Growing Up Poor

[Herbert.]

8 hours ago, The Mighty Thor said:

This is the reality for a lot of people, like the kids on the documentary, where Christmas dinner will be from a parcel like the below.

 

If you can help your local food bank or Big Hearts or however you help others less fortunate then I salute each and every one of you. 👍

 

 

 

Tinned chicken and smash YUMMY. The ***** will be wanting a tin opener and a fiver on the meter to make this festive feast.

[The Mighty Thor]

26 minutes ago, Herbert said:

 

 

Tinned chicken and smash YUMMY. The ***** will be wanting a tin opener and a fiver on the meter to make this festive feast.

And yet despite that Christmas feast they'll probably be of kinder spirit than you're displaying here. 

[Herbert.]

3 minutes ago, The Mighty Thor said:

And yet despite that Christmas feast they'll probably be of kinder spirit than you're displaying here. 

 

 

Nah they will be too hungry to be kind.

[moogsy]

29 minutes ago, Herbert said:

 

 

Nah they will be too hungry to be kind.

Growing up poor has certainly turned you into a perfectly normal, well balanced individual

[Mikey1874]

It is undoubtedly the case that there are families in real poverty. I find it unbelievable really. Not really sure how it comes about. Different factors. 

 

It should be studied more. There is a consensus that benefits should encourage people to work. But work has become poverty for many now last 10 years. 

 

There have been some interesting experiences shared. I do agree with the general working poverty we were similar. Though if food banks had existed in the early 70s I'm sure we would have used  them. At the same time my school (primary and secondary) was mixed. Half in half poor working class and the comfortable. 

 

I benefited from free university education. But my personal contribution was a clear decision to have no regrets about exam performance at school so worked really hard at that. 

 

My big thing and politically is to maximise people's opportunities. Invest a lot more in people. One thing in my life - no one ever gave me a way into a good job or anything. The rich have it easy that way with their private schools etc etc. Confidence and avoiding self loathing too. Something I'm still learning. 

 

I think we need to invest in people more. We could have a much much richer economy and society if we did that. 

 

Care for people but it's about letting them find a fulfilling life. 

[Francis Albert]

Good thread and I find myself agreeing with both sides of the debate. By today's standards defined by "relative poverty" I grew up poor. By that definition everyone has always grown up poor.But even by today's standards many (not 40% by some relative poverty definition or 10% or even 5%) grow up in poverty in a historical sense. But in a rich country far fewer should.

The disastrous introduction of comprehensive or non-selective education has made escaping from relative poverty more difficult. The escape route was being encouraged by your parent or parents to work hard and respect and take advantage of the opportunities education offered. That incentive seems to me weaker now as the rewards for effort have reduced and standards certainly for those with ambition have declined. Scholarships to "fee paying" schools or to the Boroughmuirs and Broughtons of the state sector were there on merit however poor you or your parents were. 

When I arrived at the old pre- comprehensive Royal High about a quarter of the secondary input were like me "scholarship boys" encouraged by their parents to try for it. All our quarter got to the top stream of two. The rest from.the fee paying prep school.were in the second stream and a number of them were either thick or quite disturbed such that they would never have got there on merit and were far less deserving of the opportunity than many from my primary school.

This post has rambled a bit but I suppose my point is that the answer to.relative poverty is not necessarily to.target making everyone more equal but to  make  opportunities more equal  ( which some will choose not to take advantage of ... and why should they If they don't want to? Ambition doesn't necessarily make for happiness) .

[Herbert.]

30 minutes ago, moogsy said:

Growing up poor has certainly turned you into a perfectly normal, well balanced individual

 

 

Perhaps, Growing up has definitely shaped me into what I am now. It eats into your soul being brought up in a place were half the time you don't have electricity to put the heating on or any food at all in the house. Stale bread and tomato sauce sound appetising to you?

 

If you see people that are happy to live on handouts and not try to have a decent life and even worse bring kids into the fold who will probably repeat the cycle, then they are absolutely scum. You see them on TV moaning about being poor and they don't get enough help, what's wrong with them helping themselves? The country is filled with shirkers that all have a excuse and crocodile tears, **** them.

[Jambo-Jimbo]

12 hours ago, Herbert said:

 

 

Perhaps, Growing up has definitely shaped me into what I am now. It eats into your soul being brought up in a place were half the time you don't have electricity to put the heating on or any food at all in the house. Stale bread and tomato sauce sound appetising to you?

 

If you see people that are happy to live on handouts and not try to have a decent life and even worse bring kids into the fold who will probably repeat the cycle, then they are absolutely scum. You see them on TV moaning about being poor and they don't get enough help, what's wrong with them helping themselves? The country is filled with shirkers that all have a excuse and crocodile tears, **** them.

 

I think you are conflating the genuine poor with the scammers, the fakers, the malingerers & the workshy, the two are very different.

 

I don't think there is anybody who would defend the shirkers, but that's not what this thread is about, it's about the genuine poor, the people who are often working several low paid part-time jobs but there is still no money, the folks who try damn hard and work even harder but just never seem to get a break, it's not about the people who are more than happy to take every handout going so that they can sit on a wall and wave to me and others wishing us a good day when we're going to work, whilst they sit and sun themselves or the guy who had such a bad back that he had to get wheeled out to the ambulance to take him to physio and 20 minutes after he's back he's out digging his garden or lying under a car.

 

This thread isn't about the take everything for nothing lot who then moan and groan about being poor, no this thread is about the genuinely poor.

 

[ri Alban]

On 06/12/2019 at 11:26, Super T said:

I scratch my head in disbelief when stats of 1 in 4 or 1 in 6 kids in the lothians are in poverty are used as I don't seem to recognise that, but I probably live in a bubble.

There seems to be many different definitions of poverty depending on the study. Going by below 60% of median wage this works out at:

 

From latest figures (2015-18) a family is considered as in poverty if they are living on:

• Less than £363 a week or £18,900 a year for a single person with children aged five and 14
• Less than £463 or £24,100 a year for a couple with children aged five and 14

https://cpag.org.uk/scotland/child-poverty/facts

 

By this measure this means that for most of my son's early life he was living in poverty. We were skint but I never considered of us being in poverty!

Decisions like cycling to work rather than take the bus, as the cost of the bus fare was needed for food, were the norm.

Maybe having grown up in the 80's where school dinner tickets and hand me down clothes, toys and bikes were the norm and where there were still kids clearly worse off the you set my personal barometer as to what poverty is.

What's the pre wage investment on these figures. £363 -TaxnNI -Travel-Food-Workiegear-Tools, then -Rent-Gas-Electric-CouncilTax-Food-KidsEverything. There's not much living going wage to wage there.