posted
I believe the Germans came up with a solution for this very problem. Bit drastic, but I'm sure some of the 'best practice' competencies can be leveraged into today's systems.
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posted
Darryn, tell us about what the teemo bebbe will be called! I don't much like the actual product, but baby names are interesting.
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quote:Originally posted by Louche: I find the idea that a whole class or section of society is going to be living well below the poverty line and reproducing in a self-perpetuating loop without chance or opportunity to break out very bleak. Taking it to it's ultimate conclusion is bleak. If you assume, as Darryn was doing, that there will be a huge rise in the number of uneducated, unemployed people and a massive decrease in the number of qualified professions, such as teachers, doctors and a similar decrease in the number of tax paying ordinary job doing people then you're left with a country where the vast majority live in horrendous poverty without any services and a small minority works it's arse off in appalling conditions to attempt to alleviate that poverty. That's pretty bleak.
We live in one of the most well-off countries in the world and yet we're addicted to freaking out about these chimerical 'demographic timebombs' that seem to come round every so often and yet never quite result in the apocalyptic scenarios that get howled about.
A significant minority in this country are below the poverty line, but I don't think the caricature of a "breeding like rabbits" underclass is either particularly true or - more importantly - remotely helpful. Because we're talking about a minority I believe we have the wherewithal (but not the political will) to help more of these people break out of that situation.
The main purpose of the 'chav = morally corrupt hyperfertile waster' caricature is to justify that lack of opportunity and the yawning social chasm that results ("Let's face it, they don't deserve any better...") while according spurious victim status to the more comfortably off.
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Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
posted
quote:Originally posted by Darryn.R: Sinking money into it would probably help, and offering all children regardless of colour, race, creed or financial background the same standard of education and access to the same opportunities is something that we should aspire to.
This is already happening. Excellence in Cities is all about increasing the aspirations and attainment of kids who come from sink estates and could otherwise be lost. And it is actually working in a lot of places. It funds a few extra people like youth workers and mentors to give kids from these kind of places the support, encouragement and information they just can't access at home.
The other vastly important thing that's happening is reform of the curriculum from the knob-headed Curriculum 2000 which assumes every child is academically minded and capable and interested in sitting in a classrom for two years up to GCSE ingesting the history of Europe. Curriculum 2000, with an emphasis on academia lost a lot of kids at 14 and 15; they had little chance of achieving in it and so ended up dropping out before 16 when 16 is when you can progress to college and go and do something vastly more interesting. If the government get it right (and fingers crossed they will) kids who really can't be arsed with GCSE French and GCSE Classics will, shortly, from the age of 14 be able to do all manner of things from getting under the bonnet of a car to basic plumbing. Thus minimising the number alienated at 14 and landing on the job market with no qualifications and a record for nicking cars because they had to find something to do with their time.
quote:But who will invest this money, where will it come from - Would you pay more tax for these kids to get a better education, would you be willing to be financially accountable for allowing these children a way out of the poverty loop ? Or would you just worry you'd be throwing money down the drain ?
I'd rather my taxes paid for initiatives to raise aspirations in the back end of 'top of the 2004 indices of deprivation' Salford than I would to have them spent on benefits. It's improbable that there's a relaible study which shows £200,000 on learning mentors in Manchester reduced the benefits bill by £250,000 but technically that's what should happen.
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posted
Sorry - I misread your earlier post and was revved up to respond to Snorton's thing which he subsequently deleted. I think initiatives like the one you describe are the way forward and I believe there's too many people in this country able to afford iPods for progressive taxation not to be a sensible and fair way forward.
quote:Originally posted by Darryn.R: Okay VP, as you've asked I'll tell you..
I'm pretty sure that Femke and I have decided on calling him Beckett Archer Reeds.
I was hoping you'd tell us something like Grott or Kuntstink, which actually translates as Steve or Brian in Dutch. Or conversely that Trevor or Dave sound like Wanklove or Itchycock in Dutch.
(this is based on the time my teenage FC class collapsed in hysterics for approx 10 minutes after being asked to read a dialogue featuring a girl called Pippa, with Pippa apparently sounding like todger in Polish)
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quote:Originally posted by ben: Sorry - I misread your earlier post and was revved up to respond to Snorton's thing which he subsequently deleted.
Apologies for deleting said post, but the "olde dayes" where we would have had at least half a dozen shots at each other before the likes of Squirrelandgman even made an introductory shitty oneliner are long gone.
I could repost it, but maybe it's best to let this particular sleeping dog lie.
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Astromariner
Going the right way for a smacked bottom
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There are loads - possibly thousands - of initiatives such as Louche describes. Individually, they do good work, but there often isn't any real co-ordination between them, or between voluntary and statutory agencies in general, so what you end up with is tiny pockets where good things are happening, but massive cross-sections of people who don't know about, or aren't able to access, that sort of support.
Social services in places like Glasgow are stretched to breaking point by miniscule budgets, appalling organisation and a huge blame culture where people are constantly on the defensive and terrified of putting a foot wrong. I think the only way this is ever going to change long term is if the government seriously rethinks the amount of money it spends on social care and education, which inevitably means more taxes. I also think that social services shouldn't be funded through council tax but entirely through central government.
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Lucid
It's six o'clock somewhere, I'm having crisps !
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A more immediate schizm is likely to be caused by the cash vs cards/credit problem. IIRC 8 million adults have no access to credit/banking facilities. I think cash now has less worth than cards - it's not welcome in a lot of places (other than bars/clubs, even that is changing), it's treated with suspicion, can't be used to buy things via the internet etc.. However. people who have a low credit rating, ironically, although disenfranchised, are less monitored, less accountable than *us* - e.g. the scary phenomenon of credit card companies alerting us to 'unusual changes in our spending patterns' indicating fraud.. [work in progress]
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quote:The ‘so called’ underclass, the pikeys, the chavs or whatever term we are referring to them as these days start spawning pretty much as soon as puberty hits. By the time they are 22 or 23 they’ve squeaked out three of four mongrel litters for every one normal, middle class child born.
This is such an unpleasant paragraph. I mean really. The language is fucking derogatory in the extreme. That is why I can't engage in reasonable debate. I wasn't digging at Norton solely. I used Nortons question of what are we going to do as a basis for my final solution.
This idea of being overrun by chavs is no different from the BNP's fears of being overrun by asylum seekers. Not based in reality.
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quote:Originally posted by squirrelandgman: This idea of being overrun by chavs is no different from the BNP's fears of being overrun by asylum seekers. Not based in reality.
The language is derogatory. I have no reason to be nice. I'm talking about a section (albeit a small section according to you) of society that I think is pretty foul, and from what I see each and every time I come back home it's growing.
As far as the above statement goes, here in Holland last year, Rotterdam became the first city in Holland to have fewer Dutch national residents than immigrants. It may not be such a reality in England due to the size of the native populous, but becoming over run with immigrants can happen..
(Not asylum seekers though, that’s a different kettle of fish all together)
Not that I support the BNP or condone hatred of anyone because of colour or country of birth.
It's not just about the UK though, it's a worldwide problem (I don't ever remember saying that the problems of those who choose not to have kids and those who reproduce en masse being a typically British phenomenon) as far as living below the poverty line goes for example you have America, where the total number of people living below the poverty line is some 34.6 million (or say 12.1 percent of the population) The UK its 12.5 million people living below the poverty line that’s something like 22% of the population.
(SOURCE: The Joseph Rowntree Foundation)
I don’t hate them, I hate the fact that they exist and that society has been allowed to fall into this vicious circle.
posted
To give a gentle tug of rein and slight jab of spur to direct this thread back:
What do people here think about adoption?
I have thought that if I do ever get maternal urges, I would rather satiate them by adopting an older child. Obviously there are selfish reasons here; I get to keep my figure and can choose an age I like, missing out on the messy boring sleepless early phase, but I think it could be a really rewarding thing to do.
All the people here who clearly want kids, do you always specifically mean products of your own body? Is the parenting urge inextricably associated with the posessiveness of wanting my baby with my eyes? Does it really come down to the spreading of genes?
I sometimes wonder how the human race would explain itself to an intelligent observer. Aside from the obvious, "so half of you lot are starving, the other half are getting obese. How does that work?", I'm sure they would ask why we continue to make babies when there are pre-existing ones that require the love and attention that would-be parents are so keen to give.
I don't know anything at all about the adoption procedure in this country, other than vague notions that it's notoriously stringent and that it's far harder to persuade people to choose older kids rather than "cute" ickle bebbes.
I do find it interesting though; clearly there are people here who want to be parents and would probably make good ones, but have they ever thought about channeling those strong feelings towards those who already need their help?
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I'd be more than happy to adopt, problem is they make it so hard to do.
There's all these unwanted kids looking for loving homes and there are people who are willing to adopt them but the checks they perform and the criteria you have to pass make the whole process slow and laborious.
I'm sure that adopting an older kid is the way to go; I can understand those who want a 'baby' because they are unable to conceive but when they go abroad to get one I feel saddened.
I wonder how bad it would be though if you really ended up disliking the kiddies you adopted ? I know a lot of people who love their kids but really don't like them very much but that’s got to be different if the child in question is not your own..
Maybe in a few years time I'll give it some serious consideration, but as I have a criminal record I doubt I'll be allowed.
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posted
There really are not very many 'babies' that need adopting. Older children in local authority care are there for more complex reasons, and need more than enthusiastic, wealthy middle-class people. In fact, that's probably a worse environment than your average foster placement.
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Part of the attraction (for me) is that a baby is something that you get to make together and then watch grow over a period of nine months, all the while marvelling at what's going on. BY comparison, adoption seems quite an "off the shelf" procedure.
An adopted child could certainly find love in the X household, but I think the urges that encourage us to spread our genes are amongst some of the most powerful and primal that we possess, and to rail against that seems akin to pissing in the wind. No matter how rational we are, at the end of the day we are nothing more than rutting chimps - on that basis an adopted child is unlikely to fulfil those urges in the same way that one's own biological child would. IMHO.
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quote:Originally posted by StevieX: at the end of the day we are nothing more than rutting chimps
Eat, sleep, defecate, procreate. That's all insects do. That's all we do, but insects don't kid themselves it's anything more.*
Homo sapiens, last remnants of a tiny twig on the evolutionary bush, having existed for the merest blink in the history of a planet orbiting an average star in an unimaginably immense universe.
BUT! The insecks didn't invent salt n vineagr crisps.
* A drink to anyone who can place the quote
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Lucid
It's six o'clock somewhere, I'm having crisps !
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We've thought about doing the 'was an old woman who lived in a shoe' thing, on Lucid Jnr's better days, to give him semisiblings. As to getting a 'fresh' one, rather then a 'pre-owned' one, I think I'd go for a three year old. I've 'done' the whole baby thing once, that was quite sufficient thank you v. much. The first three years are a mixture of chemical and biological warfare with a liberal ladling of sleep deprivation. However, once kids start to speak, about 3ish, it's fantastic. Once they start to develop 'personalities', it's hilarious. When they start mimicing the *way* you do things, not just what you do, you start to learn a lot about who you are. Kids are amazing mirrors - it's not often in life you get someone following you around, subconsciously ripping the piss out of the way you perform everyday tasks. I've learnt more about myself from being a dad than a thousand years of therapy could ever have revealed.
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I think I know that quote! Was that from the X-files, Veep? I dunno if it comes froms somewhere else prior to that, but I think it pretty much hits the nail on the head. We can rise so far above that level, but I reckon it's a short slope back down!
Ringo - enough with the social economics already! Talk about babies
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Stevie, yes, but you only get a half unless you can give me an episode name and season number.
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: If everyone was an academic, or even well qualified, who would do the menial jobs like shop work and operating machines in factories?
The lower classes are the foundation of society, they may be impoverished but they provide services and do jobs which nobody would do otherwise.
posted
I have had this discussion so many times its made my ears bleed. There is an assumption that if you are in a long-term relationship of any sort, then procreation will follow. Happily, after ten years, people are starting to take the hint, and realise that the likelihood that Al and I will breed is somewhere between slim an non-existent.
No-one on this thread has come up with an argument in favour of children that I haven't heard many times already. To paraphrase the main arguments in favour: You're intelligent and well educated, you should have kids because at least you're will be decent ones. You need to breed, its all there is to life, you need to breed, otherwise you won't be "fulfilled." Yawn. Sorry chaps, but these arguments haven't changed my mind before, and they're unlikely to now.
What I find interesting though, is that the majority of people who are going all pie-eyed and skewedly optimistic are the men. The women are far more pragmatic. Maybe this is because it is the women who will carry the foetus, go through labour, breastfeed, do the lions share of childcare, and so on. As far as kids go, men get a much better deal out of it. Their contribution to the process is over in minutes. After that, all they have to do is feel like a real man, ("look, my sperm work!") carry round photos, and accept the "congratulations" of other males. Even if they want to do this new man thing, there's a limit to what they *can* physically, emotionally, intellectually, psychically, do.
With all the good will in the world, childbearing and childrearing are, for the most part, womens work, and I thank the Lord on a daily basis for the 1960's, the contraceptive pill, the Abortion Act, and the right to choose.
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quote:Originally posted by squirrelandgman: This idea of being overrun by chavs is no different from the BNP's fears of being overrun by asylum seekers. Not based in reality.
This is why I want to be kicked to the floor whilst wearing the old person simulation suit. I want to try out Nortons fantasy-death to see if it is as horrifying as he imagines.
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