BS: Generous Britain

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 11:15 AM

Agree with that 100% Kara, and from the POV of the children, does anyone really think they would be better off in hostel accommodation?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Kara
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 11:09 AM

Personally I prefer to give everyone respect until they prove they are not worthy of it. Which very few ever do.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: jacqui.c
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 10:34 AM

Guest 8.38 am

If you read my posts you will note that I am agreeing with Giok in suggesting a more sensible solution to this problem, not displaying an 'irrational prejudice'. I'm not saying that this is the only problem to be dealt with but it is the one under discussion here.

Kara - respect has to be earned, not given. I would respect anyone who makes an effort to better themselves, whatever their situation.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 09:29 AM

"You do not have to be a single teenage parent to get a council house and collect benefits because you have a child, you can be married and you get the same benefits."

People in need jump the queue for council housing, while married couples with one child, still find themselves a long way down the list behind families with sveral children, or families with 2 children of different sexes who's children are too old to share a bedroom, and need a bigger house. It's this short circuiting the system that causes a lot of the resentment in some quarters.
They could always come up to the highlands where there are short, or no waiting lists for council accommodation in some villages. Of course there's no work, no decent public transport, and damned little entertainment that you can get to without a car.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 08:38 AM

jacqui things have changed in the UK. Single parents are not paid to sit at home once their children reach 18 years old. In fact once they hit primary school age they are guided towards study and work. The days of the life long hand out is over. Lone parents are the smallest group of benefit recipients. Pensioners actually are the largest.

People should get up to date to back up their irrational prejudices.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Kara
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 07:29 AM

Give these girls some respect and they become respectable. treat them like tramps and they'll act like tramps.

These girls are productive workers, they are bringing up the next generation and should helped to do so in best possible conditions.
If you are a working Mum the state will pay for your child to be looked after, so why should the state not pay for you to look after your own child.

You do not have to be a single teenage parent to get a council house and collect benefits because you have a child, you can be married and you get the same benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: jacqui.c
Date: 21 Jul 06 - 06:49 AM

'Luck isn't measured by earning ability surely? With all the money in the world people are individuals with individual abilities. Someone with limited learning ability may feel they are the luckiest person alive to be able to actually work at all. Some others who are college educated may lead wretched lives where they burn out with the pressure of a high powered job.

It is all relative. People who contribute, NO MATTER HOW BIG OR HOW SMALL, are all worthwhile contributing members of society.

And bringing children into the world and caring for them and ensuring the next generation exists are doing a 'job' that is beyond monetary value.'

Guest 8.33pm - this is the post that I was answering. This post seems to say that these girls will, at some point, suddenly turn into productive workers. In a lot of cases THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN. Their kids also have more of a tendency to follow the only example that they have. Many of these girls, at least in the areas I have lived, don't want to work or don't even consider that there is an alternative to their lifestyle. If the cycle isn't broken in some way this will continue. I think that Giok's idea of properly run hostels would be an excellent idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 09:09 PM

The only way to break the cycle is to make sure that pregnant women and single moms are given, in addition to food, shelter and clothing the education or training they need to beome productive members of the work force. It does no good to give them only the bare necessities of life. It just traps them and their kids with no way out.

Happy and healthy moms = happy and healthy children

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 09:08 PM

Visited Britain in 2002, niece of mine pointed out all the houses in the area that had single moms living in them, told me she was friendly with a lot around her own age and yes it was planned to get a home and an income from the government. Sadly the down side was they all appeared to want out at the weekends and live the life of what kids that age should do and took any kid in the area in to babysit.

Little girls of 14 were babysitting and brought their boyfriends in. Saw many kids having drinks parties while they were supposed to be in charge of kids not much younger than themselves. The young moms brought guys home who used them for a night. My sister told me it's normal over there and no one seems to mind.

What will these poor kids growing up in these homes think is normal family life ? The benefits system in the UK is a joke, you fill in forms you get in a postal office and the money arrives. You get 90.00 dollars extra a week if your kid suffers from hyperactivity. They get a date to have the kid assessed at home. When the medic comes out the child has been given one of three brands of undiluted fruit juice for three days and they pass the test as the kid is hyper ! UK streets paved in gold I say.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 08:33 PM

Read my post again - you gave examples of bad parenting to prove what exactly? That it exists? Yes, it does and always will. I fail to see your connection with the examples you give and single parents, unless you are saying the problems you cited are exclusive to that section of society I do not see it's relevance.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: jacqui.c
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 08:05 PM

Guest - read my post again. I am giving examples that I have personally known about a problem which has been around for years and is not going away.

If you read the whole of my post you will note that I am saying that something needs to be done to break the cycle - not just feed the problem, as is the case with the present system.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 07:38 PM

Perhaps someone should ask why there is (if there is) a class of people to whom it is more attractive to claim benefits than to work.

If you say it is because benefits are too generous, then I will say to you you have never lived on them, nor truly known anyone who has lived on them.

I remember my late wife telling me of the period when she was a student in the 69s and 70s, in the days of the "madly generous" student grants - after she had been deserted by her husband, who was somewhere in Nepal with his guitar - how she had had to ration eggs for breakfast for her children.

The problem is not benefits. It is the fact that at entry level all there is is McJobs. There is no economy other than servility, no manufacturing, only "service industries". If your efforts will not benefit you, you will not exert yourself. Check the "forced helplessness" thread.

And, for the benefit of Mrs Mary Shitehouse, and the occasional passing Catholic priest, the human race exists because it has a sex drive. It is too late to take it away.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 07:21 PM

Picking extreme examples of bad parenting doesn't really help. Some of the girls pushing prams at 18 years old are excellent mothers who will become tax payers once they have raised their children. Is anyone patting them on the back and congratulating them on the sterling work they are doing?

No, they are all tarred with the stereotypical hysteria shown in this thread.

There are as many examples of extreme bad parenting being displayed by two parent families with working parents.

The truth is none of us know what they will become in ten years time so are we in a position to judge them based on their life now?

I know a man who beats his wife in front of their kids, but he isn't a typical male or husband or father.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: jacqui.c
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 06:39 PM

I have lived next door to a woman who had four different children by four different men, over a period of about ten years. She was on benefits but could always find money for cigarettes even while her children were underfed and clothed from jumble sales. Her babies had permanent nappy rash and the older children always had runny noses and cold sores.

The children were effectively left to their own devices for the majority of the time. TV was on permanently and there was no check on what was showing. A regular bedtime was non existent and hygiene -none whatsoever.

Social services made sporadic visits but these kids weren't in any real danger - just neglected - so nothing was done. Last I heard the oldest daughter was pregnant for the second time at 17 and one of the boys was already on probation. Rita was one of the worse that I knew but there were others in similar circumstances. My babysitter, the product of a single parent family, was pregnant at 16 and waiting to hear when she would get her flat.

Unless the cycle is broken in some way this problem will always be there. I'm not knocking - just stating a fact of life. There needs to be some sort of way of persuading these kids that there is a better way of life.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 06:22 PM

Unless they are very lucky they won't be paying much into the system. A lot of these girls will have no training for employment and, in the present system, with the cost to the student of further education in the UK, it is likely that all they will be fit for are menial jobs at minimum wage.

This is what I was referring to maryrff.

It implies 'lucky' people pay adequately into the system and unlucky ones won't be paying much, because all they are 'fit for' is to earn the minimum wage.

Student loans are at the moment a fact of life. Whether the student is 18 or 38 they are just as capable of repaying. They are all as capable as each other to get a part time job to ease their burden. There is help for those with rent/mortgages during the summer holidays. The reckless students of the previous generations who abused the grant system are now forcing the present generation into forking out tuition fees.

Luck isn't measured by earning ability surely? With all the money in the world people are individuals with individual abilities. Someone with limited learning ability may feel they are the luckiest person alive to be able to actually work at all. Some others who are college educated may lead wretched lives where they burn out with the pressure of a high powered job.

It is all relative. People who contribute, NO MATTER HOW BIG OR HOW SMALL, are all worthwhile contributing members of society.

And bringing children into the world and caring for them and ensuring the next generation exists are doing a 'job' that is beyond monetary value.

Go bitch about the wars/ the tax dodges/ the price of oil/ the cost of public transport, but bitching about mothers is ultimately biting the hand that will spoon feed you in your dotage.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 03:37 PM

I opened this rather hoping it was a celebration of one of my favourite pubs. However no such luck. I read through the posts and was quite interested by some of the ideas, and as always attracted by the vehemence of expression.

When it comes down to it though, what we are really talking about is a major failure in the education system in England.

"Teach your children that what's between their ears is more important than what's between their legs, and you're more than 99% towards improving both their future and ours."
Giok

all very well mate, but what if the parents haven't got much between the ears - do we just say, well theres another generation are going to follow in the same path? I don't think it can be an option for much longer, although its the soft option that ahs been picked up by one load of politicians after another. You sometimes think - well perhaps the self perpetuating mess that is the education system WILL go on forever.

it works for the nice middle class kids, but when will it EVER come to grips with the new generation. They know all about interior decoration - you don't have books in the house, it makes clutter.They know all about politics, its on the other channel when the soap opera getting into gear. fashion and Art, well if its got the right logo on.....Music, they can tell which bands will appeal to Simon Cowell before he knows himself.

In short they are the products and victims of our apalling culture. And the truth is that we're all too busy fighting our own corner and making our own livings for our families, to really give a damn.

The thing about our culture is that it works, it makes money.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 03:17 PM

The UK government pays additional benefit to those in work and on low wages.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST,maryrrf
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 03:10 PM

I don't think anybody was bashing the poor or looking down on those who earn minimum wage. It is more a concern that many menial or minimum wage jobs don't pay enough for a person to survive on, much less a family.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 01:49 PM

Single parents living on welfare while they raise their kids isn't the problem. If they have their child at 18years old they are back in the work field by 36 years old. Lots of years for them to contribute. Welfare isn't paid for them once the child reaches 18 years old. If they go on to have a couple more, they will still have 30 years left to contibute to the tax pot.

They have a choice to start further education as mature students. Student loans are available and the repayments easier once their own children are not financially dependant on them.

There seems to be some snobbery regarding menial jobs and minimum wages too? We need people to clean hospital floors and sell bread at the bakers. The people doing those jobs are contributing as much as they can and shouldn't be looked down on or pitied. To some of them that is an enormous achievement.

The problem, if people want to find one, is in the main due to the burden on welfare systems by the intentionally and unintentionally unemployable. The alcohol and drug dependents. The long term sick. These people can claim for a life time without ever contributing.

A study in UK recently showed that children starting school who have been kept at home actually perform better than those farmed out to nurseries and child minders. If these children do well and play an active role in society in their adult years then the stay at home mum has done us all a favour.

Like kara and dianavan I dislike poor bashing. It is easy and often disguises other peoples own insecurities and short comings. And the most vitriolic have never raised a child, which says it all really.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST,maryrrf
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 09:04 AM

Jumping in late here but I think it IS a significant problem, and I don't know how to overcome it, when you have a "welfare cycle" where two or three generations have been brought up on benefits and you have kids who have not lived in a household or seen an adult regularly get up and go out to work. Under those circumstances it will be very hard to convince kids that they can and should get an education and go out and make their place in the world, earning their own keep. I want the safety net to be there, and wish that we in the US had a better one, but it should be just that - a safety net and not a way of life. The way it worked for Jacqui C is the way it's supposed to work - helping people to get on their feet after a rough patch. It isn't being used in the right way when it just becomes a rut where people make a lifestyle of living off benefits.   The issue now, where housing is so expensive that there's almost no point in seeking a low paying job because you won't be able to afford to live anywhere, complicates things even more.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: jacqui.c
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 08:48 AM

When I did teacher training one of my practice sessions was in a school in a sink area of North London.

I was in charge of a class of 14 year olds and found that it was very difficult to motivate them to do anything. I asked them what they were going to do when they left school. There were quite a number who told me that they would get a job in Woolworths, or the equivalent. (I told them that you have to take a test to get a job there - been there done it in the 60s). Some of the girls, even at that time in the late 70s, were saying that they wouldn't have to work as they were going to have babies.

Part of the problem is that a lot of these kids are bought up in homes where no real effort seems to be made to give them some idea that they can achieve something more. These are homes where the TV is on full time, meals are snatched events and parents either don't have the ability to or interest in spending time with their children. Having lived for the first 30 odd years of my life in sink areas I knew many families like that. My own parents were very similar, although considered themselves to be 'respectable'.

Kids bought up in homes like that, and in neighbourhoods that contain numbers of these families, are as likely to fall into the mould, unless they get a real push somewhere along the line. My push came in seeing, where I lived, the number of single mothers with teenage children still taking benefits. I decided that I was not going to fall into that rut and went back and got the education that I hadn't got at school, (partly because I was left feeling that I was a failure and that no-one really cared about how I did at school).

In my case I married the father of my children but the marriage lasted only five years and that was it. I don't regret the way things worked out but can see the sense of Giok's idea which would allow for education and training to try and break the vicious circle. As I said previously, these days further education is beyond the means of a lot of these kids. Whilst I am aware that the present day hostels are no always good places maybe more money should be put into the system to make them more than stopping places. They should be places that give support, to enable girls to get further education, even if it is only in childcare but also to make it clear to all that getting pregnant is not an open sesame to housing and benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 07:26 AM

Sorry Kara but please reread the post which you took your quote from. I said If as appears to be the case in so many different ways, the child/Mother/person gets food shelter and clothing in return for no apparent input other than occupying space. Please note the word IF which I have underlined, it qualifies the whole sentence, and makes it a postulation not an accusation.
As for the supposition on your part that I felt stigmatised, I assure you that at no time have I ever felt inadequate as a result of my status, either as a child or in later life.
I was brought up better than most of my contemporaries, and feel that many of them lacked for things that I had, and not the other way round. Stigma is a grown up concept, and the child will only feel stigmatised if their parent or a responsible adult tells them they are.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Kara
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 07:06 AM

John Groik, if you consider that bringing up a child is "no apparent input other than occupying space", then I hope you don't have any for the mothers sake.

The issue here seems to have become good parenting and citizenship. A single parent who had a child at a young age can be just as good a parent and citizen as a married person if they are not stigmatized by the rest of society. Single parents are more likley to spend time with their child that a married mother who has 6 months off work then puts the child into day care so as to maintain the double income in the house. The child is then compensated for lack of time with materiel things, but does that make them into a better citizen?

I do not know what benefits a single parent gets now days but 20 years ago they were minimal, as a suspect they are today.

If the question is are teenage girls choosing to become pregnant?
The yes I think teenage girls do choose to become pregnant and some of them as single parents, and yes they need the support of society, just as married mothers need support.

If the question is why are young mothers choosing to be single, then the answer is because either the father will not play the game, or it is because, the young mother finds that life is better on her own with her child than with a man.

People do not become good members of society if they are told by that society that they are crap.

I too was looked after by my Granny then become a latchkey kid, because both my parents were at work. I choose to stay at home with my kids , not go out to work, live of very little money, but at the end of the day I think home made cakes are better than shop ones.

I think that what John Groik disliked about being a child of a single parent was the stigma, so why go on to sigmatise these kids?

People do not become good members of society if they are told by that society that they are crap.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 20 Jul 06 - 02:11 AM

Well, Jon, thats happening in Vancouver, too. Property prices are so high that it takes two professionals to even hope to own their own property. I'd say that other than exceptionally motivated young people, the most that young people can hope for is a condo or a live-work space and that means both parents work and your children are in daycare.

It also means that only those youngsters with rich parents, who provide the downpayment, will ever own property.

The gap between rich and poor grows even wider and the middle classes will, of course, blame the poor.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 08:54 PM

"Is the 'welfare' system contributing to the destruction of the 'nuclear' family?"

I wasn't quite asking that dianavan, although I do question the effect of the welfare system apparently makeing one better off materialy for having kids. I'm really not sure about the figurs in the first post but I do know people who have had better property because of having kids. They have needed it of course but does a sort of "on my own I'd be stuck in a bedsit but with kids I might get a 2 up 2 down house" ever influence a decision to have children? I honestly don't know although no-one I know has done that.

Let me try another way for the rest. In some parts of the UK, there is concern about shortages of people such as paramedics, firemen, etc. because they can't compete in the property market. What are the effects of knowing you can't enter the property ladder?

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 08:24 PM

Come on folks. Aren't we forgetting that we are talking about support for two people here. The mother may indeed be feckless, 'tho many are not. But the child doesn't bear any responsibility for the situation,and we are also supporting him/her.

Giok, I did say that education in better ways ahould be a part of this package.

O.K. let's examine the alternative. Put the kid in care, and send mum out to work. That'll save us a lot of tax money! THE HELL IT WILL.

Look into the cost of keeping a child in care (housing, feeding, clothing, educating, and something extra to make it a life, not an existence) and you will find that the current system is economically viable.

I'd be interested if one of our internet wizards could find statistics relating criminal activity to being brought up in care. Anyone feel like betting on whether it's better or worse than being brought up in a single parent home?

Half this nation is currently obsessing about ensuring that carers get sensible recompense for their services in taking the load off the taxpayer, and like it or not, these young women are doing a 24/7 job of caring for the country's future.

I don't feel inclined to denigrate them for the unconventional way in which they have become carers, and if I'm out of step with the rest of the country, so be it.

Don T

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 08:23 PM

Actually Jon, this thread began as a ripping the taxpayer off, issue. It has evolved into people asking some pretty good questions. Your question is absolutely valid. Is the 'welfare' system contributing to the destruction of the 'nuclear' family?

I don't think so. Many other factors have contributed to the destruction of the nuclear family but it is social services who are attempting to provide for those who do not have such a family. It certainly is no incentive to remain single. The monthly allowance is sufficiently low to discourage most from trying to "live off the dole."

...and yes, minimum wage jobs definitely contribute to the inability of uneducated and untrained parents from supporting their families. In B.C. it used to be that young men without training and education could go fishing or logging. Now these resource jobs have all but dried up. For a long time there has been little or no work. Young women could find minimum wage employment much more easily than young men. Unfortunately, minimum wage is not enough for a family. Social assistance keeps them alive.

Of all the types of stereotyping and discrimination that occurs, I think poor-bashing is the most destructive. Its bad enough to not have enough money to feed the kids but for you and your children to endure social scorn for the crime of having no money is just plain ignorant. It can happen to anyone for a variety of reasons. If its never happened to you and you have never had to ask for assistance then consider yourself lucky. Someday you might.

Are women getting pregnant for money? I doubt it but if they are its due to ignorance on their part. What is really needed is education but the same people who do not want their tax dollars going to social assistance, do not want their money to go toward education either. Basically, these are people who do not understand that as a civilized society we must take care of those who cannot take of themselves.

Myself, I have more respect for single parents than I do for those who were born with all the advantages in life but think they have 'worked hard' for everything they have. Try raising kids on a welfare check and you'll know what hard work it is to raise those kids.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 07:47 PM

Dianavan, I don't think this is a "ripping the tax payer off issue". I also don't think it's an excuse for a "sex bashing thread".

One fact though seems to be that some young girls (and couples) are finding having babies attractive for rather dubious reasons. (And yes, bad relationships, etc. happen AS WELL).

Couldn't we be asking why for example some should consider themselves financially (including having a home) better off by having kids?

Is for example the price of property anything to do with it in some cases? I'd guess owning one's own home could be an incentive the other way but how in the hell do young people start on the property ladder in some areas now? Is a minimum wage realistic? Do issues like this work against a desire for what I will call for want of a better term, a "conventional family and home"?

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 07:07 PM

Giok - I agree that rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. I also know that if a child is left with a latchkey and is underage, as a teacher, I am obliged to call social assistance. Times have changed and if you have no family babysitters and can't leave you child alone, what are the options?

I, too, found work and took my children along. I was a net mender. Not everyone has this skill and I thank my dad for having the forsight to teach me a skill I could fall back on if needed. Not everyone has these options.

Sure, there are some who abuse the system but the majority do not. Most single moms really do need the help and for many of them it is only temporary. I think there is plenty more to worry about than supporting single moms with your hard earned tax dollars. If I were you, I'd be far more concerned about corporate tax breaks and subsidies. I'd also look into how much your government is spending on the military. There are some real culprits out there. Picking on single moms is picking on the most vulnerable in our society.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 05:38 PM

Sorry but do you really think that parents adhere to the 'rules' about what age kids are given doorkeys, [hollow laughter].
My Mother also worked in 'live in' jobs where she could have me with her where she worked. I know that not all Mothers have the option or the training to do what my Mother did, she was a trained cook, but so many appear to expect to be 'looked after' while they contribute nothing.
Can't you see that all people, not just single Mothers need to realise that you don't get 'Nothing for nothing' and featherbedding these feckless people teaches them nothing, and only lays up troubles in store, for future generations.
People don't just have rights, they also have responsibilities, unfortunately many of them know their rights, and shirk their responsibilities.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 05:25 PM

Most single moms don't have grandma's nearby who are able to babysit and, in Canada at least, you should be at least 12 before you are given a latchkey. So what do you suggest a mother should do with a child from infancy to 12 years of age while she goes to work at a minimum wage job?

Not every single mother has the same circumstances. You're mom was lucky enough to have the support of family. Many do not. Thats why we have social services.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 05:17 PM

My Grandmother when I was small, and myself when I was old enough to know how to light the fire, and prepare the tea for my mother coming home from work. I was what some newspapers disparagingly called a 'latchkey kid'.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 05:05 PM

As the only child of a single mother, Giok, who took care of you while your mother worked?

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 05:00 PM

Dianavan you are completely right apart from just a couple of facts, the sentence you selected to quote from started with the word IF! Also,I was brought up as the only child of a single Mother, and I DO know what I'm talking about.
I still believe that not enough is expected from these recipients of the government's/our money in return for the support they receive, regardless of what if anything, they have paid into the national exchequer.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 04:35 PM

Yes, Jacqui, and minimum wage is not enough support for a single parent family when you include the cost of daycare. Its far better for these women to stay home and care for their children than shuffle them off to daycare so they can work for money that will never cover their expenses. When the children start school, the govt. should fund their training and/or education to enable them to work for a living and have some hope. Chances are that the single mom will become a taxpayer and her children will escape the cycle of poverty.

Giok is wrong when he says that they have "no apparent input other than occupying space. Then the person resulting is likely to be lazy shiftless, and unmotivated."

Not so. Being a single parent is a full time job. If you work, you need daycare and no minimum wage job is going to pay those expenses.

My guess is that you never raised a child on your own, Giok.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: jacqui.c
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 04:02 PM

Unless they are very lucky they won't be paying much into the system. A lot of these girls will have no training for employment and, in the present system, with the cost to the student of further education in the UK, it is likely that all they will be fit for are menial jobs at minimum wage.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 03:51 PM

Having children young has it's positives. By the time the kids are off their hands the mothers are still young enough to contribute 25 years of tax into the system.

Next time you sneer at a teenager pushing a pram try and remember one day they'll be paying for your incontinence pads.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 02:41 PM

Teach your children that what's between their ears is more important than what's between their legs, and you're more than 99% towards improving both their future and ours.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 02:34 PM

To GUEST 06.58am...I personally admire someone who can speak up about their own experience of life and so I do with Kara. You however are such a put-down merchant you can only make a ridiculously negative comment about 'hang-up'. You need to grow up and show people who bare their sould encouragement, not try to ridicule them.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: kendall
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 02:19 PM

Bitch and complain all you want, you can not legislate morality.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 02:05 PM

We should stop throwing money at people who have babies. When my first wife and I had our children there was no such thing as paid maternity leave and we had to take responsibility for our actions by financing them all by ourselves (other than approximately £5 per week 'child allowance'. This is a perfect example of the ridiculous 'nanny state' we've got here in the UK now, where people behave in any feckless way they choose and expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab. Maybe if these daft lasses had to finance their sprogs themselves they'd think twice before opening their legs and expecting to have a good living paid for out of my hard-earned taxes. It makes my blood boil.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 01:19 PM

"As Don said, caring and educating children is security for your old age. If they do not receive adequate food, shelter and clothing, they will not be able to contribute to society in a meaningful way."

If as appears to be the case in so many different ways, the child/Mother/person gets food shelter and clothing in return for no apparent input other than occupying space. Then the person resulting is likely to be lazy shiftless, and unmotivated.
People who get something for nothing very rarely appreciate it. Producing a child is not a magic trick, whereas producing a good citizen is a labour of love.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: dianavan
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 12:31 PM

I'd like to know more about the crime vs unwanted pregancy theory (link above). It makes sense to me because the point is really whether or not a woman wants a child. Could it be true that abortion has reduced the crime rate? If so, it seems that the only thing we have to worry about is whether or not a woman wants a baby because unwanted children have more of a chance of becoming criminals.

As Don said, caring and educating children is security for your old age. If they do not receive adequate food, shelter and clothing, they will not be able to contribute to society in a meaningful way.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: The PA
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 11:56 AM

HERE, HERE, FREDA UNDERHILL !

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Grab
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 10:24 AM

Young mums reckon having a baby will let them escape a drudery of taking a low paid job. It will give them a home of their own and they can collect generous state benefits and enjoy a better life.

Well, that's what they think. Are they right?

We get a house, it's also fully kitted out for us top to bottom

A "fully kitted out" council house means intact windows - back in the real world, that's the best you're going to get. Turn it down, and you'd better have somewhere else to live, bcos it takes a year to get anywhere else.

and with two kids you can rack in at least 200.00 pounds for yourself after all the bills are paid, it's great.

This sounds like some teenager who's yet to find out how much things cost. £200 a month ain't too bad for providing food and clothing for a mother and two babies. For providing food and clothing for a mother and two school-age kids, it's pretty damn short.

And I'd like to know where the £200 figure came from. If it's from getting a second job whilst also claiming benefits - well, you can get away with it for a bit, but these days it's all computerised and they'll catch up with you eventually, and the result is often jail time.

Researchers spoke to young mums and dads aged 13 to 22 living in Britain and found the vast majority did not regret having a child.

And what were people expecting? That they'd say, "I hate having a child", in the presence of people who are recording what they're saying and could pass the results on to the welfare services? Even then, the basic fact of parenthood is that no matter how horrible their kids are, there's very few parents who regret having them, bcos it's too deeply embedded in the animal fact of parenthood.

Also remember that they're young. There's plenty of people who get the midlife crisis thing of reaching 35-40 and realising that they're working themselves to death for no benefit to themselves. If they're going to, *that's* where these girls are likely to regret it, not when they're 15-20 and it still looks like a big game.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: freda underhill
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 10:11 AM

Young single mothers perform a very important function in society. They give a lot of grumpy peope something to bitch about. They should be appreciated for the role they play. They take people's minds off important things like tax breaks for the ritch, government corruption and how to get rid of your dog's fleas.

It's very, very important to keep bitching on about single mothers - it shows you have your priorities right. you can pick on their children too, doing that will help develop your debating skills and build your self esteem.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 10:00 AM

freakanomics



There's the link. Of course there are lies, damned lies, and statistics....

But I like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 08:33 AM

Maybe some of you should read freakonomics:
http://www.freakonomics.com/ch4.php

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: The PA
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 07:12 AM

I understand that this is a very volatile subject. I have worked full time all my life (30+ years) and raised a family and paid my dues.

But really Beth to describe them all and tramps and tarts is really going too far.

That is simply too much. I am assuming you do not know all of the people in this situation personally. How do you know each individual persons circumstances or social history. What gives you the right to describe people in such a way.

I hope you will think again before reacting in such an unfair manner.

Subject: RE: BS: Generous Britain
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 06 - 06:58 AM

So at least we now understand where your hang up on men comes from, Kara.