Kids Today?

There are persons everywhere who would find the juxtaposition of the words “Respect” and “People on Benefits” very strange. Their knee-jerk response would be that people who choose to waste their time in school, have babies in their teens, and live off everyone else’s taxes,  are not deserving of respect. Hell, I might even have been one of them, once.

The first time I ever heard about Council tenants  and people living off benefits was in the Isle of Wight, where I had taken my two sons for their summer holidays to stay with their grandmother. We were living in South Africa then and had no experience of the Welfare State.

Though I can’t remember who he was, I remember walking down my mother’s street towards the Cowes Ferry and chatting with some bloke.  We passed a small, two storey nest of flats with open balconies and summer flowers spilling from window boxes.

“See them there?” my forgotten companion asked rather redundantly as we were right in front of the building.

“Hmmm. Pretty flowers.” I answered vaguely.

“Council Flats” he growled in the same tone one would use to introduce the gates of hell.

I was pleasantly surprised.  My impression of Council Flats had been gleaned from media.  I’d imagined they were solely to be found in tower blocks with graffiti all over the walls, broken glass on the ground  and malevolent harpies screaming obscenities in bleak and battered playgrounds.

“They’re very nice.” I said, though they seemed claustrophobically small to me.

“Yeah. Well they should be.  That’s where our taxes go, y’know.  Yours n’ mine.”

I told him that I rather thought my taxes were currently buying Caspars and MK47s.  These seemed a much better deal.

“Bloody girls here,” he instructed me “don’t know nothing about what’s goin’ on in the rest of the world. Get bored with school, so they decide to get themselves pregnant to any bugger that comes along, so's they can get a free place to live with you n’ me footing the bill.”  I refrained from reminding him that my taxes would have a long journey ahead of them in order to support anyone in England.

But he was on a roll and planted himself squarely on the footpath under an open window to explain to me the views of the Man on the Clapham Bus.

I had no reason to disbelieve him. He lived here and I, at that time, didn’t. But…I’d been a teenager.  I was a female. I had children myself. I couldn’t imagine that scores of kids were giving up parties and clubs, and  mum-delivered morning cuppas to jam themselves into small spaces with squalling babies and sick on their shoulders and social isolation.

I’m so far from being a teen now  it might be feasible to believe that kids to-day are different.  After all, that’s the current concept. 

And yet…..

I’ve been here for two years now.  I live  in Council Flats myself.  The majority of my neighbours are single mums of all ages, backgrounds, cultures.  I’ve met their friends, families, colleagues. I work with many others in various groups and committees.  I’ve seen them try to commit suicide; I’ve held them when they wept; I’ve listened to them when they’ve broken down; I’ve tried to encourage them when they just can’t take any more. And I’ve laughed with them when we all knew that the only other option was total despair.

 I’ve yet to meet a single one who deliberately engineered a teen pregnancy in order to cheat the good people of the world of their taxes.

 I have heard stories that made me want to weep; I’ve listened to accounts of a kind of life I wouldn’t expect anyone to survive; I’ve watched them go through the indignity of life under constant supervision and intervention; and I’ve admired the steel that so many have in their backbones.

But I’ll keep on trying.  One day I’ll find them: that rich mother-lode of teenagers who are so well-known by the media and all the men and women on the Clapham bus.