Cutting Edge: Pram Face

[VanishingLadyAppears]

Monday 9.00pm channel 4

I'm definitely watching this and I hate to admit it but years ago i was infact one of those ignorant people who thought young girls had babies to get houses, benefits etc etc. I saw the clips for the show and felt so sorry for the girl who was upset about her child living in a cold house, but i suppose there are going to be folk who say you made your bed lie in it. This is going to be a very interesting and sad watch

i get the impression that there are some people who learn to work the system to their benefit. people who go in with exaggerations, lies and tales of woe and know how to get what they really shouldn't have. they learn the methods by talking to mates and rellies who have done it so they build up a nice repertoire skills of how to get what from the benefits system.

and then there are some who have no experience or desire to do that and they end up with the scraps at the bottom of the social bucket. i guess coming out of a care home without extended family with the knowledge of the benefits system have put these girls at a disadvantage of how to 'work' the system.

that is not to say that some councils must just have crap accommodations across the board anyway.

kiskidee,
the housing is so dire in Edinburgh, Habitat for Humanity is coming in.

Totally agree with TSaP. I just feel so depressed when I hear that "how come she can afford a hi-fi" type comment. That kind of thinking is how cruel, mean systems like the means test came about. (For anyone who doesn't know, the means test would for example, see how many people there were in your house, and if there were five of you, they would take away your sixth chair because your household didn't need it, your sixth cup because your household didn't need it, your sixth plate, your second coat because it was unnecessary, etc. Bugger the guests, you weren't supposed to have any, you were supposed to be too ashamed of your house to invite anyone in anyway.) IMO pointing at the one or two luxuries someone might have is just slightly less far along that scale.

itaintallcastlesandprettybuildings

Well said Caligula!

Part of the problem is that we live in such a divived society where people have such little chance of jumping that chasm and so little knowledge of how people on the otehr side live.

Both dp and I have upbringings that make Shameless look like an episode of the Good Life.

I grew up living in Bed and Breakfasts spending nights on my own looking after my sister while my Mum was out working tricks so that so that she could afford to dress us decently, perhaps to hide how we were actually living and save up money to buy a flat so she could get us a place in a decent area with decent schools. You could probably critisice her choices but she did what she genuinely thought was best for her children. Perhaps she should not have had us, perhaos, social services agreed as two of us were taken into care at birth. All of the children came from a ciolent relationship and most of us were concived through rape, perhaps she should ahve aborted us but as even poor people have feeling and morals she kept us. She should ahve left her husband but she was a terrified brainwashed woman who kept trying to escape but could never quite run away far enough. But the other two of us who she did keep actually did go to the good schools, get a university degrees and the middle class lifestyle that my mum dreamed off each time she serviced some disgusting man in some grubby little room. My Mum did drink, smoke and we even probably even had a few luxury items most of which were on the never never. Our favourite game at home was hide from the Bailiff but are not even common grubby little working class people or shock horror even worse people on benefits allowed the odd pleasure.

Sadly as often happens my first marriage was very similar to my Mums and I ended up living in a hostel penniless with a baby. Months beore I had been living ina plush riverside apartment with a wardrobe crammed with designer clothes and a string of rich hanger on friends, belive me no one knew my trailer trash routes and was very shocked to see me return their. I lived for a year in hostels and temporary accomdoation before renting somewhere with the help on housing benefit. I bought my kids up at your expense because i had no choice, but i tried to pay my dues through voluntary work and I knew that once I was back on my feet I would get back into work. But getting back on your feet is so hard. I can remember buying things I shouldn't have done, even making my daughter go without. We once lived on baked beans and potato for a week asI had blown most of our budget on a flash hair cut just because I wanted to feel like me again for a few hours not the broke pale depressed pitiful imitation I had become. I can remember sitting in the hairdressers chair choking back the tears firstly at the thought of the bill and what a bab mother i was and secondly because I could see the real me appearing as she cut my hair.

It is so easy to criticise women such as those shown on the film last night but unless you have bene their it is so hard to understand.

excellent. i hear that HfH has built some nice homes in the States. i think it is always with the prospective homeowner putting in some of the sweat. it will be good for people here to construct their own home. too many people just want to get a handout without putting a hand in.

When I got my rented house which was actually quite nice - (I had got it by telling the landlord yes I am scronging scum on benefits I but I used to be a teacher so please let me have your house!) and I had a few nice pieces of furniture - nothing extravagnet just well liooked after furniture the woman who came to assess me for housing benefit peered down her glasses and said my my haven't we done well someone like you having a nice place like this.

CaligulaCorday my house was a three bedroomed house , the third was a boxroom and she ssaid I had to get a two bed roomed even though I was not getting any more housing benefit and it was not costing anymoer to rent that a three bedroomed. I was just not allowed anything nice or extra. I appealed and won.

kiskidee I bet they don't take as much out of the system as mutinational companies who fiddle the their tax though! But that is alright as they wear nice suits rather than fake burberry and huge clown necklaces. Fruad is so much nicer when comitted in Armani.

Getting of soapbox to make lunch.

I will own up and say that we are eating chicago pizzas for lunch so I can afford more wine at my dinner party tonight. feel free to phone channel 4

i cannot beleive there are people commenting on whether the girls smoked or not!

I have worked with single mums on benefits who said they smoke because it saved them having to buy food!!!! it stopped the hunger pains and a £5 pack of ciggerettes lasted longer than £5 of food.

i have been one of those girls. thankfully my son is SN so i was spared the tower blocks.

I was a in a relationship witha waste of space abusive man (father of both my children) he refused to work and was so crap he couldnt watch the kids, we had to claim bnefits.

I decided that this wasn't what i wanted for my kids, i went to university and trained as a social worker.

i then left him! unfortunatly personal circumstances mean that i can't work now and so her i am again, on benefits. i have a PC, relativly nice furniture and hifi's DVD players....allsorts.
when i moved into my house on February i had nothing..not even beds!

i got all my stuff from freecycle, local charities and the generosity of family and freinds. how dare any of you point out the items she did have as if to say..."she can't be that hard up she has got a DVD player"

all those who have come on here and said, we were skint we had to do XYZ....you were in a breif period of financial difficulty, this is life for those girls.

i didn't watch the programme....i dont need to i have seen thousands of girls like this.

my DHs friends tried to diddle the tax credits by not puting his full wage on the form... they found out and stopped their tax credits for 18 months to pay it all back! And some people are living like them girls... its so unjust

LOL Twinset, are you paying more than £3.99 a bottle?

TS&P: i hope you read my post correctly. i didn't say these girls were right or wrong. just that i get the feeling that they didn't come across as some people who seem to get a lot more out of the system and use dubious methods of getting it.

God know I am so beyond cheap wine nowadays - hence the chicago pizza for lunch!

'all those who have come on here and said, we were skint we had to do XYZ....you were in a breif period of financial difficulty, this is life for those girls.'

For some of us, it's anything but brief financial difficulty, it truly is a way of life for the working poor, too, especially for those of us who live in places where the cost of housing VASTLY outstrips wages. Not just single mums experience extreme financial hardship.

I was pretty disgusted when the narrator said the father of Ala's children gives her £2/week for those kids.

kiskidee no I know what you meant, but even the people who are taking the system for a ride - who are wrong plale into insignificance when compared to corporate fraud.

i got that from the housing department too kiskidee, i was told that my parents should let me stay as they were middle class and people like that dont throw pregnant teens out...oh really???

now now expat it was £2.50 don't sell the man short!

other than the tenner, he was able to just completely leave her high and dry.

about that £2 a week thing... this is 2006... I cant believe there isnt riots outside whoever deals with child maintenance's offices... what on this earth can you buy for £2???? not even one bodysuit for a baby, one blanket, maybe a dummy?

if the father was on benefits also that is about right.

why is the dad on benefits?