Complaining even before the programme airs!

It is all very sad.
I think that it was ever thus really.
I dont think that there is an answer.
There will always be people, who, for whatever reason, have to be kept by the state. A miserable existence for them all.

My grandmother had 10 children loopylou and brought them up in a two up two down end of terrace with no bathroom and no garden. Her husband was bedridden after having a leg amputated. One child went to Oxford and all of them went on to have successful careers. She had no help from the council until she was nearly ninety and they wanted to demolish her house.

Is there some kind of self-perpetuating pattern in that parents don't work so children see nothing wrong in that and it carries on through generations?
I know of at least 5 families where three generations have never worked. It's very sad when people seem to think that's an appropriate life choice/style.
NfkDumpling I'd have probably said something very similar! There's a family close to here who have 10 children and are demanding a 6 bedroom house, having been moved into a brand new 4 bedroom house (with 7 children) only 3 years ago

I haven't changed my mind. I don't think people should be rewarded for having children they can't afford to keep.

I don't know the answer though, it just seems so irresponsible.

A long time ago in a previous life I was a receptionist with a housing association. There was a woman well known for complaining - partner didn't work - don't know if he could, but he didn't - with four children. They had a large three bed property. We only had a couple of four bed - both occupied - and she wanted one of them. One day she stormed in with three under six in tow demanding rehousing and at the same time complaining of the rent level (which she didn't pay anyway). She finished her triumphant (foul mouthed) rant with "And I'm pregnant!"

I'm afraid that without thinking I quietly said "Well that was a silly thing to do". It shut her up - but she then complained to the manager. I got an official verbal warning!

Ironically Eloethanmy age conspires against me (61) and apparently I'm over-qualified for doing a healthcare assistant post, hence return to practice course for which you are not guaranteed a job at the end...
I agree with your last paragraph too, and we will survive (I'm too b....y minded not to!) but it's going to be a bit tough for a few months. Been there before so have some experience
Most jobs want previous recent experience but how do you get that in the first place ? Catch 22......

We could think the previously unthinkable and stop them reproducing
annsixty horror!

Against there yuman rites innit!!

Looplou Sorry I didn't realise there was other family income. During the two years that I didn't work after my daughter was born I received no income whatsoever, apart from child benefit. My husband was a student nurse at that time and his salary was very small but he shared his money equally with me. Other than those two years, I have also worked non-stop from the age of 17 but I consider myself lucky to have been able to get a job whenever we moved. I don't suppose it would be so easy these days.

If everyone thinks they'd be so much better off not owning their own home but living in rented accommodation, claiming benefit, etc., etc., why don't they do that? Personally, I wouldn't want to be in the precarious situation of not knowing whether my landlord could throw me out on the street simply to get more rental income or because I'd asked him to fix a broken boiler.

We could think the previously unthinkable and stop them reproducing.

I agree that we need to think hard about the rights of children rather than parents in a neglect situation. The emphasis has been too much on the parents' right....BUT the care system is not great and that has to be constantly borne in mind. Early adoption is the best outcome for the child, but this is often delayed by fruitlessly trying to achieve some parenting skills in the natural parents.

The sort of young people who have a string of babies at a very young age are often themselves victims of poor parenting or the care system, so ranting at them as feckless achieves nothing. Their chosen way of life is often haphazard, hopeless and a danger to their offspring, but in the main all we can do is try and protect their children - often the parents are sadly not amenable to change.

The children have to be the priority and good adoptive homes found asap.

.... and saving for your old age then having to spend it all on a care home ....

Well said POGS
Yes, Eloethan, because it roughly equated to the same as JSA it was refused. DH is self employed with an irregular income but his earnings for the previous financial year (c£13000) were taken into consideration too - IMO it stinks......
We'd be far better off not working, not paying a mortgage and claiming benefits so it's no wonder that (I presume, because I won't watch it) those in the programme have zero inclination to do otherwise. There's no reward for having worked nonstop since leaving school......

They do not necessarily have a learning disability or personality disorder. Some may seem uneducated but are calculating, wily and clever enough to know how to work the system - and revel in their 15 minutes of fame.

Me too, POGS

Eloethan

'Why is it always the right of a parent over that of a child'

I assume that is my view that you are giving a response to?

I do not see a child born to say a drug /alcohol addict as anything other than a child that has been born into a potential squalid existence.. I cannot see things in the way you do.

I see a baby that immediately becomes surrogately brought up by the state. The state will provide for, try to protect it's welfare but leaves the baby in the hands of a parent/parents whom the state knows cannot be responsible for raising the child . I do not understand how this is remotely acceptable.

You will see my words as demonizing parents, I see my words as speaking honestly. I get sick and tired to be honest of babies/children being born and viewed as a right of their parents to do so.

I am sick and tired of reading, watching stories of child neglect by parents who were never capable of raising a child in the first place.

How many people have seen a new born with drug addiction? It is awful! Then the poor little thing goes home with a parent/parents who will have one thing on their mind , 'How, where, when will I get my next 'fix'. If the baby is lucky it will have a parent that is trying to cope on a substitute so it will be wheeled off daily in it's pushchair to the nearest chemist for it's mum or dad to 'sign in for a methadone hit'. Am I alone in finding this an enormous sadness?

How on earth do we as a society condone so many things that we know are simply wrong on all footing? We will all , without question , say puppy farming, animal abuse is abhorant, should be llegal, an affront to a decent society , yet we know our babies/children are suffering just as much yet liberal thinking stops us short of saying, doing , acting to protect them from birth.

The best some poor little mites can hope for is they don't fall through the cracks and the state will protect them. Well the state could have a legion of workers, money thrown at the problem but the state will never, ever be there 24/7 but the state is blamed , never the parent/parents when things go wrong or a child is neglected.

Why, because the right of the parent topped the right of the child and excuse after excuse has been given as to why the parents should be exhonorated from parental responsibility. They didn't have the intellectual, emotional capacity to be parents. Their human rights to have a child was greater than the rights of the unborn child etc. etc. They are not acceptable excuses, they are reasons why society has allowed our babies/children to continue to be brought up in homes that are totally unacceptable to parents who are nothing short of irresponsible from the start of conception.

Yes it makes me mad.

loopylou Doesn't that come to the equivalent of £280 a month? Are you really supposed to live on that?

POGS There's a good chance that the parents have been similarly ineptly parented. How this is rectified I don't know but I believe that interventions by organisations like Homestart can help with practical and parenting issues. I feel that demonising people whose behaviour society disapproves of does not really help to solve the situation. Cutting child benefit and other benefits will only make matters worse and may lead to children being placed in care - also not an ideal situation when child protection services are cut to the bone and experienced social workers are thin on the ground.

People who live on the margins of mainstream society and who do not have the intellectual or emotional capacity to organise their lives in the way that the majority of people do are easy targets that provide a useful distraction from the real issue of the inequality of power and resources within society.

I had applied for a return to nursing course that paid a bursary (£1000 in two instalments) and was silly enough to say I was enquiring about my NHS pension (very minimal £200/mth) which took me over the threshold as would equate to more than JSA when added together apparently.

So what's your solution, POGS?

loopylou As you say you lost your job (rather than being made redundant and receiving a redundancy payment?), on what grounds are you ineligible for Jobseekers Allowance?

So doesn't the unborn child deserve better than to be born into a life of parental ineptitude?

Why is it always the right of a parent over that of a child ?

There are very few people who have that many children these days. I steer clear of these sorts of programmes but from the description of the way these people conduct their lives I think it's reasonable to conclude that they have had dysfunctional childhoods, or have a mild learning disability or have some other sort of mental disorder - or a combination of all these things.

A few weeks ago I caught the end of a programme that featured a couple of very overweight, unemployed people. They seemed incapable of taking the simplest steps towards creating order in their lives, and obviously had some sort of learning disability or personality disorder. I think it's terrible that people such as this are used as some sort of "entertainment" for those who seem to derive much enjoyment from being outraged.

Dysfunctional families are a problem but I think they are much less common than the media would have us believe. I'm not quite sure how such families can be helped towards a more productive and responsible lifestyle but I'm pretty sure that exhibiting their inadequacies and failings on television is not the answer. Nor is it to "cap" child benefit - because their children would suffer.

It's something you see all the time. Often it starts as a hard luck story about a family where redundancy or illness has left them living on benefits. You feel sympathetic and then you do the maths and realise that there are two or three children who must have been born while they were on benefits. Any one can slip up and have an unexpected baby, but, to misquote Lady Bracknell, to have more than one looks like carelessness.

Just think for a moment what sort of salary you would need to support five children without benefits!

I agree.

I don't have compassion for anyone who gets pregnant 5 times knowing they have nothing to give those poor children.
I do have compassion for anyone who through no fault of their own can't find work. Or is genuinely claiming disability or sick benefit.

Strange how attitudes change. Not long ago many GNs would have been insisting that the people shown in the documentary were victims of society and are deserving of our compassion, not our condemnation!