Child poverty

And it's never the children's fault.

Until very recently, I was a befriender with a local charity. A volunteer would befriend a child who might benefit from regular one-to-one contact with a committed adult, often outside the home.
All the children I befriended over the years came from financially challenged homes. In some cases, I had the utmost respect for the way the mothers managed.
But the chaos and downright dirt in some households was truly depressing.
There's poverty and poverty. Some things can't be fixed.

M0nica

keepcalmandcavachon

MissAdventure

I reckon its sll down to batch cooking, myself...

What with false nails? Whilst watching a massive TV? Sorry no time, too busy getting tattoos

For a very small proportion of families that is true. For the vast majority it is not.

Oops! My clumsy attempt at taking the mick out of those that think these things are a cause of child poverty

I just read back my post, I didn’t mean to dismiss youg single parents as feckless, more a despairing ‘what a waste of young lives’. A lot to do with having someone, a baby, to love who loves them back.

Thanks to Fallingstar, Luckygirl and others whose direct work experience mean they understand the level of physical and emotional neglect many children live with. I’ve known children getting themselves to school early so they’d be put into clean school uniform with their filthy one washed and ready for the next day. Theyd be given the chance to shower, wash their hair. They’d get toast and a drink before school.

One of my children primary school teacher in area of high deprivation sat a weeping five year old on her knee. Miss I’ve missed breakfast club, I’m starving had nowt since school dinner yesterday, here she said meat this banana. No miss no, then you’ll be hungry.

I could go on, (and on ) but these are our children. Bring back SureStart, free breakfast clubs . We have parents in our communities who fifty years ago been in institutions, now they’re becoming parents. Some can manage but they often lack a supportive grannie, this is where properly funded social support is essentiakn

I will admit it must be difficult for mothers who have had their children only to find their husband leaves them.
However, for mothers who have more than three children when they were already living in poverty is a different matter.
Many years ago, I can remember one mother having six children all in poverty and expected the government to move her into a bigger house.
I will admit it is not the children’s’ fault just more eduction is needed about life after school.

Then we have the statistics of 107 children leave the care system every day the majority having little idea how a family unit works ( only the care system)
Their education will have suffered through moving around.
How are these young men and women expected to know how to raise a family. They have only had the care system to observe 😥

paddyann54

A Lotsof charities are creaming off the funds in “expenses” or extortionate rents to the king !
I only give my money to charities that are fairly local that I know the money goes where ots meant to go.
Mary,s Meals
Social Bite
Our local children’s hospice and a Glasgow soup kitchen
I used to give to Save the children etc until I saw what the expenses were for luxury cars and expensive hotels not forgetting large salaries.
I don’t believe that people who truly care about a cause,any cause do ot for a big fat pay packet.
I will note that child poverty in Scotland is the lowest in the UK. Mainly due to our governments policies.

Oxfam managed to build a plush new HQ; many stopped giving to them.

Charity commission need to get its act together - look at their register of the sheer number of charities purporting to do much the same thing, duplicate admin costs. Anyone can set up a charity and does not get chased to file accounts for years

Then all these companies collecting your stuff in the name of a charity, but the small print says they give only 10/20% of their profits to them.

paddyann54
Lotsof charities are creaming off the funds in “expenses” or extortionate rents to the king !

What is the evidence for this. I know some pay rent for facilities, but 'lots of' charities pay him rent.

I was heavily involved with a charity, which until recently worked under royal patronage. We never paid a penny to the monarch. All we did was send the library at Windsor Castle a copy of our publications. Nothing else.

There are over 170,000 charities in the UK of which 12,000 have incomes over £500,000. What proportion of these are paying huge rents to the King?

Oh, I had forgotten, this post is a waste of time. paddyann54 never gives sources for her wilder claims, presumably because there are none. The source for my information is www.markeluk.com/articles/uk-charity-sector-statistics

Sarnia

Some sweeping generalisations from Luckygirl3. I never felt alienated being educated in the 50's/60's. I went to my local Primary School, passed the 11+ and went to a girls' Grammar School. My Dad was a bus driver and my Mum worked part-time in the corner shop. I have 5 children who are parents themselves now who according to Luckygirl3 are whirling around in a cycle of deprivation. Not from where I'm standing.

Same here! Except I went to school in early 60’s and attended a girls only Secondary Modern (the dim family member, most of my cousins, Mum and Dad and their siblings all attended Grammar schools).

We have 5 children who all went through “the rigid education system” now aged 24-42, all working, all good jobs, two in their (mortgaged) houses, two more but g their first homes this year. None are “whirling around in a cycle of deprivation”

However I do know (mainly from when I worked and was a primary school governor) that there are many deprived families across the UK, for a myriad of reasons, I think our education system comes quite low in the list of reasons.

M0nica 👏👏👏

Although not publicised, the King and other members of the Royal Family give large amounts to charity.

Without some of his initiatives and support, many young people would not be working or able to set up their own businesses. Many crafts and skills would be lost were it not for his support for Dumfries House.

Perhaps paddyann thinks these initiatives are of no consequence but others may disagree.

petra

Then we have the statistics of 107 children leave the care system every day the majority having little idea how a family unit works ( only the care system)
Their education will have suffered through moving around.
How are these young men and women expected to know how to raise a family. They have only had the care system to observe 😥

Oh how I agree!

I worked with care leavers whilst at the job centre, a very sad and vulnerable bunch in the main, most likely to get pregnant early, most likely to be drawn to crime and/or drugs and despite actually being allocated after-care social and family workers the caseloads are so huge and resources so stretched that they cannot do much. Most likely to drop out of education early and very hard to break the cycle of inexperienced or non existence parenting skills and add to that those who experienced parental abuse, which made them be out into the care of the state.

Stories and people I met made me weep!

Allira

M0nica 👏👏👏

Although not publicised, the King and other members of the Royal Family give large amounts to charity.

Without some of his initiatives and support, many young people would not be working or able to set up their own businesses. Many crafts and skills would be lost were it not for his support for Dumfries House.

Perhaps paddyann thinks these initiatives are of no consequence but others may disagree.

What King Charles started as the Princes Trust is/was enormous, so many success stories, so many young people’s lives changed for the better.

But, not enough can access projects such as this and so many young people, especially those without strong parental support and role models get left behind and overlooked.

We will never abolish child poverty, or poverty because if there is a spread of incomes, those in the bottom group, will always be poorer than the rest.

Think back 100 years and how poverty presented itself then. benefits were almost non-existent. Help was not available until you had sold everything you possessed. There were no food banks, no free medecine, help with rent, 1 in 10 children died before they were 5, compared with 4 in a thousand now, mots of those list children would come from impoverished homes.
Think of all the help and support impoverished families get now.

I am not saying that poor people should not be be helped but abolishing poverty is impossible, the poor will always be with us, they will merely be less poor than in previous generations.

paddyann54

A Lotsof charities are creaming off the funds in “expenses” or extortionate rents to the king !
I only give my money to charities that are fairly local that I know the money goes where ots meant to go.
Mary,s Meals
Social Bite
Our local children’s hospice and a Glasgow soup kitchen
I used to give to Save the children etc until I saw what the expenses were for luxury cars and expensive hotels not forgetting large salaries.
I don’t believe that people who truly care about a cause,any cause do ot for a big fat pay packet.
I will note that child poverty in Scotland is the lowest in the UK. Mainly due to our governments policies.

I suspect many charities do pay 'extortionate rents to the king'.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/02/king-and-prince-william-estates-millions-charities-public-services-nhs-leasing-land

I also read somewhere King Charles has lowerd some rents.

My DH does deliveries for a local food bank, and some of the recipients might live in a ‘desirable’ area and are on the surface doing ok, but who are now, due to no fault of their own, redundancy etc find themselves using the food bank. He has had people crying in gratitude for it. Poverty is here all right, but it is often hidden.

You can't eat bricks and mortar.

Unfortunately people are having children who really are not fut to finish so. As for a five year old as moms carer how can this be allowed? Children should not be Carers, it's not fair on them. . Schools are having to deal with children who are not toilet trained and in many cases malnourished. Teachers dealing with such children takes teaching time away from the whole class. My family were not well off but I had good parents who would rather go without themselves, in a class of 40 there was probably one child who was unclean and neglected. If anyone missed school the parents would be in trouble from tge schoolboard man, who was an elusive person if he existed.
Many people give to charity anonymously so we cannot judge anyone. The care systems has let do many innocent children down, it breaks everyone's hearts to think of children hungry and neglected, if a parent just doesn't want the children there must be many who would. I really think it's the parents who should
be investigated as its the child that matters and suffers. A solution must be found. Emergency food rations might be one way instead of cash. It costs less to eat healthily than buying junk. People do give, is the money used wisely though?

People make babies.

If a parent has nowhere to live or doesnt have a method to gain food or has an ongoing disease or disorder, their children will be living in poverty. Maybe the children living in poverty cannot be helped or cured.

Maybe the ways to reduce the number of children living in poverty is to teach children survival lessons and also compassion for others so that when these.children get older and become parents they can trade these skills for food, a home, and methods of avoiding preventable diseases, mental disorders and tact to help others.

If a psycholoical or physical disorder is provable but not preventable, the poverty should be eliminated by using tax funds.

If people cant afford to look after their children, they shouldnt have them in the first place. Generally if you see single parents being interviewed on the tv saying how they are struggling, they seem to manage to have a cigarette in their hand.

I reckon this forum would be empty, if everyone had waited until they could afford children.

wintersday, I didn't know when I had my children that my husband would leave me for another woman.
I became a single parent and sole provider. I have never smoked, nor been interviewed.

I've never seen anyone smoking whilst being interviewed.

MissAdventure

I've never seen anyone smoking whilst being interviewed.

Neither have I.

No one knows what the future holds. male partners walk out on their female partners, marriages break up and women are left on their own to bring up their children, parents are widowed, or they or their partners are struckdown with ilnesses that amke working impossible or have disabling accidents.

Children are only depenedent on a high level of care until they reach secondary school and gradually gain independence over the nest 5 or 6 years.

Are people to go childless because for a few years in their children's childhood circumstances may make them dependent on the state?