BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Aug 11 - 01:56 PM

Oh, a fact-free zone.

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: 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: 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 - 02:48 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 06:18 PM

He seems to know the rules.

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: 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,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: 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 - 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: 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,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: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 04:45 AM

The really worrying thing here is that all Folklore could turn out to be the consequence of the same unthinking mob impulse - even the nice stuff (although I hear they were burning effigies of single-mothers at Lewes last year). On another thread I hinted that, fascinating though it undoubtedly is, folklore is hardly marked by any actual ingenuity as such - which is certainly the case in this present moral witch-hunt.

My advice - get a life, folks: stop reading the papers!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 05:04 AM

Cross-posted with Eliza, but I think what she says there just proves my point. I'm not a reactionary gullible consumer of tabloid nonsense, but.... And that from someone who called one of the most offensively fascistic posts I've ever seen on Mudcat (mg's of 04 Aug 11 - 03:31 PM) excellent.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 05:26 AM

Sour grapes? Sour fecking Britain more like. No wonder the place is such a rancid shit-hole - and nothing to do with immigration, multi-culturalism or single-mothers either - just the persistence of the press and the idiots who write & read it.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 06:38 AM

Suibhine Astray, I did actually qualify my remarks by stating that one couldn't in all conscience control people's lives like that, much as many of the suggestions might indeed benefit these lost and drifting women. I also pointed out some (IMO) practical problems with the changes mg suggested. With regard to your last posting, I don't myself regard Britain as a 'rancid shithole'. I find it still a wonderful country, with much about it to love and admire.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Lox
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 07:03 AM

This whole bizarre attention seeking ritual of provocation and wind up by the worlds only toothless troll is interesting.

The thing that's most bizarre about it is of course the persistence of the Troll in eliciting a response as well as closing in on specific targets and hounding them.

I like to wind people up sometimes, but spending all my time stoking up anger online can't be a healthy preoccupation.

Of course whats weirder is that the Daily Mail seems to share this preoccupation.

They too knowingly make stuff up and then poke the fire with "controversial" statements based on such "facts".

A sociopath on a chat forum is one thing, but Sociopaths running the media is more of a problem.

I hope the Murdochs do get their come-uppance.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 01:06 PM

This is quite worrying - I find myself at least partly in agreement with both Mither and Sweeney.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 01:53 PM

The Daily Stale may have one of the top readerships, but I prefer quality over quantity

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 02:38 PM

The Daily Whine, may be a pile of crud, but to deny that some groups of people make certain practical choices about their lives which might not suit a more politically idealistic vision of the reality in which these folk live, is arguably, a glad result of not living in that reality. Benefit-mums undoubtedly exist (in point of fact, they exist in my own family) probably not to the hideous public-service leeching volumes that scaremongering rags like the DM might wish the 'tax paying public' to imagine, but they do.

As I said above, the question begging, is why does ANY young woman imagine that living in a council flat on some shite estate surrounded by screaming kids is a positive option when compared to the other options available to her? I think the answer lies in the class system and the consequent "options" that are in fact available to her.

LL

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 02:55 PM

it's a non question, it's some peoples choice to live that way,so let them

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:06 PM

"it's some peoples choice to live that way,so let them "

You mean single mothers of Daily Mail readers?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:10 PM

I don't personally think that many of these women had much 'choice'. Although in theory they had the 'benefit' of a State Education, the schools they probably attended were thronged with badly-behaved and unmotivated students, and their parent/s couldn't have cared less about whether they did well, or even attended regularly. Sexual images, the media etc encouraged them to become precociously promiscuous, and lack of moral guidance did nothing to persuade them not to have sex at an early age. If one wishes they could have pursued a career, a profession or respectable work, this wasn't on the cards for most of them. One can't be surprised or annoyed that they have babies and need housing and Benefits. But (as I keep saying, rather feebly) I can't see how to break the cycle and obtain a better deal for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:13 PM

By the way, are we discussing the thread title, or have we drifted into how deplorable it is to read the Daily Mail? (And I do hope it isn't me who was described as the 'toothless troll' by Lox??)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:25 PM

I believe it was GUEST,Daily Mail reader aka GUEST who was referred to as the toothless troll

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:26 PM

"it's a non question, it's some peoples choice to live that way,so let them"

It's a form of "choice" in theory perhaps, though I'd be happier with that notion if a broader demographic - specifically more young women from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds - forged the ranks of young single mothers.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:42 PM

benefit these lost and drifting women

Who says they're lost and drifting? They're just people, no more lost or drifting than you & I, dealing with life as they see fit and making lemonade where necessary. More power to them - if there is a them of course, rather than a few canny Daughters of Albion who the reactionary misogynistic media perceive as an organised mob-threat to public decency, moral order and so-called Christian Values. As far as I'm concerned such decency, order or values can't be threatened enough - high time we dispose of them altogether then we might be getting someplace, especially when they are used as a means to superiority and condecension as is very much the case here.

And as for Britain being a rancid shithole - well, this is the land of my birth and it's where I have chosen to live. I sing its Folksongs, enjoy its Classical and Popular Music Traditions (from Dowland to UK Hip-Hop), and having spent a lovely rainy day in Saltaire and partaking of the delights of Salt Mills and the Early Music Shop then there must be something about Great Britain I love. But the bastards who run it (GB, not Salt Mills) have sold it down the pan - and yet dare to scapegoat the innocent for its faults, whilst the media persist in seeing faults where there aren't any just to keep the population afraid of its own shadow. One of these days the Good People of Britain will realise that its shadow is its best ally - and those lost and drifting women truly our best hope for a worthy future.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:58 PM

They are indeed lost and drifting, producing children who are at the very least badly parented (and needing our Tax money to live on). They are not reaching their full potential. They are not contributing to society. Their lives are not happy or stable. (At least, those I have spoken with.) I do not view them from a standpoint of either superiority or condescension, why should I? I am not in any way 'superior' to anyone. I have never metioned 'Christian Values'. I do not believe in threatening decency or order. Without them we would be living in a state of anarchy. But I'm so glad you find some things about our country to love.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 03:59 PM

M'Unlearned friend agreeing with rational people and The Daily Mail being described as good on the basis of sales.

Ah well, at least the above people are deflecting flack from those who vilify young ladies who end up paying dear for a night's passion. Even those whose expectations of life are so low that the lure of benefits based on fantasy seem to be sufficient to make life choices.

What a sad world we live in.

Good job I'm about to go down the pub. Without beer I might take life too seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 04:18 PM

"young ladies who end up paying dear for a night's passion. Even those whose expectations of life are so low that the lure of benefits based on fantasy seem to be sufficient to make life choices."

It's not all about that "Oopsydaisy, forgot my pill!" teen lust stuff either, or indeed economic pragmatism based on limited options. Some of these girls having come from a shitty background themselves simply desire a loving 'family' life and so decide to go out and make one for themselves. And I've known some perfectly devoted serial Mums on benefits, including the multiple fathers thing and all - distrust of Men can of course be a part of the equation in many a rough working-class girls life. But again, there are a number of nuances to this stuff which will never reach the pages of right-wing media.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 05:20 PM

The problem is that there are not enough resources to take care of people with severe handicaps, or old age or other circumstances to have our youngest and healthiest people of working age not working. It takes money away from those unable to work and there is apparently not enough lmoney to go around. That is a problem. For every teenager with children that the state has to support, there is that much less money to take care of people with unmet health needs, shelter etc. If we were smarter we would find ways to have the young mothers work in agencies that helped the elderly and handicapped in exchange for some of their support, but we haven't figured that out yet. I am totally for supporting people who need it, but I am also for it being a two-way street, with those who are able to contributing back in various ways. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 05:36 PM

At the risk of being labelled a fascist by Suibhne, I totally agree with your viewpoint, mg. That is the position in a nutshell.

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

young mothers work in agencies that helped the elderly and handicapped


Frankly, don't these people deserved better caretakers than irresponsible people, forced to do it?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 05:45 PM

Some of 'my' prisoners, when released and under the Probation Service for a while, used to be coerced into painting old ladies' houses. They made a right mess of it I can tell you!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Aug 11 - 10:08 PM

Oh woe is me! If I can make sense of what Mr Fluids says, I am going to have to agree in part with something he says too!

It would be of assistance if the reactionary Bluesman would provide the precise provenance of the alleged Prince's Trust report to which he refers.   Most reports falling to hand appear to be to publications from 2004 and 2001, and not quite in the terms he suggests.

I suspect that his reference to increasing teenage birth rates in the UK is a conjuration. I also suspect that medically, there maybe much to recommend teenage births. I am sure I have seen medical concern at the "elderly primagravida" problem.

The suggestion that it is so simple for a teenage mother to find a flat and get the whole rent paid for by benefits is surely wrong. Most of those whom I know and who are on benefits find it a constant struggle to make ends meet and to afford the things that the rest of us take for granted.

One must accordingly enquire why the supporters of oppression above do assert what they do. The natural assumption is that they support the propertisation of women, which in turn requires adherence to the "good girl" social construct which in turn models the judeo-pauline demonisation of sexuality outside a propertised relationship, itself a tool of oppression by organised religions. Or, in short, they are evil exploiters and supporters of a top-down patriarchy. Women who refuse to be owned threaten them, or remind them of their own inadequacy, perhaps.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Lifebouy
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 03:44 AM

Bridge has written some "off the wall" comments on the cat over the years (none were deleted by the way), now he wishes to turn the problem of young women deliberately getting knocked up so they can get a free party house and a generous weekly hand out from the taxpayer for their collections of "beer tokens" to various unknown fathers into the female white slave trade. What the hell has this to do with oppression of women ?

Earlier in the week , he posted that he wanted to firebomb members who oppose his viewpoints on this thread, well it is an improvement on him "wishing cancer" on another member who opposed his viewpoint a few months ago.

Most people keep a dog or a cat as a pet, Max should really consider this, a Bridge does not make a good pet.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: akenaton
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 05:36 AM

Anybody ever heard of the "underclass"?
They live in hell...most of them numb with alchohol or hard drugs, they survive on benefits because there is nothing else and having babies is the only way of increasing those benefits.

After a few years in hell, they come to see that for them life is short and set in stone....there is no exit door.

Oh yes....and very soon there will be millions more residing there, as the poverty gap gets ever wider.

I dont read the Mail, but I've been to hell on a few "day visits" and I can assure you nice middle class people....ya don' wanna go therr!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 06:19 AM

A bridge may not make a good pet, but by agreeing with a few people he doesn't normally have time for, he is at least as able to pleasantly surprise you as my greyhound is.

Mind you, lets not get complacent. I think I see his last point, but if he rewrote it with words of less syllables, we thick Northerners might be able to debate at his superior level. I get the point that living in benefits isn't the life of Riley and glad to see someone make that point. Not so sure about the supporters of oppression being quite so relevant to this debate, but rock on Bridge, you might find a thread to put that in some day and I may even agree with it.

This thread is about either a type of person or a situation many types of people can get themselves in. Methinks if we decide whether we are stereotyping people or situations the debate may get somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: akenaton
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 07:07 AM

Glad to hear you're a member of the club Ian.
Appreciating greyhounds excuses a lot of political opinions.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 07:37 AM

"living in benefits isn't the life of Riley and glad to see someone make that point."

No it isn't, at least one of my friends (who has a minor disability) supplements her income by (gasp!) dealing drugs.. No not crack cocaine outside the school gates, stuff like Weed, E or K, to grown-up festival goers mainly during the Summer festival scene. In point of fact, that's pretty normal. Others will use other means, like odd jobbing for cash in pubs, or gardening and cleaning for middle-class folk). However back to the point, while living on benefits might not be the life of riley, it can still actually work out better than trying to pay the rent on a low income. Considering how much it costs to rent privately (baring in mind that the bulk of affordable social housing stock is mostly in private ownership now), and considering how little income a minimum wage job will bring home, the working poor in this country can often be the worst off financially of the lot - hence the phrase "can't afford to work".

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 07:55 AM

I suggest you increase your number of greyhounds then. Your opinions may benefit from the tolerance you need settling an ex racer into domestic retirement...

Next time you go and shake hands with the underclass, take a flask and butties, the more you hear the more your understanding may be reflected in your views?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 09:34 AM

They live in hell...most of them numb with alchohol or hard drugs, they survive on benefits because there is nothing else and having babies is the only way of increasing those benefits.

This patronising myth-making is repulsive in the extreme. Now I know why it's best not to venture below the line, which is a tabloid hellish realm in its own right. Still, folklore is folklore. In the old mill-towns pregnant underage girls were forced to give birth at their looms and as soon as their babies were born they put to work by being rolled across the floor so the fluff would gather on their bloody bodies. This fluff would be scraped off by teenage wet-nurses who were especially skilled at making felt hats for the gentry. Of course they got by - largely by recourse to hard drugs, alcohol, and by having sex with anyone who could find any sort of pleasure at all in their emaciated skeletal bodies. The average life expectancy was 14 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: akenaton
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 09:52 AM

I could take you to a hundred places in the west of Scotland where that "myth" is a reality.

Do you really think I would write what I did without some experience of the problem.
I have no intention of giving details of that experience, but suffice to say that it has taken up a large part of the last years of my life.

Guest....I don't know what point you are trying to make, but go to any "scheme" in Greenock,Dumbarton, Glasgow,or small Clyde estuary towns and you will find what I have described.
Its not folklore, but happening today in our affluent and "democratic" society.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 10:49 AM

akenaton has a point. If you have a word with the Police in any town, large or small, they will know all the districts and the individuals involved in that sort of lifestyle. I have been privileged to have contact with our local Police when one or more of 'my' prisoners was re-arrested. They told me all sorts of hair-raising facts about their work with offenders and their womenfolk. It is not rare but commonplace, and certainly not 'folklore'.
Anyone who ventures 'below the line' and feels it is 'a tabloid hellish realm in its own right' need never venture thence again. Simples! (as a meerkat would say)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:40 AM

Come gather around and I'll tell ye a tale.
A tale you won't soon forget
About a teeeenaged mother
and a bridge that she kept for a pet.

She was still a school age youngster
A young lass of barely thirteen
A gathering up the lint babies
And the straw boss was so very mean

So she found her self a young fellow
And he too was barely a pup
And I can't go into the details
But before long she was knocked up

A weight was gone from her shoulders
A burden released form her soul
She no longer had responsibility
She now could go on the dole

So she called up the estate agent
And picked out a wonderful home
The time she don't spend carousing in pubs
She spends talking on mobile phone

Except for Monday mornings
Which she spend there a waiting in line
Talking about the men that she knew
Causing her uncle to whine

About the horrible system
That supports his young niece in high style
And folks who appreciate irony
are somewhat inclined to smile

For a man who looks at his family
and says that the system is grim
Might want to show some gratitude
For at least there's no burden on him.

So all of you hard luck lassies
Who think that the school life is hard
Just think of the life of luxury
You could have with ten kids in the yards

All together now!!
Just think of the life of luxury
You will have with ten kids.......

In..... the .... yard.......

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:49 AM

The Ballad of the Teenage Mother (Edited version)

Come gather around and I'll tell ye a tale.
A tale you won't soon forget
About a teeeenaged mother
and a bridge that she kept for a pet.

She couldn't afford the vet bills
So the bridge died when it was quite young
She also didn't have the money for pill
and so this song must be sung

She was still a school age youngster
A young lass of barely thirteen
A gathering up the lint babies
And the straw boss was so very mean

So she found her self a young fellow
And he too was barely a pup
And I can't go into the details
But before long she was oh so knocked up

A weight was gone from her shoulders
A burden released from her soul
She no longer had respons-ibility
She now could go on the dole

So she called up the estate agent
And picked out a wonderful home
The time she don't spend carousing in pubs
She spends talking on mobile phone

Except for Monday mornings
Which she spends there a waiting in line
Talking about the men that she knew
Causing her uncle to whine

About the horrible system
That supports his young niece in high style
And folks who appreciate irony
are somewhat inclined to smile

For a man who looks at his family
and says that the system is grim
Might want to show some gratitude
For at least there's no burden on him.

So all of you hard luck lassies
Who think that the school life is hard
Just think of the life of luxury
You could have with ten kids in the yards

All together now!!
Just think of the life of luxury
You will have with ten kids.......

In..... the .... yard.......

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 11:54 AM

What is a ' bridge ' that you can keep as a pet ?

Baffled, Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 12:19 PM

"If you have a word with the Police in any town, large or small,"

It also depends what company you keep too, anyone living in social housing or who has family and/or friends who are, or indeed anyone in contact with services like NEEDAS will probably be aware of the dodgier local areas simply because they become well known within a particular strata of the community via the grapevine. While most social housing tenants will probably want to keep out of such areas, you will get those who actually want to exchange TO them, specifically because they will be closer to their community of dealers & fellow users. So you end up with an osmosis, whereby certain locations (it could literally be a single street) will effectively develop a reputation as "drug central" for that town and even maybe further afield. I can think of a couple of such locations not too many miles from me right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:25 PM

Livelylass, that's exactly the case in the city near where I live. And in many others too. Certain streets and certain districts (which I, like you, could name) have for whatever reason become rookeries of this way of life. I suspect the Council deliberately houses certain types in these places 'to keep them all together' and to spare the 'better quality council residents' (not my words). It makes it easier for social workers and District nurses, Police and other folk involved in their surveillance to access them. They can 'do' several in the same street in one morning! And the single unemployed young mums who live near eachother supply mutual support and company. But in my experience, they fight a lot and physically attack eachother, they seem quite volatile. Probably, living their lives on the edge stresses them out terribly. I've visited some of them in their flats, and even wallpapered/painted a baby's room for a young lass. But the squalor has to be seen to be believed. I don't know how they can be helped out of that way of life.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:33 PM

"I suspect the Council deliberately houses certain types in these places 'to keep them all together'"

They're called ghettos, let's not be polite about it, the Nazis used them, the apartheid regime in South Africa called them townships, a rose by any other name, the towns and cities in the American south had /have their so-called "Negro Districts", but call them what you will, they are plain and simply ghettos. Far easier to control the people that way, put them altogether.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 01:49 PM

The housing is actually quite nice, good flats in a pleasant location generally. No huge tower blocks. But the residents seem to spoil the neighbourhod, eg chucking furniture out onto the front 'garden', (weed plot), used needles lying about, dirty nappies chucked over the fence etc. The young women I visited (girlfriends of 'my' prisoners left high and dry after the Police had wheeled away their man for the umpteenth time ) saw nothing wrong in the filthy and untidy rooms they lived in. I used to smile, they were often busy varnishing their nails beautifully, while all around was muck and mess, and the babies crawling about with filthy little faces!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 04:52 PM

They need inspections and some sort of house mother for the underage ones. Public housing should not mean destruction of public property and it should not mean child neglect and it should not mean housekeeping that can bring in bugs and vermin..which can also be found in good housekeeping as well. There should be rules about how much can be brought into the house and how it is to be disposed of and they should count on house mother doing routine inspections at least weekly.

Oh I quake that someone might call me a fascist. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 05:03 PM

And if I say "I agree" mg, I might be called a fascist as well! Trouble with our suggestions is that the young women in these flats would resent terribly any interference like that, even the very young ones are feisty and defensive. I had to 'box clever', and never criticise. I worked often in conjunction with a Quaker organisation for prisoners and their families, and their approach was very 'softly softly'. I'm not a Quaker myself, but their work is admirable and non-confrontational. I sometimes wonder if us older women might 'adopt' in some sense a little family, popping in and advising? But it has its dangers. These communities are violent, drug-ridden and aggressive. You risk being told to "FUCK OFF!" loud and clear. (I was, several times!)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 06:13 PM

They need to be told this is what you have to do to keep your benefits, and this is what you have to do to keep your baby..as in keep her fed and clean and in a safe environment. There should be grades of housing..some totally indestructable with only the basics, and some nicer stuff that they could earn, or lose...there should be excellent security in all of these places and if they have idiotic practices like they have in the states with vulnerable elderly and mentally ill people being mixed in with aggressive sorts..that has to stop. There should be lots and lots of oh dear fascist video surveillance and checkpoints for visitors to check in. People can and do adapt to all sorts of restrictions, and it should be understood from day one that public benefits are going to come with strings attached, the first being good behavior. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Lox
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 08:08 PM

No Eliza :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:10 AM

"I suspect the Council deliberately houses certain types in these places 'to keep them all together'"

I've no idea whether that might be true or not to be honest. I guess it's possible, but baring in mind that much like those who work in other social services people who work in social housing tend to do so at least in part due to a high sense of social responsibility, I have trouble with that notion. My old housing officer for example was a Marxist, I rather doubt that he would have subscribed to any such practice! Basically housing stock is impossibly limited, there isn't any left, so what there is is almost exclusively allocated to those in greatest need. Those in greatest need will be those with a number of children, people fresh out of nick, the disabled, those living on the street and those with mental health problems (not unusual to find several of those things going together of course). As I said before however, you will see a certain amount of 'self selection' going on, particularly if you're a social housing tenant who's ever been involved in exchange schemes: "i hav luvly house wiv nice size garden, new bathroom and kitchen. want 2 go to bluebird way". My old estate was a grotty place and notoriously tough to get out of, there was car theft and some knife crime, drugs of course were available if you knew who the local dealer was (as everyone did) and to top it off a child sex ring was found operating there. The people we finally exchanged with wanted to live on that specific estate to be near their friends. Even though one might wonder, there's nothing very shocking in that really either - after all we all want to live somewhere we feel at home.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:32 AM

PS though where we lived wasn't nice, it was still way better than many other estates elsewhere! I'd rather live out of a van than on some of those sink estates.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:40 AM

You have to decide whether you favour the oppressors or the oppressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 03:58 AM

An oppressed person in the examples given above can easily be an oppressor of others.

if we all go around with a victim mentality, it will be difficult to pin blame on anyone or indeed anything.

Bridge makes a short and pithy remark that is, for once, pertinent to this discussion. However, I would feel more comfortable with it if he put the word "perceived" in a couple of places in the sentence. Relativity has never been confined to physics. Even the sink estates referred to have a mixed economy. At the risk of sounding dramatic; in the valley of the blind the one eyed man is King. (And possibly oppressing the others.....)

(Just blending in with the tradition of abstract waffle.)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:37 AM

There was an article in New Scientist some months back (sorry, haven't kept it so can't give the reference) that did a good job of explaining why single teenage motherhood is actually a good strategy under some circumstances - like no job, no prospects, and less than average life expectancy. It makes sense if you consider that, biologically at least, our sole purpose in life is the propagation of our genes.

Some people OTOH may consider that NS has a lot in common with DM...

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 06:55 AM

Oppressors or oppressed? Well, I know where I stand. Crudely speaking I tend to see the so-called 'underclass' as *effectively* the product of a feat of Capitalist social engineering. These folk didn't just wake up one sunny day and think "How mysterious, I no longer feel like doing an honest days work down at the steel yard/docks/pit (wherever), all of a sudden I fancy some yummy special brew for breakfast. Then I think I'm going to go out and do some robbing, before creating a few nippers before tea, and having a nice drop of heroine before bedtime."
So, while I tend to think that people (all people) will try to make the best choices they can for themselves, when options are limited, they will make choices that others might think are not very err constructive. The question Eliza asks is "how do we break the cycle.." It has to start with serious reinvestment in depressed areas, or even as Ake suggests, a complete overhaul of 'the system'. Of course neither of those things will happen under this government, and we'll keep getting those articles in the DM blaming groups of people who have been dumped in the poo by policies they promote, for being horrible smelly poopy people.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Lox
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 07:45 AM

On the matter of 'oppressed versus oppressors' - this can be a difficult criteria to operate by as it is often so subjective.

In Zimbabwe for example, it is very easy to see that opponents of Zanu PF are amongst the ranks of the Oppressed.

However, Robert Mugabe would turn round (yes he's a mad fool and I don't support one iota of his opinon) and say that Zimbabwe was oppressed by the west, and that his vision was to free zimbabwe from that oppression, and in order to do so he had to lock down political dissent.

You and i would look at that and say - well Mugabe is nuts ... so who cares what he says ...

But then you could ask who is oppressed and who the oppressor in Cuba - a slightly greyer area - I happen to like Cuba for its health service and education, and for its culture of community responsibility - something that Castro can take responsibility for.

However, Castro was a pretty ruthless dictator in other ways and I do not agree with oppression of anyone.

If you accept the principle of sacrificing one persons well being to facilitate anothers in one context, then why not in an opposing context.

A third case is that of the USA where the culture is one of absolute freedom of enterprise and protecting the conditions in which 'freedom' can flourish.

Taxes and environmental regulations and gun laws represent 'oppression' if you have that mind set, evn though many of us would see that mind set as resulting in the effective oppression of the poor.

And it is perhaps ironic that Americas 'free' society owes its existence to slavery and conquest - so one wonders whether it can ever really claim t be a free country at all.

But you get my gist I think that one mans oppressor is another mans oppressee (if there is such a word).


A more useful yard stick could be just "do you give a shit about peoples suffering or not"?

A lot of people don't and will quite happily stick the boot into the weakest of people if it helps to feather their nest just a little more.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 09:52 AM

"A more useful yard stick could be just "do you give a shit about peoples suffering or not"?"

And a more useful yardstick to determining how much you give a shit (than simply claiming to give a shit) might be how much you get your hands dirty trying to help relieve that suffering.

While I don't get my hands dirty, I have considered participating in schemes my current landlord oversees for tenants willing provide support for other tenants, unpaid social support essentially. What puts me off is dealing with aggressive behaviour and abuse from those who either expect someone to magically provide the four bedroom house (which doesn't exist) they need to solve their overcrowding problem or those who would (and arguably quite rightly too of course) object to what they saw as interference from busy-body do-gooders.

Eliza's received a great deal of criticism here, but for all the pooh pooing, I haven't heard anyone else sharing the ways in which they offer their time and get their hands dirty directly addressing the problems that members of the 'underclass' currently face in this country. As said, I know I don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 10:06 AM

Correction to that last statement:

I think Akenaten alluded to something that he's actively involved with in deprived areas of Scotland, but preferred not to give details.

And of course others here may also prefer to refrain from offering equivalent details too of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 10:53 AM

Thank you livelylass. I have to say, any small help I may have managed to offer, either with visiting the prisoners in prison or their girlfriends & their babies at home, was very very rewarding and fascinating. I learned an enormous amount, and it gave me something to do in the way of being useful. But I don't feel I changed anything in the long run for any of the young people I came into contact with. My feeble efforts weren't enough to help them turn their lives around, as it would need investment by the Government, and social Professionals to get more involved (in a gentle, advisory way). But I did feel some of them looked on me as a friend, and they were usually pleased with any little thing I managed to do. If volunteers wanted to do similar things, they would have to tread warily, be respectful and sensitive, and have a genuine, sincere sympathy for the women. Also, they'd have to be pretty bomb-proof, and not mind dirt, shocking sights or an earful of abuse from time to time!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 11:07 AM

I would love to know what unemplyed single mothers are suffering ?
I went to Post Office this morning and stood in line behind the teen pram brigade. Conversations ranged from who shagged who to what colour of forms to fill in to screw more out of the government. They all collected a healthy bundle of 20 pound notes may I add.

I remarked to the post mistress about the amounts these young women were collecting, she said, "words fail me, they are much better off than any of those working for living."

She informed me that they also go top of the list for child care places,yes they have all day on their own to lay back and think of England, the land of plenty!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 11:16 AM

Well Bluesman, the ones I went to see were prisoners' families, and had often suffered with physical abuse, drugs, alcoholism, health problems, depression, fear of dealers and neighbours' aggression. The ones you describe are not the same type perhaps, they sound quite contented!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 11:20 AM

Yes Eliza they are. Advise the ones you know to contact an Estate Agent and see what Semi's are on the market to rent, sadly all are gone around my home.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 11:32 AM

It's a good ten years since I stopped the Prison Visiting, and started travelling around West Africa, so I'm afraid I'm not in contact with the young mums any more. Instead, I help financially with my husband's parents and extended family in Ivory Coast. Now there IS poverty, grinding and even life-threatening. Ivory Coast has no Benefits system at all, and people can literally starve to death. But generally, one's family take in their own, so unwed mums are never a burden on the State. Should we perhaps copy that culture? Parents have to cater for their daughters' illegitimate offspring.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 12:22 PM

The idea that benefit recipients can just walk into an estate agent and magically get the benefit system to pay the rent on a "nice" house is barking mad. I've had lodgers in my house struggling to manage - at least one lodging here as a condition of bail on a serious charge (and some ripping me off), and I've got tenants in my late mother's bungalow struggling to manage (actually all male) and have had others destroying the bungalow and doing a runner, but NONE of them could raise the actual market rent through the benefits system. The structure of the system requires them to use a significant part of their living allowance to pay the rent.

The hidden agenda of the pocket dictators above is given away by Bluesman who apparently thinks that young women on benefits should not be allowed to have sex, and Eliza - who appears to believe that the vital distinction is legitimacy or illegitimacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 12:26 PM

Just one question Livelylass.

You slipped in the word "capitalist" when you mentioned social engineering. Why?

I know they didn't have Special Brew in Soviet Russia, but cheap vodka and home make potato peeling spirit was all the rage with those whose lives were similar to those you reckon are a victim of capitalism.

Do you really think moving away from social democracy with a market economy will eradicate the Special Brew elite and Accident & Emergency frequent flyers' club?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 12:37 PM

"NONE of them could raise the actual market rent through the benefits system. The structure of the system requires them to use a significant part of their living allowance to pay the rent."

All true. And all also a consequence of the big sell off of public housing as overseen by Thatcher. One generation did terribly well out of that scheme (I know one couple, now retired, who were able to buy up not just one but two council houses at 50% of their real value) but now their children and grandchildren will do less well - at least in part - as a consequence.

In fact there is a building wave of anger amongst generation Y against their elders who have - so far as they can see - gobbled up all the pie and lapped up all the cream, and left them with nought but the pips to swallow. Simplistic perhaps, but when considering that generation Y will be the ones caring for those same elders once they are geriatrics one wonders what kinds of "geriatric care" they will be willing to fund in a couple of decades..

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 12:47 PM

"You slipped in the word "capitalist" when you mentioned social engineering. Why?"

Thatcherism to be more precise and what followed from there. Selling off affordable social housing. Dismantling traditional working-class industries. Outsourcing of workforce to cheaper foreign labour. A pretty crude summation as said.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 01:09 PM

I don't know what a working class industry is, please enlighten me.

I used to work down the pit and Th*tcher had a hand in my industry's demise, but speaking for myself (and many many more) I don't drink Special Brew or have a victim mentality. In fact, despite the huge amounts of condescending claptrap by patronising Guardian readers, most workers from traditional industries have either retired or got off their arses and found work because I suspect many of the issues mentioned here are about having the will to work or not, and once you have a comfortable lifestyle through effort, you tend to keep looking for it.

In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that low expectations lead to low attainment. Perhaps at the risk of sounding radical, the usual "blame a political party / system that doesn't float your boat" may not be much use to those who have either been failed by all colours of government or who would choose to enlist your undoubted sympathy.   

The woods are full of both. Not sure a single solution would help, and especially not a solution based on finding political scapegoats for all society's ills. Politicians cannot and don't affect society as much as they set out to do. If they did, then we would all be buggered.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 01:09 PM

"Do you really think moving away from social democracy with a market economy will eradicate the Special Brew elite and Accident & Emergency frequent flyers' club?"

No I don't Ian, I think there will always be those who don't wish to participate in whatever the societal norm is supposed to be. Perhaps such individuals are too individualistic in nature or perhaps they are simply fucked-up in some way, or maybe they reject the "have more, be better" aspirations of most people. Who knows, but there will always be those who won't dance to the tune of social conformity, whatever tune that may be, and so end up (either by design or default) living on the edge of approved societal norms.

I'm unsure if it is still the case in the Netherlands, but one scheme the Dutch implemented which seemed highly pragmatic to me, was to allow those who wished to 'opt-out' to do so on the understanding that they would receive basic state benefits in return for not accepting any paid work for five years. No need to sign on or otherwise go cap in hand to the benefit office. My understanding of this scheme was that it was based on the notion that any vigorous economy results in a percentage of it's population necessarily being unemployed? But that's something I'm no informed position to argue one way or the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 01:26 PM

Mither reminds me strongly of the parody of "the Red Flag".


"The working class
can kiss my arse
I've got the foreman's
job at last

Those out of work
And on the dole
Can stick the red flag
Up their hole"


Who are "the Special Brew elite and A&E frequent flyers' club" except those less gifted than he at climbing on the corpses of the hopes of others?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 01:32 PM

To be honest, neither am I.

Opting out through choice and being on the shitty end of society's stick are two different things though. it is low expectation that gives us many of society's ills. Not all, but many of them.

The Dutch experiment may deal with a few of the former but other than accepting the latter will always be with us, I'm not sure any overall solution is either viable or obtainable. Raising expectations of your own self esteem is hard enough to achieve personally, let alone apply it to huge numbers of people.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Lox
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 01:36 PM

Conflating Blue-man and Eliza is not fair.

Eliza is giving her point of View with Passion and conviction.

Blue-man is here to wind you up

That's why he started the thread.

Eliza is as much a victim of his poison as anyone else.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 01:44 PM

Ditto that Lox.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:05 PM

"Opting out through choice and being on the shitty end of society's stick are two different things though. it is low expectation that gives us many of society's ills. Not all, but many of them."

I have very mixed feelings here. I've known a number of people who espouse exactly the same philosophy as you do. Highly driven and self-motivated individuals, who had no time for the residents of the slummy estates that they left behind in their quest for a life less shite..

And I can empathise with that, to a degree. I don't strongly identify with those (including family members) who remain bogged down in those crappy built-up environments (albeit, as I say, not so bad as northern sink estates) and yet I also KNOW the reality of the working poor which makes it harder to subsist on a low wage than on benefits.

But neither was I able myself (through compromising health issues) to fully break free personally, as once upon a time was my presumption. So I never did as you did and found a brighter way. But I found a middle way, and there are no holidays abroad, no fancy delis, no expensive goodies (certainly no plasma TV), no smart new shoes, no new white goods when they break down, in point of fact, there's no fucking nada..

But hey, at least I'm not surrounded by seven kids on some shitty estate!

So I recognise the binds many people find themselves stuck in.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 02:48 PM

I only stated that the young women had illegitimate children because that was always the case among those I had contact with. That made them vulnerable and alone, especially as the fathers of their children were in prison. If a woman has a partner or husband to help her, things are often more stable. If I'm going to be labelled a pocket dictator for sincerely posting my views (AND my not inconsiderable experience with the very women mentioned in the thread title), I think I will make this my final posting. It seems that one becomes the target for nastiness and unfair, undeserved 'labelling', when all one is seeking is an interesting and stimulating discussion. It's very discouraging.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:18 PM

Lively Lass, I agree with almost all you say...you obviously know exatly what you're talking about.

I hope you dont mind me saying,that I think you express your feelings better than anyone on this forum.
Your posts are a delight to read.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:29 PM

Illegitimacy is little to do with being vulnerable and alone. There are plenty who are vulnerable and alone despite marriage, and plenty who have been protected and fulfilled despite their parents not being married to each other. The nasty unfair labelling is what you, Eliza, have done. Most of what you have posted has been a blame game. Just like the usual suspects.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 06:03 AM

Poor buggers will get nowhere whilst the chatterati make broad brush pronouncements about people without fact.

Livelylass reckons that because I see personal aspirations being low as being part, not all, of the issue, that I therefore must have "no time for the residents of the slummy estates I left behind." Really? I wasn't aware I ever lived on a slummy estate, but there you go. Not having time for others doesn't quite describe my activities these days, but there again it never did.

Bridge starts singing The Red Flag, rather predictably. I never knew the words were so good Bridge? Must listen to them in future. Or perhaps I might see if I still have a 40 year old copy of The Ladybird Book of Rugby Songs. zzzzzzzz

I once shook hands with the poor you know. Just thought I would state that, so I can join this rather interesting club of patronising... no, on second thoughts, climbing on the corpses of the hopes of others seems to sum me up, if it makes you feel smug and self righteous by saying so. The last time I allowed anybody to climb over my corpse, it was when he presented his legal bill.

After all that, Bridge then states, in a rare moment of clarity, that others have indulged in unfair labelling and playing the blame game. Make your mind up Bridge. I have seen everybody being blamed here from Th*tcher to a single Mum. Some of the posts on this subject by various people seem to have a target and a firing solution. I find it rather depressing. Luckily, hot air has no bearing on those seeking to improve if not eradicate the situation.

Sanctimonious bullshit may not be part of the problem but it sure ain't part of the answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 06:38 AM

Look up "parody", Mither, if you truly don't know what it means. Trying to legitimate exploitation is not part of the solution, it is a large part of the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,The Rhombus ov Dooom
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 06:53 AM

Shock! Horror! The riot-torn streets of Inferno England are amock with revolting single mothers and their hideous goblin-like malnourished and ill-educated offspring. Who will save us from this unholy & immoral harrying of all things decent and noble?? Flee to the hills least they murder us in our beds!

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 07:24 AM

I did look up parody a long time ago.

I wouldn't be able to pretend to have a debate with you otherwise....

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 08:17 AM

In that case you need a new dictionary

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 09:24 AM

Keep banging the rocks together.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 09:29 AM

Can you keep time?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 09:52 AM

"Livelylass reckons that because I see personal aspirations being low as being part, not all, of the issue, that I therefore must have "no time for the residents of the slummy estates I left behind." Really? I wasn't aware I ever lived on a slummy estate, but there you go. Not having time for others doesn't quite describe my activities these days, but there again it never did."

Not quite Ian, perhaps I phrased my post poorly but I was thinking of specific individuals I know who espouse a similar philosophy to yours, etc.. I made no presumptions about either *you or your background*. I was comparing aspects of this discussion to discussions I've had at other times with others I know. One guy who came from an estate in Glasgow thinks people who take heroin are "stupid". The simple maths being: he never took heroine, he got out, he became successful! They took heroin, they stayed where they were, they are not successful! Thus unlike him, the only difference between them, is that they are simply stupid. And because they are stupid, they aren't worth wasting breath over.
Either way, I think I've had enough of this thread..
Over and out.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 10:54 AM

Keeping time and having time are two different things.

I doubt I have time for your automatic assumptions regarding the motives of anybody who doesn't orbit your planet. Some of those you patronise may wish to contribute to society and others may wish to consume from it. Some of those you blame for all society's ills may be altruistic and some may fit your description.

Reading your rather silly Red Flag contribution made me think. If I was ever daft enough to take your contributions seriously, I might think you were calling me Uncle Tom.

Legitimising exploitation? I enjoy doing the odd crossword as it exercises the brain, but at least there is an answer in a crossword. I fear your waffling has an irrational ending so as much as I enjoy the attention of such a learned legal person without getting the bill afterwards, I have to choose between trying to understand your logic and nailing jelly to the ceiling.

Nurse! Get me my step ladders...

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 11:02 AM

It seems that everyone tends to stereotype very young mums as coming from rundown council estates. The picturesque Isle of Wight has it's share of underage mums too. The employment situation is pretty dire apart from seasonal hospitality work or working in care homes there isn't a lot of scope for young girls who aren't very academic. Seeing it from the girls point of view getting off the Island is hard enough and a baby gives them benefits that they would not otherwise get. It is sad that they can't see further than this.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 12:47 PM

"Shock! Horror! The riot-torn streets of Inferno England are amock with revolting single mothers and their hideous goblin-like malnourished and ill-educated offspring"

actually those were Weevils, sorry about that, but we do have the matter in hand, honest.

BTNG aka Captain Jack Harkness

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 02:02 PM

Anyone who believes that bringing up children alone in a council flat on benefits is an easy option is not really thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 02:43 PM

Richard, you're right, it isn't any easy option, it's the same here in Canada, and exactly the same criticisms are leveled at the so-called idle poor.The saying "walking a mile in a persons shoes" comes to mind, tht is if you can afford the shoes in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 03:24 PM

"Anyone who believes that bringing up children alone in a council flat on benefits is an easy option is not really thinking." Rubbish, clearly there must be the odd one stretched out in the back seat of a beat up Volvo.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 03:38 PM

"you express your feelings better than anyone on this forum.
Your posts are a delight to read."

Eh, well it's nice to know I have a fanclub Ake! x ;)
I do have a bad habit of stalking threads that I have strong feelings about though, and the things I have strong feelings about will often be those things I either have direct experience of or have other close interests in. Mainly issues affecting the working classes today (checks her bank balance) and women from working-class backgrounds in particular (checks her anatomy).

All pretty self-centered stuff arguably..




(PS: Missed this before)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 04:10 PM

Do you believe that there may be people too mentally damaged to hold down a job but not damaged enough to put under care?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: BTNG
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 04:17 PM

there are those who will persist in stereotyping, as I said, it's the same everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 04:31 PM

Do you believe that there may be people too physically damaged to hold down a job but not damaged enough to put under care?

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: mg
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 12:37 AM

I think there are huge numbers of people in that category..physically, mentally..or other problems such as lack of education and training in specific trades (some of which need people badly)...an expectation that there will be too much discrimination and too few opportunities..a feeling of being defeated and not being able to look. There are huge numbers of people who would work and who want to work and need probably state-assisted employment..some of which could offset their benefits. There is no shortage of work that needs doing, no shortage of people who could be trained to do some of it..and some people could take advanced training and education. We make it harder than it needs to be. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 04:22 AM

Regarding the people too mentally damaged to hold down a job but not damaged enough to be put under care...

Sadly, we have somewhere to put them.

They drift into the prison system. Prison healthcare is something I have been involved in at the edges as it were, for a while now. It shocks me (and, I note, collective magistrate voices) that lack of access to care leads to petty crime, leading to habitual petty crime leading to prison. I recall a conference a few years ago debating personality disorder and whether the NHS should have a role as their input is neither curative nor palliative. (In other words, the condition isn't medical enough.) As there is no other agency, the judiciary pick up the pieces, after the event...

Anyway, not about teenage mothers per se, but if we can't look after the more vulnerable in society as well as we would like, we need to try harder in all areas. We don't need to blame big business or the school a politician went to, we do need to get better and smarter.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 05:39 AM

Gobsmacked! But of course it is the post Thatcherite system, the parties of big business that are in fact to blame, not minor carelessness. They set it up that way, with "Don't care in the Community".

What I don't see, Mither, is how you can say what you just did but buy into the "Keep their hands on their ha'pennies" and "Why should we pay for their sex lives" approaches to teenage mothers.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 01:21 PM

If you're going to quote me, at least quote Ian Mather. I wonder if this Mither bloke buys into "Let them eat cake" because I sure don't.

Don't care in the community (at least we agree on the same parody of title) was underfunded. Just that. Underfunded. Not politically set up to fail, not anathema to the prevailing government, just underfunded. Stephen Dorrell admits how wrong they were with the business case taken to the treasury. I'm certainly not an apologist for Tory government, but we can never even begin to address any issues by handbags at ten paces. This is why Blair, as much as it must have made his guts wrench, shook hands with Gaddafi. This is why Major set up the good Friday agreement. There comes a time when ignoring the other side because you suspect their motives just aint going to get you any further.

So blaming one government when successive ones, including your glorious socialist brothers, (Blair.... Alan Sugar.... Robert Maxwell....) haven't exactly shone in the "care in the community" awards ceremonies (!)

If a party of big business was to put their philosophical ends into play, they would not have shut the asylums, they would have sold them off to run at a profit. Care in the community doesn't sound a business friendly solution to me. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was a well intentioned ill scoped policy, just like many others from successive governments.

No? Thought not.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 03:20 AM

That doesn't wash because for the asylums to run at a profit someone would have had to pay.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Musket
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:00 AM

The government would have paid. You are quick to say "this lot and Th*tcher" are quick to feather the nests of their big business backers, so just apply your own logic and instead of not washing, it looks Persil white. (Grubby all the same.)

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:05 AM

something some might want to think about, although likely those who should won't:

The rich are different

(And it is just one researcher's opinion, of course.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 05:59 AM

But, unlike the Daily Mail, based on researched facts

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:16 AM

What about the boys or men in all of this? This reminds me of the early days when finger of blame was pointed solely at the girl. Everyone should be taught to be responsible for themselves in an ideal world but it isn't always as easy as that.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:32 AM

Oh, the authoritarians and moralisers here wouldn't like that, Patsy. They like the old ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Teenage Mothers in the UK
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 07:08 PM

""What about the boys or men in all of this? This reminds me of the early days when finger of blame was pointed solely at the girl. Everyone should be taught to be responsible for themselves in an ideal world but it isn't always as easy as that.""

Precisely Patsy, and since there are two people involved in producing a child, then both should be required to take a share of that responsibility, regardless of whether either, both, or neither, want a continuing relationship.

Don T.