BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 04:45 AM

'a reactionary gullible consumer of tabloid nonsense...'
Well, let's take reactionary first. I'm a Daily Mail reader, and I don't consider myself reactionary or right-wing, but tending toward the liberal. I welcome progress, change and reform, and do not necessarily worship the status quo.
I also consider myself to be quite unusual (I don't say this with any pride, merely as a fact) as I've benefitted from an excellent University education, travelled widely, had dealings with all levels of society as a teacher and Prison Visitor, seen abject poverty all over West Africa, and am married to a black African Muslim, while being on the PCC of my local church.
Gullible? No more than anyone else, and as I'm quite old, I tend to be a little cynical and sceptical, having seen a great deal in my life.
Tabloid nonsense? Possibly, but I have plenty of 'pinches of salt' in my armoury, and I enjoy reading my paper (and doing the puzzles, as I'm not terribly mobile these days and it passes the time agreeably)
So, speaking only for myself, yes I log on to Mudcat, and no, I am not
'a reactionary gullible consumer of tabloid nonsense'.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 04:16 AM

I suppose Mudcat is free whereas you pay for Daily Mail content, if bought off the top shelf in the newsagent.

As ever, a few examples get extrapolated to the extent where they could affect house prices in Daily Mail readers' neighbourhoods and Hey Presto! Something to put on tomorrow's fish & chip paper.

Of course, what really makes me smile is the assumption by some that anybody who logs onto Mudcat can't really be a reactionary gullible consumer of tabloid nonsense, can they?

Well?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 04:09 AM

It's always quite alarming when you appear veiled in flesh, Joe - your divine & infallible light is just too damn bright, especially at this time in the morning...

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:55 AM

Huh?

-one of those hard-working moderators-

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:45 AM

If Bluesman had added a Folklore prefix to his OP then one of those ever-so hard-working Mudcat Moderators we hear so much about would have removed it as an abuse of offially sanctioned terminology. And yet such Folk Myths and Demons have persisted since time immemorial - however so obvious their source - taking root in an Oral Tradition untroubled by reason. So well done 'catters for keeping such a noble tradition alive and (quite literally one fears, should ever they have the chance) kicking.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:41 PM

"I've probably met (yes, actually met and got to know) dozens more of these women than most posters on this thread."

Eliza I don't doubt that is so, I might match you on a purely numberwise basis purely because I grew up on an estate and still have family in such environs. But to be quite frank, I never went out of my way to bother myself with those who took the benefit-mum route, because I wanted OUT of that whole 'underclass' scene into which I was initially born. The result hasn't been as expansive as I wished for (life got in the way) but it is decidedly better than half a dozen babies on some grotty estate!

LLass

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:19 PM

Well if he was "attacking" my viewpoint, I'm happy to receive it at part and parcel of the idealistic principal of free speech on the one hand and the actual result of stimulation of free speech on the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:18 PM

He seems to know the rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:16 PM

Jack, I see you have met the forum pet. Says what he wants, does what he wants and unsults whoever he pleases.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:07 PM

Now that was an attack. But it stopped just short of being personal.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 06:00 PM

I've seen what else some of those above support.

Who could they possibly sympathise with?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 05:04 PM

Specifically in reference to teen-mums, I genuinely think that a supportive community housing environment (no, not based on Catholic examples) could be both liberating to young Mums and good for their infants. Particularly where a creche was part and parcel of the deal, so that girls would be free to continue in school or college or engage in other forms of focus outside of the domestic environment. Not 'offered' as an obligation of course, but only in instances where there is an absence of sufficient familial or other support.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 04:23 PM

"these girls are working the system...and who can blame them. ... Our system is rotten from top to bottom and if those at the top are too greedy to play by the "rules", how do you expect those at the bottom of the heap to behave?"

Indeed. It might shock some liberals to know that the working-classes can be quite pragmatic at times - and that's almost verging on "intelligent" dontcha known.. ;-)
Seriously though, choosing to 'opt out of the system' is something I've met MANY people espousing. Often more passive hippy/peace-nik types who haven't the drive for agitating the system. There's an entire sub-culture of opt-outers who actively CHOOSE to do so and make no bones about that choice either.
Given the options, I tend to feel it's a legitimate choice too, in some ways almost akin to civil disobedience, though less challenging - for as my father says to me, he was raised to be one of two things "cannon-fodder or factory-fodder" - just another little cog to be used and chewed up by the great machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTm-d40P6r8

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 05 Aug 11 - 01:24 AM

>>>>>>How does one firebomb a thread? Safely, I mean.<<<<<<< I guess a 'pyrothreadnics expert Jack! Interesting thread but this has been going on since the 60's and before... figures may be a little more accurate ( or inaccurate to suit the writer/producer). I guess we need to teach all the young ( and sometimes not so young) lads to use condoms!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 08:25 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7udZvZBawY

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 08:10 PM

Ah young Lox is on the bottle again tonight. As always his IQ comes through around this time of the evening. Don't worry mate, you will get over her in time. I can direct you to a few houses that will sort out your needs ! Love the post by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Lox
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 07:17 PM

Its very important to remember, when making Meringues, to wait till after the egg white has been well whipped before adding the castor sugar.

Its very frustrating when you forget.

Ah - well - perhaps this will cheer us up.


       The Jabberwocky

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 06:40 PM

I once berated my ex for reading the Daily Mail and got "Oh, I read it because it has such good writers" as a reply. This was the girl who berated me for supporting the Lib Dems (before I had disappointment) because they were "Going to let all the immigrants who'd been here become citizens". Part of me is glad I'm not with her anymore.

ANYWAY, I seriously doubt that there are tons of serial parents who use it for a career. What there is however, is a sense of entitlement brought by the pandering.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 06:37 PM

Teenage moms in the US are more a side-effect of religion, via the enforced ignorance of either sciences like biology or any info relating to anything "down there" including how to use contraception.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 05:22 PM

Well, I read the Daily Mail and have done so for years. But it's because I like the crossword and puzzle-page. I wish people wouldn't jump to ill-founded conclusions because one reads a certain newspaper! And I'm not a 'bleeding heart' (whatever that means!) neither do I stick my head in the sand. I've probably met (yes, actually met and got to know) dozens more of these women than most posters on this thread. Regarding the council estates, there are several in my region, and many of the blocks of flats are indeed inhabited my single mothers. Private letting is more often for professional couples, not single unemployed mothers. But I don't know about other parts of the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 04:47 PM

I don't know where you get the idea they all live in run down council estates. I live in an area built in the mid nineties, bungalows, semi detached and detached houses. Several were bought up by absentee landlords and at a guess I would say young single women occupy about a quarter of them. It gets noisy at weekends and quite a few drunk randy young studs (and some not so young) ring the wrong door bells of houses in the small hours of the morning obviously looking to get a load of their mind.

I don't live in a run down area (yet) so forget that council flat image you speak about. It is a problem and it needs to be addressed.

What's this craic about reading the Daily Mail ? I think it's garbage, I bought it once in my life as I thought there was a free copy of " Ice cold in Alex" turned out to be a token collection con job.

I see one or two bleeding hearts on here, just the type of people who live with their heads in the sand. We all see them on our High streets and I have two nieces that are scroungers. Their attitude is screw the system for all you can, and they do.

For the record, I am happily married with three kids. My wife and I both worked all our lives (and still do) Kids all married and working, and paying for child care. Wave your red flag elsewhere old chap.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: akenaton
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 03:47 PM

No point abusing the OP, he and Lively Lass are dead right, these girls are working the system...and who can blame them.

The system is presently fucking every one of us. We honest hard working tax payers, especially those of us on PAYE, who have no way of practicing tax avoidance.
We have all been robbed by the financial meltdown, caused by the greed of the very richest in society and brainwashed into thinking that we deserve an ever incresing standard of living...no matter how unsustainable that may be.

Our system is rotten from top to bottom and if those at the top are too greedy to play by the "rules", how do you expect those at the bottom of the heap to behave?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: mg
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 03:43 PM

I was talking about underage girls..15 or so..mg

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 03:41 PM

The thing is, Guest mg, most of the women would flatly refuse to be controlled like that. (Advantageous though it would be!) Unless they were totally 'enclosed' as in a prison, they would be having unprotected sex, getting pregnant, taking drugs and all the rest. One cannot in all conscience forcibly control every aspect of their lives. All that you suggest is excellent, but I still don't see how it could be implemented. As having illegitimate children is not a crime, one cannot 'punish' them. And withdrawing benefits would only increase their criminal activity. (Actually, no youngster on benefits can possibly live on the tiny amount it offers. They all do things to augment it.)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 03:31 PM

There should be all sorts of inspections and conditions..such as staying in school, learning a trade, working a few hours per day in a day care so others can do it as well, being drug tested constantly, having medical checks frequently, having a plan in place to have no further children until married, etc.etc, being chaperoned if underage, and that means at night as well, in terms of recreational activities. We have to find a happy ground between Magdelene laundries and societal chaos. Very little money should go directly to these young women, and they should live, without boyfriends living with them, in safe, secure, clean situations, with the expectation that they will be self-supporting if and when possible, and at the very least, not a further burden to society with more children, drug problems, domestic abuse etc. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 03:08 PM

looks exactly like a cut and paste job from the pages of The Daily Mail.

Actually my first thought on reading this missive was; is GUEST,Bluesman a delinquent father? One those irresponsible yahoos who seem to think that their job on earth is, yes, make those single girls/women pregnant and then sit back and write the rubbish we see before us.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 02:50 PM

So Bluseman,

What do you intend to do with the babies who have committed the horrendous crime of being born to single mothers?

(1) Starve them to death?

(2) Let them sleep in the gutter>?

(3) Sell them on to the international child exploitation industry?

(4) Enforce euthanasia for children who parents are being supported by benefits?

(5) send them to the workhouse so they can spend the rest of their lives picking oakum?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 02:48 PM

Willie-O, I do hope you don't think I was moralising? I have never 'judged' these young women, in fact I helped many of them with lifts to the station and coping with the children etc. when on Visits. I merely state the situation. I don't condemn them, what right have I to do so? But I don't see how we can change things.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Willie-O
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 02:41 PM

26000 pregnancies a year in a nation of what, 60 million?   

Doesn't sound like an explosion to me. Face it, you wouldn't give a quarter of a shit if they didn't gain some specific publicly funded benefit from the situation.

Great chance to do some moralizing on the follies of the young and lower-class though. Not like in our day.

Interesting discussion in some ways. Times are kind of bleak and shitty for most of our upcoming generations, aren't they? Not sure that the best reaction is to pull away the few available support systems.

W-O

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 02:04 PM

livelylass, I think these young women's aspirations were formed by the examples of their mothers and grandmothers, many of whom had illegitimate children and have not worked. Also, the so-called 'sink estates' are rife with all kinds of crime, which actually pays well, as I know from my contact with these type of women on prison visits. They often have plasma TVs, expensive mobile phones etc, paid for by drug selling, handling stolen property, prostitution and shop-lifting (which is done to order by an organiser) I'm stumped as to how we can break this 'underclass' situation. One quite young woman I got to know had no fewer than five children, each by a different father. She visited in two different prisons, taking the children with her, to see two of the fathers. A third was her pimp. One was dead from an OD, and the fifth called round now and then to see her! How does one remedy a situation like that?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:57 PM

"why is looking after a bunch of screaming babies and living in a little flat all on her own on some shitty council estate, the very best thing that a young working-class girl with her whole life ahead of her, imagines that she can aspire to achieve?"

No takers? Well I'd say because unfortunately, particularly in very depressed areas, it might possibly actually BE the best thing she can aspire to achieve. Unless she's an exceptionally self-motivated and intelligent individual, consider the likely alternatives: leaving school with a handful of useless GCSE's (no-one can afford a degree these days anyway) privately renting at today's ridiculously inflated prices (no-one can afford a mortgage these days either) and working some crappy minimum wage job... (oops, can't pay the rent on that low income).

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:56 PM

Oh, a fact-free zone.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:42 PM

That's $12,500 to about $15,000 per year!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:41 PM

A woman with three kids can live for 3 years on between £23,000 and £28,000. In the house of their choosing?

That's 12,500 to about 15,000 per year!

Wow! It is cheap to live over there.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:38 PM

It's true that there are career benefit serial mothers out there, no question of it. They existed when I was growing up, but there are far more of them now than there were then. However, the question begging is: why is looking after a bunch of screaming babies and living in a little flat all on her own on some shitty council estate, the very best thing that a young working-class girl with her whole life ahead of her, imagines that she can aspire to achieve?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:31 PM

Let me guess, you read the Daily Mail?

Subject: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:29 PM

Here in the UK we have seen an explosion in recent years of children born to young single girls.

Most will almost certainly be brought up on benefits, knowing nothing of a secure family life or a father's love and many will soon be beyond the control of the young girl who has chosen to bring them into the world.

A report published by the Prince's Trust revealed single teenage girls who baby sit for young single mothers at weekend's seem to admire their peers who have given birth and often seek to copy their status to acquire the free house having a baby brings.

All that is required, is to contact an estate agent, find the home you like, go to the Social Security office and they set up a direct payment to them.


The government waffle on saying that welfare benefits to single teenage mothers will be curtailed, bullocks. Britain has long had the highest teen pregnancy rates in the EU. The initiatives introduced to tackle the problem are not working. But this is shrugged off by the Government, which claims the situation will improve.

My daughter showed me this blog she found on the web. "Girls, do you want to know how to get a free house and a weekly wage without working ? OK. First, get pregnant by some random guy. Quite possibly you will both be drunk at the time, but this is not mandatory. Make sure you never see him again, except maybe outside the chip shop and once downtown on a Saturday night.

However, you are not bothered about him. Especially nine months later when you have your own lovely little baby. Congratulations. With one bound you have become a single teenage mum with the sole ambition of living off the State for the rest of your life.

Aim for three kids, don't worry about multiple-father pregnancies, the government never chase up on the guys. Why worry, the taxpayers will take care of the inevitable fallout. "


Living on Benefits in the UK has become a lifestyle choice. In fact, some see it as a pretty good option once the bore of a patchy but compulsory education is out of the way.

Was it really 12 years ago that Tony Blair decreed that the number of under-18s becoming pregnant in England and Wales would be halved by now? Yes. And that was the beginning of Labour's £286million campaign of sex education lessons, free contraceptives, pats on the head and a nice cup of sugary tea with which to wash down the morning-after pill. What a joke! Look at what has happened. The Government's morally lax teenage pregnancy strategy has been utterly hopeless. In this parallel universe, deterrent has become a dirty word.


Perhaps it is time to look at this issue from another angle and apply a straightforward cost/benefit analysis to our policies. Supporting single mothers is a significant expense for the state. The government itself says that "benefit payments to a teenage mother who does not enter employment in the three years following birth can total between £23,000 and £28,000 over three years".

About 26,000 teenage mothers give birth every year and go on to draw such benefits.

Perhaps we should simply ask ourselves why the state is required to cough up when a teenage girl gets pregnant. Clearly, a significant financial saving could be made if the state stopped subsidising pregnant teenagers. Beyond the mere bookkeeping, however, lies the possibility of social improvement.

Such a shift in personal responsibility might immediately lead to a reduction in the numbers of single young women having babies. That, after all, is what everybody wants.


Yet still we go on forking out for them. And still the numbers rise every year. It is obvious and undeniable that many tens of thousands of young girls get pregnant every year because they actively choose to do so. And one of the most obvious reasons they make that choice is because the rest of us – through the state – make it worth their while.