The Reality Of Living On Benefits

“This Morning” is a British breakfast programme with celebrity gossip, fashion, cooking and some debate of current affairs. Today they’re featuring a benefit claimant who says she’d never consider getting a job because she gets £70k worth of benefits – propaganda on “This Morning”‘s part as she gets THE EQUIVALENT of £70k, apparently she’s getting her daughter’s tuition fees paid for (I didn’t even think they did that) and that’s included, which will presumably take it up by £9k a year for three years. Anyway, cue the regular comments about everyone on benefits being subservient to taxpayers and completely inferior and all being workshy layabouts. I wrote and posted this, both on the status (it’s on Facebook) and on the page itself, and the comments are mysteriously vanishing – I wonder why? However, please read this, and share it as much as you can – on Facebook, or wherever. People need to know the reality – Maddy x

 

Ok then, how about this? I’ll quite gladly volunteer to come in and sit on your sofa, and tell you the reality of living on benefits. I’ll go further than that, I’ll tell you the reality of the reason why we have to live on benefits.
 I’ll tell you how the house is freezing through the winter because we can’t afford the heating; how we live in extra layers and the day when you can walk around in a t-shirt IN the house is a massive celebration.
I’ll tell you how my parents have gone without food, to make sure me and my brother and sister can eat.
I’ll tell you how, at sixteen, I saw both my parents become suicidal when we were wrongly accused of benefit fraud by local busybodies.
I’ll tell you how my eleven year old sister has to put up with being bullied at school by all the other kids – all of whom have middle-class parents and nice homes and few financial worries – who insist that we get a free car (wrong) and all our shopping paid for (wrong) and our house paid for (wrong) AS WELL as all our benefits (yep, ALL of them, because apparently we’re rich!), and that my dad isn’t even ill. She’s eleven years old, and gets into trouble for fighting back when KIDS are being taught to view genuine benefit claimants in this narrow-minded, bigoted way.
I’ll tell you how yes, we do go away on holiday – for a week, usually to somewhere like South Wales. Why will I tell you that? Because apparently people on benefits don’t deserve holidays. Not even when they’ve spent the other 51 weeks of the year caring around-the-clock for ill, disabled family members, and just want a break to get away and be a family without worrying about the people at home and what they think of us.
I’ll tell you how my Dad has refused to leave the house in all but a few occasions for the past three years, because he became convinced we were being watched by people from the DWP.
I’ll tell you how the DWP lied and twisted words in the interview, and STILL couldn’t find my parents guilty.
I’ll tell you how the rumours still circulate about us, peddled by a few ignorant bigots determined to believe that everyone on benefits is a scrounger. I’ll tell you how we’re social paraiahs in our own village, outcast for the simple crime of my Dad being disabled.
I’ll tell you how, when you’re on benefits, everyone feels entitled to know every detail of your financial life. “How did you afford that?”, “Oooh, how can you afford that?”. And if you have the gall to tell them it’s none of their business, you’re met with “Well, it’s MY tax money paying for it!”.
I’ll tell you how being on benefits and being wrongly accused of fraud can make you paranoid. You suspect everyone of having it in for you. Leaving the house becomes uncomfortable. It destroys relationships, ruins friendships – years on I still suspect my ex played a part in reporting us. What kind of life is that?
I’ll tell you how, even at university, there’s a stigma attached to being from a family on benefits. As soon as people find out how much financial aid you get – and it wasn’t by me telling them, before you ask – you’re suddenly to blame for everyone’s financial difficulties. People having to cut into their overdraft? My fault. People being unable to afford accommodation? My fault.
I’ll also tell you how determined it’s made me. I’ll tell you how I was able to read and write before I started school, because although my parents are “scrounging benefit scum”, they care enough about my education to make sure I didn’t end up the same way. I’ll tell you how I’ve always been complimented on my manners, because although my parents are “scrounging benefit scum”, they’ve instilled courtesy in me, to make sure I don’t end up the same way. I’ll tell you how I’m at university against all the odds, because although my parents are “scrounging benefit scum”, they pushed me to reach my potential and get to where I am. I’ll tell you how I’m hoping to become a primary school teacher, and never want to have to live on benefits, because although my parents are “scrounging benefit scum”, they want the best for me, they’ve encouraged me to follow my dreams and they’ve helped me every step of the way – not financially, but emotionally, through support and motivation.
I’ll tell each and every one of you how, if you spent a week in our shoes, you wouldn’t see all benefit claimants as “scrounging benefit scum”. And I’ll also tell you this now – if the family I was brought up in makes me “scrounging benefit scum”, and being “scrounging benefit scum” makes me the person I am today, I am proud – because I am a damn sight more motivated, and presumably more educated, and definitely more polite than any of you who write us all off as benefit scum.
So before you shoot your mouth off about me, or my parents, or others like me, think about what you’re saying, think about what I’ve said, and think about what life is like for us. If you still have any doubts, come and talk to me, and I’ll tell you how it really is.

The Church of England would make me laugh…

… if they didn’t make me so damn angry.

Here is a list of issues I take with the CofE’s opinion on the theory that civil partnerships can be given marriage status as soon as 2015.

1. They say that it will undermine their status and the nature of marriage. I wonder if they’ve forgotten that in Tudor times, divorce was frowned upon by the Catholic church just as much as homosexuality is frowned upon by the CofE today. The Church of England was formed by Henry VIII so that he could, essentially, undermine the standards of marriage of the day. I think it’s fairly hypocritical for the Church of England to condemn a change to marriage given their past.
2. They say that marriage should be between a man and a woman because men and women can procreate. Modern advances in medicine – the use of surrogacy and IVF – make it possible for same-sex couples to procreate too, and last time I checked, people were complaining because there’s too many babies in the world, and too many of them are unwanted. There are a massive number of children waiting to be adopted, and I think that by allowing same-sex couples to marry, and encouraging them to adopt, we would be seeing not a loss of the traditional family dynamic, but a change to it. After all, the parents are married and they are giving a home to a child who sorely needs it – what’s the problem with that?
3. Since when did the Church of England, and Christianity in general, have the monopoly on marriage? Muslims get married. Atheists get married. Pagans, humanists, agnostics, Scientologists, Mormons – they all get married. Marriage is an ancient tradition which dates back, if not in name then in the ceremony, way before Christianity was founded.
4. The church seems to essentially be getting all hissy because people want to do something that they don’t agree with – even though it doesn’t personally affect the church or any of their members or officials, because it’s not something they like, they don’t want anyone to be allowed to do it. To quote someone on The Student Room, it’s like a Hindu demanding that no-one eats beef because it undermines the sanctity of a cow. Whilst the cow being eaten doesn’t directly affect Hindus, other than to make them feel sad, they don’t want other people to do it (I’m not saying this is a Hindu viewpoint, just pointing out what this ridiculous statement by the church is equivalent to).
5. If marriage is all about procreation, does that mean that people who are post-menopausal shouldn’t be allowed to marry? Or infertile couples? Or couples who don’t intend on having children? If a married couple miscarry, should they be forced to divorce because they are no longer procreating? Marriage isn’t all about having children, just as life isn’t all about having children. Yes, thousands of years ago, that was the main aim in life, to ensure the survival of the species, but these days, people have other goals in life. Some families have ten children, meaning other people can afford not to have children if they choose not to. Life’s main aim needn’t be to become baby machines any more because it isn’t strictly necessary.
6. The church has gay clergy, for crying out loud, so why are they so opposed to gay marriage? Also, the amounts of reported paedophilia and child molestation in the church is far more of an abomination than homosexuality.
7. Homosexuality being sinful was mentioned in the Old Testament – but hang on, in the New Testament, didn’t Jesus come and die for our sins, and wash those sins away? The New Testament reiterates some of the more important rules – not to kill, not to steal etc – but as far as I’m aware (this is second-hand knowledge as I have never read the Bible), the New Testament mentions nothing about homosexuality being a sin – so why is it still considered sinful? In the Old Testament, the things considered sinful – including homosexuality – reflected the culture at the time; things such as the mixing of fabrics, over-eating and women showing their faces. The world has changed and the Church should accept this and move with it.
8. The church has warned that this is leading to the separation of church and state. About time too! They don’t seem to realize that, just as easily as the Catholic church was in the Tudor times, their standing can be replaced by the introduction of another church which doesn’t take such a bigoted stance. The church should never have influence on matters of the state because, like it or not, we are a multicultural – and therefore, multi-theistic – country, so to have just one church linked to the state misrepresents the country as a whole.

 

In short, I think the church need to re-evaluate their faith. Surely, if they were Christians, they would listen to the teachings of their own book – to love one another, and to do unto others as they would be done by. Love is love, regardless of who it is between – man and woman, woman and woman, man and man, and people who don’t identify as any gender with other people who don’t identify as any gender, and any combination of the aforementioned. We all love – I’m sure I love my boyfriend in the same way that my friend loves his boyfriend, in the same way that I’m sure Celia Kitzinger loves Sue Wilkinson (look at Wiki if you don’t know who). If we all love our partners in the same way, why is it that I will be allowed to marry my boyfriend, but if the laws don’t change, my friend won’t be allowed to marry his, and Kitzinger and Wilkinson had to go to British Columbia to get married?

Moom’s Views – Gay Marriage

This is a topic that has been in the news a lot recently, and has sparked a massive debate – most of it polite, but some of it not so. From my understanding of it, the government is considering legislation that will make gay marriage legal – at the moment, here in Britain, we only have civil partnerships – by 2015, although churches will not be forced to perform them. 

Personally, I think this is a good thing – although I don’t like the fact that the church can turn the couple away on the basis of the fact that they are gay. There are gay Christians, quite a lot of them (and I’m not referring to the Christian on Eastenders, who is gay), and they have every right to get married in a church – more right, I’m tempted to say, than someone like me, who is an atheist, straight but I’d like to get married in a church because it’s tradition, most girls dream of their big white church wedding etc. Why are churches happy enough to marry these people, but can refuse people of their own faith purely because of who they fall in love with? 

You can’t help who you fall in love with – that’s one thing I’m fairly sure of. I disagree that homosexuality is a choice, or something caused by nurture – I didn’t sit down and choose to be heterosexual, so why do people assume that gay people sit down one day and think, “Right, shall I be gay or straight? I know, I’ll be gay!”. I really can’t see that happening, somehow. I think love is love, and you can’t help who you fall in love with. The sooner people appreciate that – especially Christians, who preach so much about love and acceptance – the better. 

The church leaders say they’re trying to “preserve traditional marriage” – why can’t they just extend traditional marriage so that gay people are afforded that right too? What is so bad about changing tradition – there are so many traditions that are now outdated and aren’t used anymore because they’re considered old-fashioned or even “wrong”, and to be honest I think that the tradition of only allowing heterosexual couples to marry is wrong and old-fashioned too. 

Why do children need a mother and a father? Why not a father and a father or a mother and a mother, especially when they’ve been adopted – two caring parents of the same sex are surely better than abusive heterosexual parents, or no parents at all, or being in a care home when they don’t have any real parental figures – only carers? As long as the child is cared for and loved, that’s all that matters. 

Some people are worried that gay marriage would make homosexuality appear to be “normal” – and that’s a bloody good thing! It shouldn’t be seen as something disgusting or abnormal because it isn’t – it is love, the most natural thing in the world regardless of who it is you fall in love with, as long as both parties are legally able to consent and do consent to it. It’s time we became more accepting of people – this is all due to fear, which is due to ignorance, and if those people who are so afraid of accepting something new would reconsider their perspectives and realize that love is something beautiful, regardless of who it’s between, perhaps the world might be a little more happier. 

Bullying

I wasn’t going to post one of these “Moom’s Views” for a couple of weeks, but I thought I may as well make a start now. So, today’s topic is about bullying. It hasn’t been very widely covered in the news recently, but there has been a drive to combat cyberbullying, so I may as well make a start.

The main problem with bullying is that it’s almost impossible to deal with sufficiently. The bullies tend to be the “problem” students – the ones who the schools will lose a lot of money if they kick them out  – so it’s easier to segregate the victims. The victims are told to stay away from the bullies – they’re told to stay in the library at break and lunchtime, and to go out of their way to avoid contact. The second one, I can understand but it isn’t easy – sometimes, you can’t get away from them no matter what – but the first one is ridiculous. You’re essentially punishing the victim for being bullied – why can’t you keep the BULLY in the library at breaktime and lunchtime – surely that’d be seen as a punishment. After all, bullies tend not to be the sort to enjoy being stuck in a room full of books, especially seeing as they seem to find school so boring, they become intent on disrupting it for everyone.

People get bullied for different reasons – because of the way they look, or the way they behave, or just aspects of their personality that make them stand out in any way. It could be something ridiculous like being clever – by everyone else, it’s seen as a good thing, but by the bullies, it makes the person stand out. Bullies are inherently attention seekers, and so seeing someone else getting attention for something good is never going to go down well with them – so they bully them. There’s one thing that it’s important for every bullying victim to remember – it isn’t you, it’s the bully. If they find themselves so concerned with what another person looks like, or how they behave, or what they say, it’s a sign that something is missing in their own lives. It’s a cliche, but bullying often really is just down to jealousy.

Of course, that’s all fine and good being written down here – when it’s actually happening, it feels like the whole world is against you (trust me, I know). Often, the only thing that can be done is to retaliate. I’ll probably get slated for advocating retaliation, but it tends to be the only thing that works – once you show the bully you can hit back (whether that’s verbal or physical), they’re far less likely to bother you again. However, you then run the risk of getting in trouble  – somehow, there’s always a bigger punishment for the well-behaved, quiet ones who finally snap than for the obnoxious bullies who’ll never change. That’s another thing I think is unfair, but it seems to be the same everywhere you go, and it’s something that teachers need to be educated about. If you tell a child who’s finally snapped after ages of bullying that they’re a “bully”, you’ll be doing them great damage. I was accused of bullying – it was actually a case of retaliation, and wanting to tell my side of the story after weeks of being slated by everyone because I was trying to be the bigger person – and rather than ask for my side of the story, I was told that I was a bully by the tutor at college, and that made me angry. I confronted the person about it – and the accusations of bullying only increased after this.

I’ve endured bullying, and the one thing I’ve always said I’ll never do is bully anyone – bullies are vile, and scum, and deserve everything that karma can throw at them. I’m not a bully, and I never have been, and to be accused of being one is sickening – but over time, I’ve come to realize that the people who matter know the truth, and anyone who wants to believe the lies can go ahead and believe them, but more fool them – hopefully they’ll find out the truth in the end.

The news that 28% of 11-16 year olds have been bullied online is shocking – and to those who say “Oh, they can just turn off the computer”, they may be able to turn off the computer, but they can’t turn off the words that have been said, and they’ll probably be ringing in their ears for long after they’ve logged out and turned off the computer. It’s time for there to be a real crack-down on bullies, with severe punishments implemented, not just on the bullies, but on their parents if they fail to do anything about it, and the school if they allow it to continue without taking measures to prevent it – and I don’t mean punishing the victim by making them sit in the library, I mean talking to the parents of the bullies, suspension and, if that doesn’t work, expulsion – and in cases where expulsion is necessary, the police must ALWAYS be involved. We can’t pander to the needs of bullies any more – and they can’t be allowed to use the excuse of a bad home life – EVERYONE has the conscious choice of whether to throw that punch or call someone a horrible name, and there are plenty of people who’ve had crap lives and they haven’t ended up as bullies. It isn’t something that should be written off as “character-building” (try depression-inducing), or “just kids being kids” – it should be considered a crime, and punishable as such.

If you or anyone you know is enduring bullying, advise them to contact Childline – 0800 1111 -, and to check out the BeatBullying website – http://www.beatbullying.org , and the project linked to it; CyberMentors. And more importantly, remember – you’re not alone.