Teenage Mums rant

Yeah its bad over here in the good ol' US. What really burns me up is our foster program. We will give anyone foster rights and then give them a montly stipend and then not check up on them. Then those people fostering just for the money foster like 12 kids and put them in cages and crap. ERRRR!!!

So i know that it was off topic. I had kids young. I was lucky though and I am still with their father and we are married and he works really hard so i can stay at home with them. We had twins at 19. Can you imagine?!?!?!

I've been a social worker in the US for 2 years now. I've come across moms who had their FIRST child as young as 13. They are girls who were just too anxious to grow up, over sexed or came from abusive homes. Shoot.... at 13 i was watching Saturday morning cartoons, not having sex. I've case worked some of my old friends from elementary school, i grew up in a rough neighborhood. And sometimes I think, oh wow what a completely different path they took. I'm the lucky one.

As far as public services are concerned, I agree with Sunburned in that many people need it - and it can be a great benefit and detriment to them. I know families with 4 or 5 members who only make a total of $16K a year. Food stamps, WIC, Medicaid, and housing definitely come in handy for them.

The problem is that cycle of poverty and that learned helplessness. "I cant do any better" "If i get a better job, i'll lose my housing." "if i report all my income, I cant get foodstamps." From one end, this sounds like a scam, but you have to see what people experience first hand as i have. You can be $500 over the poverty line and poof... there goes your chance of getting any assistance. Sorry but $500 can't buy you food for a month.

I guess summing it up, I know there are young moms and the like that abuse our system, but for the most part people get stuck, and there is no way out.

OH! another story.

My sister in law is 18. She ran away from home last week - because her parents don't let her go out on dates with her 15 year old boyfriend. Mind you they are very old school Mexicans - meet his family first, we all eat dinner together, when we trust him then you can go out.

Well NO she says. So she ran away to live with her 15 year old boyfirend. did i say 15? yes 15. she could technically be arrested for statatory rape for being with homeboy.

So we picked her up, talked to her for about 5 hours about what life would be like if she decided to go live with him a)silly arguments b)work work work c)inlaws d)no fun etc etc..... That girl was begging to come back home after we talked to her. haha! what a fool.

Good post puchita. A large part of my family is indiginous Australian,and the cycle of poverty in this community is also hard to comprehend from the outside looking in.
edited to add that this was post was written before the last post

I agree completely that some people find themselves in that trap, I did to begin with. When I got pregnant with my eldest daughter I was only 16, and gave birth at 17. I'd been with her father for a while and was on the pill.....but I guess I was one of the 1% that fell pregnant on the pill. As soon as I found out I was so scared, but also overwhelmed with this feeling of love for my unborn baby. We stayed together and he was a great father, we went on to have a second daughter when I was 20. But he changed and became a terrible partner.....abusive and violent towards me (but never the girls) and we split up when my youngest was just 9 months old. I was suddenly a single parent at 21 with 2 children. I relied on benefits for about another year as I was caught in that trap of wanting to work but not being able to afford childcare costs or housing costs with my lack of skills. I used that year to take advantage of the free training courses the government in the UK provide for those on benefits, and got qualifications in IT. As soon as my eldest was in school and I only had to find nursery costs for my youngest, I started working at a call centre. I was even more skint for a good few years then I had ever been on benefits as suddenly I had to find rent, council tax, and all the other things benefits had previously paid for, but I was raised in a single parent non-working family on a rough estate myself and was determined not to suffer the same fate with my children. It was a hard slog, but worth it. I am now earning good money in a specialised field and will never ever go back to relying on the state. I think, I hope, I have instilled some good work ethics in my kids and thats what it is all about.

Puchita, I am glad you managed to talk some sense into your sister-in-law, shes lucky to have you in her family

I admire your passion Sunburned. You had the initiative and the self esteem to keep going. Unfortunately not a lot of people do.

Its good that you had classes you could take also. There are programs people can get into here where plan and goals are laid out - what i am doing - but not everyone has access to social workers. Everyone gets their medicaid case worker, or their wic case worker - but they usually dont care enough about their clients to try.

oh wow... good conversation, man. i feel like we getting to know each other a little better.

Yes its good to talk about other stuff than just Lost sometimes, brings the community closer together I think

Thanks for your kind words

The free classes are available to anyone out of work for any reason (or they were all those years ago, not sure how it works now) but there are a lot of people who have this attitude of "why should I, i'm not doing what the government tell me" which in one respect is a good attitude to have.....but not when it is actually something that could help you provide for yourself and your family and lower the amount of people on benefits! Again, it comes back to those people who plan a family without any means to support themselves and just expect to live on hand-outs for the rest of their lives.

There was an episode of wife-swap a while ago and one of the families had about 12 kids, neither parent had ever worked, and they were getting in the region of 30K a year in benefits and lived in a huge, lovely house paid for by the council. It caused an outrage and they became public enemy number one for a while and the only argument they had was "we always wanted a big family so why cant we have one?".....well love, maybe you should have thought about how you can support them first???

SP,

What is "the council" and council tax? Is that the power that controls the welfare system and doles out the cash?

The local councils (one for each county [what you would call state], and then smaller ones within a county for each district) are the people responsible for all issues concerned with housing, rubbish collecting, street lighting, urban roads etc. And much more. They are controlled by the government but each council will have politicical party members, voted in locally, from all the different political parties. It works much the same as it does in the US but with different terminology

The council provide council housng for poorer families, and we pay council tax to pay for the above mentioned services.

They also pay out "housing benefit" to those who need help with rent if they are renting privately other than from the council, and those people will also get council tax benefit so they do not pay council tax. All other benefits are paid by the Department for work and pensions that is run by the government.

I think thats it anyway lol

Thanks for the explanation.

I have a 3 year old daughter and the idea of her getting pregnant while in high school scares the crap out of me even this early.

I went to an all boys Catholic high school, but my wife went to public high school here in Ar-keen-saw. Shes told me about friends she had that would try, and succeed, to get pregnant just because some other cooler girl got pregnant.
Nothing personal moms, but I'll blame it on poor sex-ed. Rrom parents and teachers. Parents can teach their kids the "love"and "special someone" stuff. Let the schools show them that cats have sex, they get pregnant, Dogs have sex, they get pregnant. Elephants have sex, they get pregnant. People have sex... Hey guess what... they get pregnant! If you don't pass that test, then how did you find the bus this morning.


P.S. My baby Sara, i will say, is the happiest accident i've ever had happen to me.

you also have to teach your kids self respect and self worth. If they respect themselves, thats a great first step

Hope wrote:you also have to teach your kids self respect and self worth. If they respect themselves, thats a great first step

Absolutely! I think that is a lesson that needs to be taught by example.

i forgot to add that respect for other people is very important too. And I agree that it has to be taught by example. You can't just say "hey respect yourself" and then go out and get drunk and sleep with a bunch of guys.

Or say "hey respect your friends" and then talk bad about them for apparently no reason.

What does that teach?

Thanks SBP for getting me started on a rant..LOL!!

lol, a rant now and again is good for the soul