So you think you've seen some bad parenting?

[DanaC]

Most people will have anecdotal evidence of someone gaming the system to a shocking degree. They either know someone, or they know someone who knows someone, who is claiming invalidity and housing benefit, whilst running their own landscaping business and holidaying in exotic locales three times a year. Or they know a girl who got pregnant young and is adamant she's just going to keep having babies, because once they get past a certain age the mother is expected to seek work...

This is cited as evidence for the system being completely fucked and everybody being a scam artist. But they conveniently forget the swathes of other people in their town and on their street who are claiming for good and valid reasons, struggling to try and make some kind of a life, or desperately trying to find a decent, stable job. Bouncing from one insecure position to the next, falling in and out of the system, getting ground down by the constant and unrelenting pressure of the breadline.

They're just not as interesting as the jet-skiing malingerer or the baby popping mommy machine, and they don't give one that lovely warm feeling of righteous indignation and self-elevation.