A few items on the Breakfast TV caught my attention today. One was an excerpt from a program called ‘Super Nanny’. It showed the house the nanny would be visiting: harried mother not bothering to control two little brats who were knocking the shit out of each other, chucking around toys and having tantrums. Next was a news story about a nine-year-old who had been tortured in a playground by being burned with cigarettes and lighters, then stripped naked and made to cycle across a burning field. Almost certainly the latter was attacked by examples of the former – feral children who’ve been raised by parents too bone-idle and thick to instill some discipline, parents who made a rod for their own backs by not doing so early with consistent rules and discipline, and who believe that any problems in their lives are due to somebody else and that ‘somebody should do something’ or ‘we don’t get enough help’.
You see the children produced by such an attitude everywhere: hard-faced little shits who gaze at you with hostile estimation while supping on a can of Stella, children who know that if they do anything wrong there’ll be no punishment and the child psychologists will be wheeled out with ADHD excuses, and that if they continue doing wrong the authorities will give them ineffectual ASBOs they can brag about to their brat friends.
Later, there was a news snippet about the large increase in young single mothers in this country. When asked by the presenter why there were so many of them in sink estates and other such delightful areas, the government cockroach explained how things are ‘improving’ and ‘more assistance is available’ and that ‘the figures show’ and that ‘government initiatives are’ etc. Just once I’d like to hear someone answer such a question honestly with, “Well, you find such people in such locations because that’s where the welfare scum live, and we’ve found that by making more ‘assistance’ available, more of these scroungers take advantage of it. In other countries, where ‘assistance’ is not so readily available, there’s a lot less of these scroungers, but we can’t make the logical move of reducing ‘assistance’ because that would be politically incorrect and not permissible under the daft rules of our ideology.”
You see the children produced by such an attitude everywhere: hard-faced little shits who gaze at you with hostile estimation while supping on a can of Stella, children who know that if they do anything wrong there’ll be no punishment and the child psychologists will be wheeled out with ADHD excuses, and that if they continue doing wrong the authorities will give them ineffectual ASBOs they can brag about to their brat friends.
Later, there was a news snippet about the large increase in young single mothers in this country. When asked by the presenter why there were so many of them in sink estates and other such delightful areas, the government cockroach explained how things are ‘improving’ and ‘more assistance is available’ and that ‘the figures show’ and that ‘government initiatives are’ etc. Just once I’d like to hear someone answer such a question honestly with, “Well, you find such people in such locations because that’s where the welfare scum live, and we’ve found that by making more ‘assistance’ available, more of these scroungers take advantage of it. In other countries, where ‘assistance’ is not so readily available, there’s a lot less of these scroungers, but we can’t make the logical move of reducing ‘assistance’ because that would be politically incorrect and not permissible under the daft rules of our ideology.”
9 comments:
We may come from very different ends of the political spectrum in most respects, but on this issue I can assure you I am in complete agreement. The longer I work in public service, the more I believe that the system is actually producing the symptoms it claims to be solving.
I agree.
I've been on Social Assistance several times in my life. In the 70's in New Westminster (NW) BC where the economy wasn't that great. I moved to Alberta and found work and came back to BC only to find nothing changed and back to Alberta in '78. Welfare paid for everything in those days, rent food etc.
In the 1990's I was on Assistance again mostly because I was burned out and I needed time off but even then that got me into a hole. Welfare here in Edmonton paid us "single employable‘s" $380/month. That's what my rent was at the time. I took on a paper route and I don't know how I got by.
Today I don't think Welfare is even available in Edmonton, due to the booming economy we have. But Edmonton/Alberta is a Boom to bust kind of town/Province. I hear even in places like Victoria BC where some of my family live welfare is hard to get.
Here in Canada it seems welfare is a regional thing. It's almost a way of life in some Maritime Provinces it seems. People spend their whole lives on assistance there. Unlike here I think you can get assistance only if you can show you have a job and it's only then good for one cheque.
I think the problem with youth crime here in Edmonton is the kids are board. These kids are packing cell phones and MP3 players, they have disposable cash coming out the yin-yang and drive new cars (parents?) Most of them don't pay rent and not only that but they get cash from their grand parents and or step parents as well.
In this day and age of political correctness kids are a lot more savvy then in my day. They know their rights and know what they can and can't get away with. One of the key culprits here is the Young Offenders Act. Kids need to learn they must take responsibility for their actions but because they get away with 'murder' they run amock. The young offenders act needs to be badly overhauled. Kids and people in general need to know there are ramifications to their actions. Consequences to what they do.
um, that's if we're talking about the same thing here.
Jim
I think it is regional in Canada. I'm in Toronto, Ontario, and I write every night at the same coffee shop I've been going to for years. A woman who worked the graveyard shift was telling me she was considering quitting and going on welfare since it paid a little more than what she was making at the coffee shop. At least on welfare, as she put it, she'd get more time to spend with her "little one" (I think he's 4). Kinda blew me away since I assumed she had to be making at least minimum wage. I didn't think welfare paid that much, having been on employment insurance when the dot-com I worked for disintegrated. But I agree, that if it's that easy, people are going to take advantage of it.
Now don't get me wrong, I know how fortunate I am. But there does seem to be a growing mentality of whining, then giving up, when things get difficult. And it's getting worse. Welfare is in trouble, but humanity is going down the shitter because of people not always getting what they want. It gets worse when they look for other people to blame.
I had no idea what it was like in Edmonton. No wonder the rest of Canada hates Ontario. And by Ontario, I mean Toronto. Hell, I'm sick of this town.
(BTW Jim, I just visited Vancouver and Victoria for the forst time. AMAZING)
In the future, such behaviour will be totally normal. Kids (and eventually grownups too) will go about constantly f'ing and blinding, assaulting one another and throwing tantrums. It will be all part of everyday life in our run-down, graffiti-daubed urban environment. Every now and then there will be some kind of genetic throwback and a polite, considerate, well-mannered child will be born - only to be hunted down by mobs of its scandalised peers. Welcome to the (admittedly rather dystopian) future!
Daniel..
Not wanting to hyjack Neals Blog but, right now Edmonton is the place to be for jobs. The economy is crazy here but we're a boom to bust town. What goes up must come down. At the moment (for now) the unemployment rate is sonething like 4.5% but the way the price of crude oil is dropping this has an effect on our economy. The higher the price of oil the better our economy is. When oil drops the unemployment rating drops too.
As for jobs here, get in on it while the getting is good. It won't be that way for much longer.
Neal: Thanks for the email. I tried to reply yesterday but I received a delivery of message notification failure. I hope to pick up Gridlinked this weekend and start from there.
Jim
I always thought those programs (Supernanny, When good kids go bad etc) were meant to act as contraception. Well, they certainly put me off breeding.
In general the issues with the tribes of feral children are exacerbated by the ineffectual behaviour of the police. I live in Manchester and I can't recall the last time I saw a beat copper. The police are far too happy to police by remote control using CCTV/Speed Cameras rather than actually getting out there.
Sink estates are a problem, not helped by the sell off of council properties. The sane and aspirational people on the estates bought their houses (or transferred to a better estate and then bought the house) so only the worst estates were left for social housing. Prior to that council estates were a mix of people and the scume were offset by the normal folk.
Hope I haven't bored you guys...
as jello once said...
"kill the poor"
On one hand, everyone in this thread so far has been complaining about the bad behaviour of kids. On the other hand, everyone in this thread seems to think single mothers should spend their days working, unavailable to their kids - who will then form "feral packs" (lovely phrase). Am I being naive, or is there a contradiction here?
I agree with Kitty - "tribes of feral children" is rather apt. Imagine all the kids from Mad Max 3 had evil twins... What I find especially disturbing is that children from evidently normal and well-balanced parents can also go wild, for no readily apparent reason... One reason why I'm remaining a non-parent.
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