What has gone wrong?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.c...oolchildren-breakfast

This is not a story from Dickens Victorian England, it is benefit Britain of 2012.

Are there really families going hungry, if so why?

[ummmm]

Joe - can kids not tip cereal into a bowl? Or should the mother, in full make up, do it for them?

I stopped making breakfast for mine when they were old enough to do it themselves. I get up every morning with them...

Life skills...

[cathfromsaron]

housing benefit most certainly can be paid into tenants bank accounts and mis-spent by the tenants!

that is the biggest problem we have had with my daughter, who has learning difficulties!

[emmie]

my mother was born before the welfare state was formed, and she didn't starve, the families weren't well off by any means. Most people worked, men and women, to put food on the table and clothes on their backs.

[ummmm]

How many kids have you got Em?

[daffy654]

That is why I stipulated basic benefits joeluke.

Most of the benefit claimants who seem to have all the flash stuff are either working as well or fiddling the system in some other way - drug dealing and selling copyrighted music discs/films are two ways I know that people have done.

[ummmm]

Cath...I didn't know that.

[emmie]

I am sorry to say this, but this looks more like a degree of laziness on the parents part. This country does not have the level of poverty once common, - and there should be no reason why children are going to school hungry.

[emmie]

ummm, why should it matter.

[anotheoldgit]

craft1948

/// They relied on their families to help them out..................or the workhouse. ///

Remember those times do we craft?

Since I guess you were born in 1948, you have always lived in a Welfare State.

[cathfromsaron]

we have moved her into a housing association place now, and the council pay the rent directly! she has to pay a top up for communal areas and homelesness support worker gets that off her!

she has lots of help with budgeting and she is proof that surviving on benefits CAN be done honestly!

[craft1948]

I was very lucky wasn't I aog.................unlike 2 of my nan's brothers who died in Yor Unionist Workhouse.

[craft1948]

^ York

[ummmm]

Of course it matters. How do you know the cost of children if you don't have any?

My son has been through 3 pairs of school shoes this year through growing spurts. 2 blazers, 3 school trousers, god knows how many socks, boxers, loads of deodorant..shower gel, hair gel....

That's the basics...

Do you know how much growing teenage boys can eat?

[ChuckFickens]

With respect ummmm... hair gel is not a basic (neither is shower gel really, cheap shampoo would do)

[daffy654]

I agree with what ummmm says in her post above. Teenage boys cost a blooming fortune to bring up, especially if they can't be clothed in VAT free children's sizes (as my son can't at 6ft tall aged 14).

[emmie]

you make this personal why? It's none of yours or indeed anyone's business how many. I made that point once before, i won't make it again.

[anotheoldgit]

ummmm

//You must eat a great deal or the wrong things.//

Please elaborate...

I will have you know that I do NOT eat the wrong things!

But then you are not saying that "you don't eat too much"? :0)

Yes I saw a clip from that programme although I don't know what it was called.

But the mother who was telling the interviewer that she was going without food to feed her children was hardly anorexic, not by any stretch of the imagination.

[emmie]

all children are costly, it's why if you can't afford to have them, then don't.
I am amazed at the attitude of some who think they can just keep on having them, and expect the state to pay.

[joeluke]

3 pairs of shoes in 10 months?

No one goes up shoe sizes that quickly, especially if you buy shoes with plenty of growing room in them (i.e. next size up)

[ummmm]

Fair enough Chuck...but the pressure on kids now is not something we experienced.

O...my youngest - size 9

Em, sorry...but you haven't got a clue.