Sandydragon wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:38 am
The issue about school children turning up (or not) without proper nourishment or apparently neglected isn’t new. My wife has worked in schools for years and it’s common. When you look into the situation, it often is the fault of the parents, many of whom have had their addictions that have interfered with the care of the children.
You can say that those parents needs help and not be wrong. But they are also adults and any good parent puts the needs of their children before their own.
The recent cost of living crisis has probably hurt far more families and led to greater deprivation, which just isn’t the fault of parents working multiple jobs. But I’d suggest your mum has plenty of experience of the situation before the current crisis on which she is basing her views.
The Tesla point is an interesting one. They were very expensive vehicles for a while but not so outlandish now. Equally I suspect many people buy them on HP or similar. Compared to a second hand car, they all seem like a huge investment when they are many times more expensive than something decent with a few miles on the clock. I’ve heard the same views and I expect that is a generational thing. Once you bought your car outright now the vast majority of new cars are on credit.
There’s one other side the the religious but, and that’s the perseverance that many Islamic community leaders have. Rather than lodge an initial request (followed by the automatic appeal) they keep badgering officials for years to get the result they want. Part of it is down to numbers and many traditional Christian churches are old and at risk of closure, but that’s not the whole picture.
No, these are kids who are just not getting the attention they need. And that, for me, is a sociological issue. Parents are unable to give their kids full attention any more. I know that from my own experience. We cannot spend the summers with the kids anymore, it's just not financially viable. We need to work. And we're relatively OK financially.
My point is that if parents have been promised a certain life, and have had the rug pulled out from them, it can be really hard to adjust. Do you work harder to afford the life you wanted, just to miss out on it? Or do you give up on that life completely, and work less, living a life that you thought you were going to be "above"?
It's not a choice anyone in today's society should be making, as corporations turn record profits.
But...more pertinently, my point was entirely about how run down and downtrodden it felt. And how the older generation just fail to see this somehow, even though they're struggling just as much. How them not being able to turn the heating on is not the fault of private corporations making massive profits... It's insane how blind they are, and how they've all just lapped up the propaganda.
Here, at least, even the supporters of the government among the educated admit to many issues being on the government. And there aren't many supporters among the educated.