Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Martin_1962]

I was not flinging anything, but I live near social housing and the range of people is interesting.

There are people with no jobs and newish cars, with loads of children, there are people trying to do their best.

Parents need to instill respect in their children

[HolyCount]

I was not flinging anything, but I live near social housing and the range of people is interesting.

There are people with no jobs and newish cars, with loads of children, there are people trying to do their best.

Parents need to instill respect in their children

Martin, I feel the discussion has been interesting, with different viewpoints aired -- so well worthwhile -- we remained "adult" too (so far!)

Your last point is the crux, I think, and applies to all parents of whatever background or current situation. However, sadly, this doesn't happen.

We are already a generation or two into that "state will provide, don't need to get off my backside" mindset Jay referred to  :-/

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

If you go back a couple of hundred years you will find that the population was made up of approx 1% knobs and 99% peasants......there was none of what we now call the middle classes.

The victorian era bought about the rise of the middle classes ..with the start of small business and budding entrepreneurs....so then you had maybe 1% knobs....20% middle classes.....80% working classes..Who were named as such ...because in the main they worked...caused few problems and bought up their children as best they could with the limited income they earned.

In 2008 We still only have about 1% knobs but the middle classes have swollen enormously......perhaps 60% of the population could now be classed as well....middle class.(If you own your own house ...then you are middle class.)


The working class seems to have vanished...and been replaced by an underclass.In my opinion the old working classes and the new underclass are NOT the same people and do not have the same Attitude to work.
So who are this underclass...well...... several generations all unemployed, where a life time on benefits is seen as normal.

They tend to produce children who achieve little and then as adults have a lifetime on benefits...just like their parents before them..think Shameless meets Karen/Shannon Matthews. I think that sometimes these people are poorly educated and find it hard to make ends meet...so sometimes benefits are seen as the only option.

[Mr Skrunts]

Just caught up with the thread, personally I dont see any difference from what I read in this thread to the situation when I started work in a local factory over 30 years ago.

Every time time a girl got pregnant a comment of "annother council house spoken for" went round the factory, they all did it as no one could afford to get on the housing ladder then as the wages were crap.

Other area's I cannot comment on, but sadly that was the truth then.

[cem_devecioglu]

I see in the near future people will be asking license from the govt to

make children.. And many bad scenarious is likely to happen..


       But contradictory the govts behave like they are not on earth and

far away from responsibility ..For all of these people regardless of

country, theres not enough home,food,school,road and many things

vital for a human to live ..

[Jay w]

If you go back a couple of hundred years you will find that the population was made up of approx 1% knobs and 99% peasants......there was none of what we now call the middle classes.

The victorian era bought about the rise of the middle classes ..with the start of small business and budding entrepreneurs....so then you had maybe 1% knobs....20% middle classes.....80% working classes..Who were named as such ...because in the main they worked...caused few problems and bought up their children as best they could with the limited income they earned.

In 2008 We still only have about 1% knobs but the middle classes have swollen enormously......perhaps 60% of the population could now be classed as well....middle class.(If you own your own house ...then you are middle class.)


The working class seems to have vanished...and been replaced by an underclass.In my opinion the old working classes and the new underclass are NOT the same people and do not have the same Attitude to work.
So who are this underclass...well...... several generations all unemployed, where a life time on benefits is seen as normal.

They tend to produce children who achieve little and then as adults have a lifetime on benefits...just like their parents before them..think Shameless meets Karen/Shannon Matthews. I think that sometimes these people are poorly educated and find it hard to make ends meet...so sometimes benefits are seen as the only option.

Its interesting where this thread is going and the views that people are putting forward.

I'm interested by the working class/middle class comments, i still see myself as working class, by virtue of the face that i work, yes i own my own home, but i don't consider myself to be in a position of being middle class.

and yet it could be said that having a class system has brought this perception about, mention of an 'underclass' is interesting and an expression i have heard a few times over the years as a reference to those who have opted out of the working system by choice

Attitude to work is something i agree with wholeheartedly,  people today do have a different work ethic, maybe not the generation that we came from but certainly later generations, however this is not exclusively an age related thing. Todays' employees possibly don't have loyalty (but then neither does the employer), the willingness to want the company they work for to succeed isn't there either.

where do you stop analysing? where did it all start and more importantly how do you reverse/improve the situation so people do get off their a$$es and do something that contributes to society in a positive way

[Jay w]

Just caught up with the thread, personally I dont see any difference from what I read in this thread to the situation when I started work in a local factory over 30 years ago.

Every time time a girl got pregnant a comment of "annother council house spoken for" went round the factory, they all did it as no one could afford to get on the housing ladder then as the wages were crap.

Other area's I cannot comment on, but sadly that was the truth then.

it could be said that this still goes onto day, however social housing schemes are looked at more than the local council

[Lizzie_Zoom]

If you go back a couple of hundred years you will find that the population was made up of approx 1% knobs and 99% peasants......there was none of what we now call the middle classes.

The victorian era bought about the rise of the middle classes ..with the start of small business and budding entrepreneurs....so then you had maybe 1% knobs....20% middle classes.....80% working classes..Who were named as such ...because in the main they worked...caused few problems and bought up their children as best they could with the limited income they earned.

In 2008 We still only have about 1% knobs but the middle classes have swollen enormously......perhaps 60% of the population could now be classed as well....middle class.(If you own your own house ...then you are middle class.)


The working class seems to have vanished...and been replaced by an underclass.In my opinion the old working classes and the new underclass are NOT the same people and do not have the same Attitude to work.
So who are this underclass...well...... several generations all unemployed, where a life time on benefits is seen as normal.

They tend to produce children who achieve little and then as adults have a lifetime on benefits...just like their parents before them..think Shameless meets Karen/Shannon Matthews. I think that sometimes these people are poorly educated and find it hard to make ends meet...so sometimes benefits are seen as the only option.

The fact is that the mass employment of heavy industry has all virtually been moved abroad by the effects of economic globalization and the movement of skills combined with the demands for lower production costs.

Our Country and the World generally has moved on.  The 'mass' employment opportunites now are in light industry, the service sectors, IT, higher technologies, or public services, etc, where mostly you need qualifications, skills and a good all round ability to develop yourself.

An unfortunate number of youngsters leave school without any of these attributes and as there are very few industries that will engage those who can just 'labour', that generation and future ones just get left in a 'rut', either unable to find work for their limited abilities, or deciding just to 'drop out', feeling that the state, which they believe has created the situation they are in, 'owes' them a living.  They are the disenfranchised!

Not good for them along with any families they produce / bring up, and certainly not good for the Country!

A new Political direction with initiatives in education, commerce and industry is required to create a situation where everyone can feel part of our society, no matter from what back ground they are from, and are happy to fully contribute to it using their full potential, giving them maximum rewards for their labour, without State assistance unless they are ill or truely require welfare for genuine reasons.  

[HolyCount]

The problem is today people are not rewarded for working -- all the perceived rewards go to those that do not work!  As mentioned in an earlier post, when I was made redundant I would have been far better off, financially, had I signed on the dole. However "pride", I guess, made me find work ..... ANY work and be out of pocket.

There ARE jobs out there -- maybe the funds used to pay benefits to the habitually unemployed would be better directed at topping up low wages to a decent level -- the condition for getting the top ups is that you work!

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

If you go back a couple of hundred years you will find that the population was made up of approx 1% knobs and 99% peasants......there was none of what we now call the middle classes.

The victorian era bought about the rise of the middle classes ..with the start of small business and budding entrepreneurs....so then you had maybe 1% knobs....20% middle classes.....80% working classes..Who were named as such ...because in the main they worked...caused few problems and bought up their children as best they could with the limited income they earned.

In 2008 We still only have about 1% knobs but the middle classes have swollen enormously......perhaps 60% of the population could now be classed as well....middle class.(If you own your own house ...then you are middle class.)


The working class seems to have vanished...and been replaced by an underclass.In my opinion the old working classes and the new underclass are NOT the same people and do not have the same Attitude to work.
So who are this underclass...well...... several generations all unemployed, where a life time on benefits is seen as normal.

They tend to produce children who achieve little and then as adults have a lifetime on benefits...just like their parents before them..think Shameless meets Karen/Shannon Matthews. I think that sometimes these people are poorly educated and find it hard to make ends meet...so sometimes benefits are seen as the only option.

Its interesting where this thread is going and the views that people are putting forward.

I'm interested by the working class/middle class comments, i still see myself as working class, by virtue of the face that i work, yes i own my own home, but i don't consider myself to be in a position of being middle class.
and yet it could be said that having a class system has brought this perception about, mention of an 'underclass' is interesting and an expression i have heard a few times over the years as a reference to those who have opted out of the working system by choice

Attitude to work is something i agree with wholeheartedly,  people today do have a different work ethic, maybe not the generation that we came from but certainly later generations, however this is not exclusively an age related thing. Todays' employees possibly don't have loyalty (but then neither does the employer), the willingness to want the company they work for to succeed isn't there either.

where do you stop analysing? where did it all start and more importantly how do you reverse/improve the situation so people do get off their a$$es and do something that contributes to society in a positive way

How we see ourselves....and how we would be shown as a statistic on a form are probably not the same.
You may well see yourself as "working class"....but would probably be categorised as "middle class"
John Prescott may see himself as working class....but......

[HerefordElite]

Anyone who thinks that a person would have a child for the increase of possibly £10 a week in Child benefit and £40 in child tax credits.., does not live in the real world.  Children cost much more than that to bring up a week. I have tried to live on benefits and well, lets say there was a lot of baked beans on toast and air for me in our meals.  Remember u have to keep a household running as well, provide extra warmth for the little one's too.  There is this 'myth' that people regard having children as an income booster.., and I must admit it makes me a little peeved because my heart totally sank when I realised I was pregnant with my second child. Benefits DO NOT permit u to live a life of riley however many children u do or do not have.

As for having children to secure housing.  Have the writers ever lived in a small dirty single room (till I cleaned the entire floor containing 5 other units) hostel, waiting for a council place.., to be told I'd be waiting 2 years - if I was lucky.  There were people in a same sized room with five children.  It wasn't a pleasant experience.  And it went on and on and on.  U seem to think there is an abundance of social housing available .., there isn't.  And having children is not an automatic lift up the list.  I was ill, had one child and pregnant with another and still was facing a two year wait.

I know there are a lot of judgements made about people with children.., on benefits.., but I am afraid when u look at the reality of the situation of a single/multi parented family on benefits, it just doesn't bear up.  I live in a deprived estate with over 300 families on the estate and I don't know a single family that deliberately has had children to gain a house or benefits.  They would all far far rather have some self respect, a job and so on.  Without exception.  But childcare absence here makes that very difficult.

And as for the wonderful chinese system of 'fining' people who do not have a licence for children (u have to have a licence for even one child).., people still get unwanted pregnancies there and then because there is no way they can pay the fines the babies get sold.., girl babies often into a life of slavery.  Not such a wonderful system perhaps.  And of course, the one's who suffer most are the children themselves who are the least 'guilty' party.

A lot of points you have made here are valid, and for the majority of people it is fair to say that they share your view,

I used to live in Bristol in the 80's and 90's, i knew a lot of people who came from a background that believed that the social system would support them throughout their 'working' life, however for them 'working' meant living off the social system, in school they were happy to admit that they had zero intention of getting a job and talking to a few friends it would seem a lot of them fulfilled that prophecy

I have seen girls/women get pregnant just for the purpose of gaining social housing, at that point they then realise that the flat they envisaged is in fact a grotty B&B that is full to the rafters with others in the same situation, and so the cycle starts or continues dependant upon that persons asperations/peers/upbringing/ and many other variables.

There is a social group who feel that they have a right to take from the state, this is the group that concern me, the risk of 'breeding childen of the same mindset' then creates more issues and so it snowballs to a point where the social network can't support everyone because there are more people taking that they are giving to the network.

I don't believe that everyone who uses the social system should be tarred with the same brush, given the current financial situation i would imagine that there are more and more people who will be reliant upon it, it could happen to one of us, its how people use that helps and move forward with their lives that makes them and their children different.

I could talk for hours about this as it is a subject close to my heart. The social concept is excellent, its just the freeloaders who have corrupted the system and made other people then feel bad about using it when they have a right to do so

i can't be bothered to read through the rest of this because the root has been discovered above  

what worries me is if this recesion becomes serious there's going to be even less giving and many more taking :-/

[Martin_1962]

Most of us are members of the area between working class and middle class. However I feel the class system is outmoded and was put in place to keep us there.

As to encoraging work - definately, I have done duff jobs while unemployed to be able to live and survive.

As SWNMBOB has seen I have NOTHING against social housing or people from broken homes, all I am concerned about are children being brought up right and for them to respect other people and themselves, unfortunately there is an underclass developing with no respect and depending on benefits rather than trying to better themselves. My worry is what will happen if a large number of children end up like this.

I fully agree with social mobility - anyone can improve themselves, and as I have stated some of my grandparents lived in council houses and I grew up in a mobile home. Some of my ancestors were middle class some working class, and some working class who mixed daily with upper class who treated them as equals.

I do like the way there is no shouting and heatedness in this discussion, I have seen places where there would be swearing!!

But think about this, the cars we drive are cars which encourage upwards social mobility

Not working, parents who stay home to look after their children I think is good, Sue does this but wants a part time job.

[Martin_1962]

Benefits - social safety net - as used by me on a few occasions and repaid many many times over

[Elite Pete]

My two pence worth.

If you are a single Mum or Dad or a couple on benefit and have a council house you should give something back in return i.e if you are a couple, mum or dad should be made to get a job, if a job can't be found then they should earn their benefit in the community, shopping/gardening for pensioners, cleaning streets ect. Once the child is old enough to go the school then the other partner should also go and work in the community to earn the benefit they receive.

[HerefordElite]

Benefits - social safety net - as used by me on a few occasions and repaid many many times over

Yes me too on 2 occassions when made redundant but not how the system is being used by the majority