girls, which made them shriek even more shrilly.

One girl, of mixed race herself, explained: ?The only people I feel racist about is Jewish people cos they look at you as if you?re a piece of shit.? They didn?t like Kosovans or ?Pakis? either.

At the start, Stacey was eight months pregnant. She didn?t know where the dad was and didn?t care. One night she had the baby, Shannon. A hapless doll, Shannon got pushed angrily in her pram as Stacey realised how much the baby cramped her life. ?Now I?ve got a baby I can?t go out much, can?t do this, can?t do that.?

Dee, seeking attention, started to cut up her arms. Stacey and Dee fell out, and Stacey found a new boyfriend who moved in, and changed the baby?s nappy at the bowling alley. Vindictive Stacey and a new friend tried to shop Dee to the police for stealing cars.

Rudee had absorbed some platitudes of self-knowledge.?Sometimes it seems that you?ve got a grudge against the world,? Matthews prompted her. ?I have. Cos I?m in the world and I don?t want to be here. I?m an angry, confused soul. It?s my per- sonality. It?s been like that from when I was young. Built-up feelings lead to ag- gression.?

It transpired that none of the girls had a living father. There were scenes in graveyards, visiting dead dads. Gradually some of the mothers materialised: helpless, hopeless, dim. One of them murmured: ?I should?ve been a bit more stronger. Bit more discipline.?

But this wasn?t the reality TV that John Humphrys deplored in his Edinburgh Television lecture. It was not a Big Brother or Wife Swap situation, set up to trap the gullible. The film seemed authentic and honest, reflecting the lives of a few damaged, damaging, potentially psychotic young women. Though small in scope, it was bound to disturb. Matthews?s restraint inspired our sympathy ? an emotion alien to these poor lonely girls, whether on the giving or receiving end.

i felt sorry for all of them including the baby...i felt that weirdly the worst off was sherry as her mum was absolutely incapable of parenting at all. i know that everyone is up in arms about the baby: but her mother is around and i know they smoke, but even D had a go at her for treating the baby in a way that wasn't right. bit of parentcraft class maybe, but i think taking the baby away would be far far worse for the baby. important not to look at parenting thro v middle class specs. lots was wrong, but in that house there are adults that care for that child. better than a lot of family set ups.

i thought it was absolutely classic that 'hard nut' D was completely unknown to the police.

they were all just completely lost little girls with no dads, and not ideal mums.

i think rudee will be ok, same with char char.

sherry is a totally lost cause imo as her mother blatantly approved of her behaviour.

when i say her mother is around i mean the mother of the mother iyswim!

Disagree Sophable.

My friend has adopted 2 babies who came from a similar background. Now at school, and looking at them as a family, it would have been FAR FAR worse to leave them where they were.

how can anyone possibly know that? certainly until they are adult i don't think you can slinky...

I didnt see it but surely what is needed is more money invested in parenting classes.
I do think it is a little tricky to suggest the children would be better off elsewhere. There are worse things that can happen. Not everyone thinks smoking in a car with children etc is wrong and I see that kind of thing a lot. I dont think these are reasons to have their children taken away.
There are lots of things people do with their kids that make me want to scream but that doesnt mean they are worse parents than me or love their child less.

That said, my sister is hoping to adopt a little boy whose parents cant cope with. Very sad story all round. SS have tried to give lots of support but the child failed to thrive with the mum....

Obviously can't go into details on a website - but it would have highly unlikely they would have survived at all - given their background.

Sophable I live across the road from a little girl who is in desperate need for social services to take her away. You may say not to look at these things with middle-class eyes but by saying these children are better off with their parents is mostly not the case.

The little girl I am refering to (and I have discussed on mumsnet before) has both her mum and dad at home but they are heavily into drugs. Only on Monday we had another incident of her (aged 4) running around the road at 8 pm totally naked. No one came out of the house for a good 20 minutes so I eventually opened the door and shouted at her to go get some clothes on and go to bed, she disappeared into the house where her parents were probably high. This is not the first incident, this is not the worse and yet ss do nothing. She has been in foster care before, about a year and a half ago she gave her baby sister some drugs, both were taken away. When she returned the change was unbelievable, just to look at her hair shone, she just had a glow about her. It didn't take long for her to go back to normal.

So, sophable, what would you do? Leave her in a situation where she will not be allowed to flourish and will more than likely be abused and end up another junkie?

Personally, as someone whose aunt fostered and who would do it myself when mine are grown up, these children deserve better. Even to be taken away until the parents have a chance to educate themselves on how to care for their child appropriately.

Watching this is heartbreaking, as neighbours we do our best but she is like a wild animal and we can't let her play with our children as she bites and steals. She needs help so sitting back and saying she should stay where she is, if I were that little girl I wouldn't thank people like you.

(This isn't a personal hit sophable I am just trying to let you see another perspective and another viewpoint. I am not saying you are wrong, just that maybe these things are never clear cut. As a mother I see how this girl is treated and I could just weep.)

I'm so glad i found this thread and that other people are up in arms about the way that that poor little baby was treated. I sat in tears thinking about the poor baby being unwanted and basically unloved and just desperately hope that someone from an authorative background ie social worker has begun investigating the situation to allow the baby a much better chance in life with a family who will truly want her.

paula, it sounds absolutely awful. poor her and poor you for having to see it. i would argue tho, that in the first instance we should look at changing her home environment (and i think the govt should pile money into this, rehabilitation, support for addicted parents, surestart with knobs bells and whistles iyswim), not taking her away. think your post is really reasonable and totally respect it. but i really believe that taking children from their parents should be the absolute last resort to prevent them suffering serious injury or death (and that may well be the case in this instance, i'm not for a moment arguing otherwise).

That is true sophable, each case should be taken on its own merits. I just wish ss were more proactive than reactive. I wait for the ambulance to arrive, I really do.

As you said, there are parents where all they need is a helping hand and their children are the driving force for that. I didn't watch this programme, it is too depressing when you are surrounded by it. What to do? We are all needing to do something together and start building communities rather than this apathy which I believe has caused this problem.

I am just relieved you didn't take what I said the wrong way!