I just dont see these immigrants having any kind of right or need to come over here and live off our government!

That's one of the many downsides of being in the EU. :( Brussels says they're allowed, and there's bog-all we can do about it.

Most of them come and work and contribute to our Government.  Those who don't are in need like any other human being.  Our Isles have sent many economic migrants round the world too.

And many of them get terribly ripped-off. We know of a building contractor who gets paid £150 a day for each labourer he supplies; they themselves receive £30 a day plus lunch, while their boss laughs all the way to the bank. He's been reported, by the way, but nothing happens.

Just cos you get pregnant at 17 does not mean you automatically want state handouts. I had a job at 17 and would have supported myself!

When I had my little boy i worked up untill a month before he was born, but then i admit i claimed benefits i wasn't proud of it but my partner had returned to education to get a better job, I found it had because the society that we live in is judgmentle i was only 20, and instead of getting support people looked down there nose at me, well thats what it felt like, no he wasn't planned but he is a joy all the same, my partner has been on sick benefit too due to a mental illness and is now stable on medication and working again but he did spend a month in hospitial and was section and anyone who thinks it is a doss, or easy being on benefits should give it a go, i'm not complaining as it shouldn't be easy, but its always easy judging looking from the outside in when you don't know all the ins and outs, don't want to be religious but He without sin cast the first stone. my ohs mum was amonth turned 16 when she had him and went on to have two more, she ran away from the father as he was violent, and he didn't have a good upbringing hence his mental health problems i think, but i think i'm rambling a bit now :rolleyes: , there are people starving and suffering in this world and what are we concerned with, money, greed, wealth, stigma makes me sick, your judged by age, race, sex, what you earn,  what you drive, what about someone just wanting to know you, for who you are?

Getting back to the original post and off the general ranting, congratulations to Donna on impending granny hood, and also congrats on having a sensible and caring family that havent made a drama out of a crisis.
And to those who moan....
Firstly, What gives you the right to assume that this girl will be destitute and living of state handouts????Who days the father wont help????Who says she wont work???? Lots of exercise being taken jumping to conclusions round here!
Secondly, I am single, have worked for twenty years with at least another twenty to go, paid all my taxes, an have never needed claimed benefits...so she can ******well have my share if she needs it!!!
Good Luck!!! :D :D

I think that you are the one jumping to conclusions that people were referring to Donna's daughter - they weren't - as has been stated if you had read all the posts :(

Daisy

OMG didn't wamt to open a can of worms
babys provided for  via
(rainy day fund)
G.Donna
chill

Blues mum, you have a head older than years
you have said just what i wanted to say.
you just type faster  go girl :-)

LMAO!! :D

I'm not entirely sure which part of Blue's Mum post you are finding particularly pleasing but if it happens to be the comments regarding not support those who are not "our own" I find it very sad and ironic considering the support posters have given your daughter in the face of prejudice and supposition that you should condone this being directed to a similarly "judged" group :(  I really hope I am have got this wrong :)

Everyone on here has their own views and opinions on different matters and issues, no matter what, were not all going to agree on the same things, all ive done is shared my views and expressed how i feel on certain comments that have been made and how i personally see things from my own point of view! And now i have done, im leaving it there! :)

Yes people do hold views but you posted on here to condemn prejudice

>I just get upset when young mums get automatically thrown into the same old catergory 'too young, too immature

why not just let people continue in that view?
Can you not see the irony here?

Everyones entitled to their own opinions, i understand that, but there are different ways to express them, nasty comments there is no need for!

Nasty comments! What on earth have I said that is nasty.
I don't think you do understand what I am saying.  I am trying to make you see that talking about people "not our own" in a prejudical way is just as unfair as talking about young mothers in that way.  You said yourself if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all obviously aware that it is hurtful for young mothers but what about your comments hurting any users of this board who are migrants or children of migrants?

Let's face it this country would grind to a halt if it wasn't for immigrants who are willing do to the jobs that others would rather go on the dole than dirty their hands doing.  Go to any hospital and note how few of the cleaners, porters and HCAs are British.  My mother (French) was an auxilally (sp?) nurse working at night and was frequently abused by patients who told her they only wanted to be looked after by English nurses.  She had to bite her tongue to stop herself saying that they'd have a long wait.  Let's not forget that our government has in the past frequently gone abroad to recruit foreigners into doing jobs that many in this country are too proud to do, for example to work on the London underground.  Like Isabel I am gobsmacked that this thread has digressed into an opportunity to perpetrate the myth (yes, that is what it is) of work-shy immigrants.

Historically all immigrant groups to this country have contributed positively to the economy I see no reason for the tabloid press fever that the current migrant workers will not succeed in doing the same.

I wasnt referring to you Isabel :)

And sorry, but i refuse to get into a debate about immigrants, ive said my piece already :)

As I recall it was you who made the comment about immigrants which promted Isabel's response.  I personally found it offensive, just as you were offended by other people's prejudices about young / single mothers. 

But you brought them up.  At least I think you did when you referred to those "not our own" :)
OK, you don't want to debate the value or not of immigrants but at least can you not see that complaining of prejudice directed at you and then not showing another group the same consideration is a bit out of order.

Sorry for not loving everyone in this world lol

You really don't get it do you :(

I think it's more that people can't admit to hypocrisy, Isabel.

Hypocrisy??

As Isabel has pointed out, you were upset by comments made about single mothers.  Fair enough. Yet you proceeded to make equally stereotypical assumptions about immigrants that I can only assume have been informed by the tabloids than actual experience or observation. 

I wasnt even on about the people that come over here and work, i was on about the ones that dont! It frustrates me, as does alot of things and people in this world, its something i dont agree with, others might?! I have though, been a single teenage mum and when i see others like myself (who are in the same situation as i was) getting cornered, i naturally defend! Same as you probably would if you was in the same situation or had been of someone else getting picked on for some other issue regarding age, circumstances etc.

Im for and against different issues and goings on, as is everyone, no one agrees with everything that goes on in this world :)

>Same as you probably would if you was in the same situation or had been of someone else getting picked on for some other issue regarding age, circumstances etc.

An immigrant for instance :rolleyes:
Can you not see that what you are saying is exactly the same as saying that young mothers as a group are spongers. 
The vast majority of immigrants work and work jolly hard in jobs rejected by others in an effort to improve their lot but that is not my point.  Forget entirely what the issues are, my point is very simple, you complained about one set of prejudice and them applied another.  Do you understand that is what we mean by hypocrisy?

Not when they get accidently pregnant, their partner clears off and they have no choice but to ask for help! I dont see that being the same as people coming over to our country soley to sponge off our government for their own benefit!

>I dont see that being the same as people coming over to our country soley to sponge off our government for their own benefit! :(

If you are entitled to think that about all immigrants why on earth can people not assume that all young women get pregnant to sponge of the state.  That is a tabloid assisted myth too isn't it?

Because young girls can make more money by actually working! lol Why would anyone rather be on benefits by choice? Immigrants however know they are better off living over here on our benefits and in our council houses! Its already been said that when they do work, they dont exactly do well :)

>Because young girls can make more money by actually working! lol Why would anyone rather be on benefits by choice?

Errrr would not that be the same for the sort of person, so motivated to improve their lot, that they leave their family and friends and everything familiar to go to a strange land and make a better life?
Immigrant community certainly do succeed as I have told you and you can confirm it with an internet search, or ask your MP, unless they are BNP :rolleyes:, historically all immigrant communities have made a positive contribution the British economy ie any "spongers" have been far outweighed by those contributing.

What are you actually basing this on?  What you've read in the Express? I know a lot of immigrants (unlike you, I suspect) and I can tell you not one of them has ever claimed any kind of benefit whatsoever, quite the opposite they would rather be worse off but working.  All the people living in council houses where I live are what you would call "our own" while a large number of the immigrants who are "supported" by our taxes are actually in detention centres where they are treated worse than prisoners. 

No, not newspapers, from where i used to live!

Fair enough then, should I base my opinions of all single, teenage mums on what I see where I live?  If I did, I would deduce that they are all chainsmoking, scrounging scallies with mouths like sewers.  Luckily I am more open-minded than that.

Added to which when they have a second accidental baby (you'd have thought they'd learned what caused it! ;)) it won't have the same father as the first. That's if we're going by what I see in my area, anyway.

And while I'm playing devil's advocate / stereotyping would also suggest that they consider an ASBO as an essential qualification for the fathers of their children.

But luckily we know that any stereotyping is unfair. :)

IMO the reason that there are conflicting views between the age groups here is because of the rapid change in attitudes to teenage pregnancies issues.  These days girls get pregnant out of wedlock by accident all too frequently. It may be a misfortune to the girl that gets pregnant and she may consider herself hard doneby but the opinion of older people is often that it is a problem of her own making. This is because older people like myself can remember being so terrified of getting pregnant.  If you got pregnant your reputation was shot as was your family's.  Even your peers would consider you 'loose' even if the lad was your first boyfriend or boyfriend of longstanding. 

Talking very generally, the number of teenage pregnancies in this country are still higher than any other European country putting pressure on an already burdened social support system and council housing system.  Interestingly these days accidents happen far more often than they did say, 30 years ago and yet birth control is infinitely superior and more easily accessible than those days too.  It suggests that girls really don't take enough care and perhaps this is because they know they are not going to be forced to have the baby adopted or aborted or chucked out onto the street with no support from elsewhere.

From a personal point of view I have children who haven't got a hope in hell of getting a council house and who speak disparagingly of those girls they know who have got flats and houses simply becuase they are unmarried teenage mums.  Not fair is it?

Yep did it all properly, and then five years down the line with second baby on the way it all went belly up.

My son of 15 has met his father twice since he was born.  Once last year when he was at deaths door, and recently, and this time he was so drunk he couldn't even recognise the son he had met a year earlier.

All mothers receive tax payer's money in the form of family allowance many older mothers will need more financial support too.  As a nuliperous woman myself I have no issues with that at all.  They are raising the next generation of the society that I belong to.  If it wasn't for ChloeH's, Melodsky's etc fecundity I don't know where my pension would be coming from :)

I don't know where my pension would be coming from

Funny you should say that!  I honestly thought until last year, that all the contributions that I'd made during my long working life, were in a pot marked "Val" and invested by the government to pay my pension when I came to retire! :):rolleyes:

Another one for ChloeH's fan club

LOL! I think we all used to fondly imagine it went into a personal savings scheme! :D Instead we find it's not secure at all, and if the economy fails it's all lost. :(

Yes I did.  Nobody told me any different - we all thought the same!  I honestly thought that I was contributing to MY pension!

I have always taken responsibility for myself, having decided to bail out of my marriage (to a selfish and violent man - not like that before we were married I might add!:rolleyes:) when my daughter was 2 years old, and expect others to do the same.  For the whole community to be responsible for everybody smacks of communism to me.  I wouldn't want to go that way, or the opposite way either, but somewhere down the middle where everyone is responsible for themselves but there is a safetynet for those that need it, who find themselves in difficulties through no fault of their own - that's life and sh*t happens!

> but somewhere down the middle where everyone is responsible for themselves but there is a safetynet for those that need it

I think that is pretty much what we have :)
As the population is living very much longer you might be rather glad to not be just dependant on a pension build entirely during your working life.  In the days when people were lucky to live 10 years beyond retirement that may have been enough but most of us will hope to continue, in good health, active and spending for quite a bit longer.
I don't think societies looking after their elderly, their children, their disadvantaged comes even close to communism which attempt to make us all equal.  Don't think many state pensions would think that was happening :)

True - it's quite usual for people nowadays to live 20 years and often more beyond retirement.

I still dislike the idea that your saved pension can be lost through no fault of your own, with no come-back, or the iniquitous annuities that at one stage recently (maybe still) were compulsory, and if you died before the amount you'd put in was used, then it was lost from your estate. Of course that's what the companies selling them were relying on, to pay for the people who lived longer.

But if all my contributions over the years had been invested for me there would have been enough to keep me for 20 years and more! :(

They changed the pension rules on A-day.  If you're not working you can take 25% of your private pension out anytime after 50, but the rest still has to be invested in a *** annuity.  If you pension pot is under £15,000 then you can take the whole lot our under a 'triviality' clause, but you have to be 60 years old to do that.  I would never have paid into a private pension if I had been told that I wouldn't be able to have my own money back. :(

I doubt it would be enough Val :)  You would need an enormous amount of money invested to give such an income plus the capital growth required to keep it large enough to last 20 years and beyond, you are not going to want it to run at suddenly are you :)

I was paying an enormous amount when it was earnings related Isabel!   I also paid into my private pension for 11 years and that will bring me back the same amount that I paid in per week forever. :(