To think some posters need a "reality check" re. views on benefit changes

[lesley33]

I have some concerns about some of the proposed changes to benefits and how these may adversely affect people. So this is NOT a thread about that. But I am getting increasingly fed up at some of the frankly ridiculous reasons some posters are giving against the proposed changes. Examples include:

1. That children 12 and over will be traumatised if both parents work - even if second parent only works 20 hours a week.

1. That a parent with children 12 and over shouldn't have to commute up to 90 minutes each way to work. Far from ideal I know and if someone is on low wages this might not be affordable. But perfectly doable.

1. That childcare is impossible to get for teenagers. Ignoring the fact that many parents, myself included use a combination of kids home alone and afterschool activities.

AIBU to think some people need a reality check? Plenty of people with children already work, many with both parents working full time by the time their kids are teenagers. Plenty of people have long commutes, struggle with childcare, etc. Things might not be "ideal", but these are things that many many working parents already do.

I could rely on my 8 year olds to walk home,let themselves in and prepare themselves something snackish to eat. Obviously I wouldn't but they're more than capable.

TBF, I do understand it's hard to get your head round the idea of not having choice.

Most of us are used to having reasonable control over our lives and making choices between A, B or C - even when none of the choices is ideal.

Discovering that your choices are:
A live and lump it
B stop living
is, um, disconcerting.

Nilgiri Wed 25-Jan-12 17:11:23
It's perfectly legal to choose not to work. You'll just be very poor and not entitled to JSA.

which is not a viable choice unless someone is independantly wealthy. i am not saying disabled people have choices, i am saying that working people dont get to choose not to work.

neither group chooses.

I worry about cases where people are victims of dv and where sns complicate life, or people living in areas where there really isn't much by way of work. The economy can only absorb so much unskilled potential employees willing to work non-family friendly hours for very little money. I worry about female heads of households in other words.

Where are the jobs with the lovely, flexible, family friendly hours that those targeted by the cuts will apparently be able to get?

The banks do have a lot of property on their hands right now, mainly because people genuinely do not have the income to pay their mortgages. They might if they had jobs or if the jobs they had paid more. There has never been much of a safety net in the US and foreclosures are an epidemic. There has never been a 'benefits' mindset there and yet there is high long term unemployment (with no guarantee of long term unemployment benefits). There are literally millions of people there who would dearly love to sort things out but who cannot, and they instead depend on periodic votes by the House of Congress to have unemployment payments made to them. Without the promise of jobs for everyone who needs to eat I do not see how cutting benefits can work.

Is there a legal age when children can be left home on their own? I just wondered, because obviously children aged 10 normally walk home from school on their own, but are they legally allowed to then be at home on their own?

this is link:
www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Yourchildshealthandsafety/Yourchildssafetyinthehome/DG_070594

You're not getting this, are you?

You're saying, "I don't have a choice but to do Y, if I'm going to have X."

Perfectly true.

So if you can't do Y, you don't get X.

It doesn't matter whether you want X, "choose" X, aspire after X. You can't have it. And if that doesn't actually kill you, then there you are, living without X.

It may not be pleasant.

what are you talking about? sorry don't get it

i dont understand what you are saying.

glad it isn't just me

Lesley33 I share your concerns about the level of debate.

Perhaps what is needed is a reminder that benefits are to help you during bad times when your life has gone off course but when you work you and your family get so much more in terms of how you feel about yourself. Or maybe that's just my own opinion which I dare to have.

I have pointed out on some of these threads that I raise my dts on very little per annum, this £26k banded about would be an absolute dream for us at the moment. My dts see me work though, I am trying to establish working from home but still I need to support my family. Changes to wtc and the csa (though I get heehaw from ex-h) will affect me but at least I am trying to do something for us.

Yet it would seem that by saying anything is tantamount to wanting every person who has a disabled child or a disability themselves thrown on the streets to be pissed upon by passers by. Jeez, you just can't talk with people like that.

OP i know from where i live commuting to a decent job is a problem. It is £500 per month to London and takes 2 hours each way. I wouldn't get home till 7.30pm. As an only child who let myself in and sat alone in the house from 3.30 to 7.30 from 11-14 yo (after then i went out). I can say my overriding memory of my youth is loneliness - i used to call the talking clock sometimes just to hear someones voice. Summer holidays were awful.

Other friends older siblings used to beat them up and terrorize them while they were home without supervision.

I agree essentially with what you are saying though. People can be too precious and sometimes when needs must sacrifices must be made.

Sorry, that was in response to Tilly's:

"which is not a viable choice unless someone is independantly wealthy. i am not saying disabled people have choices, i am saying that working people dont get to choose not to work. neither group chooses."

Tilly is saying, working people don't get to choose not to work if they want to buy houses and have an income above miserable poverty.

Quite true.

So those who can't work don't get to buy houses and have an income above miserable poverty. Voila.

TwoIfBySea what a stupid thing to say.
I think it is important to point out how badly affected disabled people will be by the cuts.
people need to be aware how the most vulnerable people are going to be in poverty .

no law about it frankie, but if there is an accident and the authorities judge the child was not old enough to be left you can be prosecuted for neglect

so those of us who do leave children are relying on a) the chances that there won't be an accident b) the hope that if there is, we will be able to persuade the authorities (and ourselves) that it was not due to the immaturity of the child

different authorities can clearly vary in their approaches:

dd's disabled transport have never asked if there is anyone at home (there isn't)

dd once at age 12 had to explain to SS exactly why she was still attending a CMs for two afternoons a week- she was wheelchair bound at the time and would have struggled getting the chair over the threshold at home, but they seemd to think it rather odd and potentially over-protective

Sorry am I right in thinking OP that you couldn't make your point on any of the 37 threads about this and get people to agree with you so you have created yet another?

If your point isn't getting enough agreement on the thread starting another one is poor form and a bit "Look at me! I am RIGHT and you are ALL WRONG AND THICK".

SN issues aside I'm fed up with the excuses.We aren't talking about SEN as the the vast majority of people this affects won't have SEN issues they simply live in property the rest of us can't afford which we pay for.Every single thread is hijacked by this issue.If people have issues with what they've been allocated re SEN that is a separate issue entirely and one the vast maj will sympathise with.

Sorry if you refuse to see the unfairness in the above re expensive housing then any discuss is pointless.

Said people need to quit with the excuses and move like the rest of us have to,they don't live in a gilded cage but in property that isn't theirs funded by money which isn't theirs either. Sorry you don't get to dictate in this situation you adjust your life accordingly like we all have to do.

As I highlighted earlier the rest of us don't get to dictate what we will/won't do ,can/can't do as we just have to do whatever it takes to pay whatever it costs to keep a roof over our kid's heads.

Would just like to add if unemployment does rise there are going to be more entitled to benefits and these large figures some are so intent on keeping to themselves are going to have to be shared out a little further.Ie there is a limited amount in the pot,as unemployment rises less going into the pot,more needing money from the pot.

The priority of said pot isn't to ensure some continue to live in Primrose Hill and Kensington but a fund to look after everybody when they need it.It makes absolute no economic sense in a time of recession to waste money on funding people to live in expensive areas.The tax payer is entitled to sensible money management of the money they pay in as one day they may well be entitled to a cut of it and deserve it to be there not frittered away on extortionate rent bills which could be cut dramatically if the recipient moved house.

It's just not true that neither group chooses , TheRealTillyMinto and other posters ... you very much do have choice compared to those with comprehensive disabilities & the ensuing circumstances . Nilgiri's post there seems clear enough to me .

The thing is Hunty said parents have choices,they get benefits.The rest of us don't have choices.Wether we had an SEN child or not we'd still have to go to work and we'd have to make arrangements otherwise said 12 year old would be out on the street due to the mortgage/rent not being paid

Do you think that parents of children with disabilities dont [or didnt] have a mortgage? do you think disability only happens to people on benefits?!

You are not getting it at all.

You are the one with choice.

When you have a disabled child your choices are limited.

Those limited choices are about to get even more limited-that is the problem.

Can you really not see that?

Nilgiri Wed 25-Jan-12 18:06:14
if the average working person chose to stop work, what would their income be?

No JSA.
CB if you have children.

am i missing anything this household could get to spend on food? (ignoring HB)

0 children = 0 income
1 child = £20 income per week
2 child = £30 somthing income per week

i am not having a pop on people on benefits but do you think the above means working people can choose not to work?

'. That childcare is impossible to get for teenagers. Ignoring the fact that many parents, myself included use a combination of kids home alone and afterschool activities.

Local school doesn't run after school activities. no childcare registered to take a child over 14 and no places for 12 - 14 year olds.

Lucky you having all that but frankly what does that matter to anyone else? If it ain't there, it ain't there. Short of mugging somebody on the street and demanding they get registered to take 12 year olds now (which would seem slightly unfair) sod all I can do.

I expect to be amde to work 20 hours a week, a ninety minute drive emans that I can't be ehre for school drop off or pick up. We rely on SN Schools and SN trnasport, and have no childcare. I Hhave to be ehre at 8.30and 3.15 (and the transport is often late).

But that;s part of the point MrsHeffley. You can't remove SEN from the debate because the government have moved the goalposts for what classes as disability/SN so much that there are loads of people with quite severe disabilities that are now, on paper, classed as perfectly ok. Like Hunty and her epilepsy.

of for heavens sake, of course a lot of the people affected with have SN.
have you not read the threads as to how the cuts are going to affect families with disabled children, and god help those with disabled adults.
please don't think for one minute they are immune from this.

And the Primrose Hill thing is laughable

The capon HB is set at 30% of current market rents- it amkes no allowance for houses actually being available to people claiming HB (even £15 a week top up for w working family emans most landlords and virtually all agencies will laugh at you)

That's 30% in The North as much as London.

£50 per day at your Dcs primary school for holiday club??

That is patently untrue!