guess what

[blazey]

Originally Posted by Lolly

That just enforces my get real comment!

Do you know me? Do you know the circumstances of my sons birth?? Who said I was a teenager, for your information I was 23 when I had my son not some stupid teenage university student and I was in 2 very secure well paid jobs!!!!

I havent struggled at all since having Harry, it is only now that I have been made redundant that I am doing so. So what your saying is that because I have a child I can't make a success of myself and support my son. Oh no of course i cant as i'm not at university and of course only students make a success of themselves!!

You know nothing of my life and until you do please come down off your high horse and stop making comments of things you know nothing about!

I haven't even said anything directed at you. I have a lot of friends in your situation who are doing perfectly well, in both work and college/uni. These are bad times for everyone.

You could go to uni if you wanted to. You'd get just as much support as me, with extra because you are a parent, you can live in family accommodation (at least at Lancaster you can) there is a creché, plenty of local schools and it'd be an opportunity to learn and try something new.

I wasn't directing anything specifically at you though and I never said anything about you being unable to do anything as a mum, loads of mums do plenty of things. J K Rowling would be a good example of a mum that has done that successfully. Lots of single mums also set up home businesses as well.

I will admit, not just as a student but as someone who works with kids, I never let myself get in the mindset that there just no other alternatives and you have to accept what you are given. I study at a university that initially rejected me after I didn't get the right A level grades after suffering from manic depression. I have to have counselling regularly, I don't sleep and I'm currently having to spend time in the doctors surgery being told I have the symptoms common to elderly sufferers of Alzheimers.

Oh but I'm just a 20yr old student, what the hell do I know about stress? God I just do a full time course and spend all my free time working with kids, doing charity work and supporting students with finding careers. What would I know about ANYTHING? I just go through courses training me in these things for a laugh, they have no value to anyone like YOU because you're older than me and I must be just patronising you.

Well I don't give a toss if you think I'm on my ivory tower, because I hunted the resources down and I built it my damn self with no support from college, no knowledge from my family about my possible choices and only the internet at my fingers, searching for opportunities.

I don't have time to dish out sympathy to people on the internet because there are people who rely on me day in and day out to share what I know with them and THEY don't throw it in my face with excuses, they swallow their pride and they try.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by blazey

Obviously I can understand Lolly's position, I do come from a family in a similar situation.

I hate to perhaps be a little cold towards the predicaments of children, but everyone has the choice of whether to get pregnant and have children and if you choose to do that whilst not in a secure or well paying job then you can only really have yourself to blame really.

Sorry if perhaps that is a bit cold hearted, but there are thousands of teenagers at university who manage to not get themselves into these situations, its all about the choices you make.

If you struggle with the lifestyle that having children young puts you in then maybe you should think about that before you have sex.

Sex is 20 minutes of fun but children are a lifetime of commitment and responsibility. I might not have children either but I have a hell of a lot of debt and work to deal with and it seems to be that the more accessible education is to people the more it gets dubbed as some sort of easy option.

'get real Blazey' is a silly comment to make when the reality of it is that I make the decision every day to reject the womanly instinct towards reproduction and family life and I'll have to for many years to come if I want to make a success of myself and properly support a family. I accept that reality. Perhaps if more people accepted the reality of bringing up children then there wouldn't be so many kids ending up resorting to crime and accepting low qualities of life.

I don't feel sorry for anyone who struggles because they've got a child unless they're the victim of rape. If you don't like the consequences then don't have sex.

This post pays lip service to an understanding that you blatantly do not possess.
You infer that all people who have a baby are irresponsible(ok, in a later post you retract that somewhat).
From your own background, of which you have told us something in the past, you should have more compassion.
Circumstances change........you can be in a loving partnership one minute and widowed the next.
You can be in a good job one minute and made redundant the next.
You can be a victim of mental and physical abuse in a partnership.
You are right that babies are for life, and most of us have more life experience than you to know this.......and what life throws at us we have to cope with in the best way that we can....and sometimes that will be as a struggling single parent through no fault or choice of our own.
All this with a baby or child who was conceived whilst in better circumstances. Does this make you irresponsible. I don't think it does.
We all make our choices in life.......and we make them with the information that we have at the time.

Yes.... you will have debts when you leave Uni...but you aren't going to have the bailiffs chasing you for that money...like you would if you defaulted on other types of debt....you will have the knowledge that you won't have to pay a penny back until you earn over a certain threshold.
You made your choice to go to Uni, in the hope that this would give you a better life and future, but...it doesn't guarantee anything.

The fact that you 'don't give a toss' about appearing to be in an ivory tower says much about you as a human being.
As I previously said in post...I hope that you don't have the misfortune to suffer the kind of situation that Lolly is experiencing at the moment.

[Lolly]

I said nothing about stress. I made no comment to your personal circumstances as you shouldnt with mine. Until either of us no them we should not comment on them.

I applaud you for trying to make a success of yourself, i sometimes wish I had gone to university and not just got a job straight out of college. But those are the choices I made and I deal with the circumstances in the hand that i've been dealt.

I'm not one of these people who sits on their arses and does nothing all day, and am trying my best to get a new job so that I can provide for my son. I know exactly what resources their are at universities for people like myself, do you not think I havent thought about it a great deal recently? Anyway I have that sorted now and am going to do my degree, anyway thats irrelevant.

I think we have hijacked Jedi's thread enough! (Sorry! lol) and we should agree to disagree.

Thankyou Margaret, karma coming to you when I can!

[jedimaster]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

This post pays lip service to an understanding that you blatantly do not possess.
You infer that all people who have a baby are irresponsible(ok, in a later post you retract that somewhat).
From your own background, of which you have told us something in the past, you should have more compassion.
Circumstances change........you can be in a loving partnership one minute and widowed the next.
You can be in a good job one minute and made redundant the next.
You can be a victim of mental and physical abuse in a partnership.
You are right that babies are for life, and most of us have more life experience than you to know this.......and what life throws at us we have to cope with in the best way that we can....and sometimes that will be as a struggling single parent through no fault or choice of our own.
All this with a baby or child who was conceived whilst in better circumstances. Does this make you irresponsible. I don't think it does.
We all make our choices in life.......and we make them with the information that we have at the time.

Yes.... you will have debts when you leave Uni...but you aren't going to have the bailiffs chasing you for that money...like you would if you defaulted on other types of debt....you will have the knowledge that you won't have to pay a penny back until you earn over a certain threshold.
You made your choice to go to Uni, in the hope that this would give you a better life and future, but...it doesn't guarantee anything.

The fact that you 'don't give a toss' about appearing to be in an ivory tower says much about you as a human being.
As I previously said in post...I hope that you don't have the misfortune to suffer the kind of situation that Lolly is experiencing at the moment.

very well put margaret
everyone's situation is different, blazey you applaud me for finding a job yet you condemn lolly for not being able to find a job. while I appreciate the sentiments sent from people on the forum unfortunately, yours I DO NOT! I find you single minded and downright ignorant to other peoples suffering, You blame people for making the best of what they have.

let me point a few things out to you also
firstly I am also a parent who had the misfortune to be made redundant from a job which I really enjoyed and that paid a reasonable wage - am I to be blamed for having a child 7 years previous to this, at a time when I was in full time employment and able to provide for my family? was I blessed at birth with the ability to look into a crystal ball and predict that this would happen? I THINK NOT, The result of which has been two months of hell with letters threatening bailiffs and being taken to court to have our home reposessed, scraping by on very little.
as for the job itself it is by pure luck that the job came my way (a chance phonecall at the right time to an employer who is friends with an ex employer). this 1 interview and resulting job offer was the only result of over 300 phonecalls/e-mails and applications covering an area spanning from lancaster to birmingham, and yes it is out of the area and a lot of discussion had to go into whether i could AFFORD to accept the job
I was lucky that the job was offering good money, and I have JUST enough money left to cover the extended fuel costs incurred in travelling to work
I am also lucky in the respect that I am paid WEEKLY in arrears so only have to cover 2 weeks of travel costs and not 2 months. There was also the extra childcare costs of sending my daughter to breakfast club and after school club just so I can arrive at work on time, and luckily they have accepted waiting untill i start getting paid for the money. I also have one luxury that lolly doesn't - I am NOT a SINGLE parent and my wife also works full time. Had any one of these circumstances been different YOU WOULDN'T have been congratulating me because i'd still be jobless.

Don't condemn people for circumstances that are beyond their control and that you know nothing about!

Lolly I understand what you're going through hun, It's not easy I know but keep your chin up something will come along - and good luck with your degree

[cashman]

good post jedi, ya may get degrees n qualifications in university, but blazey will learn, ya don't get common sense yon.

[jedimaster]

aye probably on his first day in the real world of employment, when an old timer plants him!

[cashman]

Originally Posted by jedimaster

aye probably on his first day in the real world of employment, when an old timer plants him!

female jedi.

[Royboy39]

Originally Posted by jedimaster

aye probably on his first day in the real world of employment, when an old timer plants him!

Him??????????????????

[jedimaster]

Originally Posted by cashman

female jedi.

oops! probably start kicking off about equal rights now

[Royboy39]

Originally Posted by jedimaster

oops! probably start kicking off about equal rights now

I'll take bets on it.

[cashman]

Originally Posted by jedimaster

oops! probably start kicking off about equal rights now

no chance shes yer superior.

[cherokee]

Well said Jedi . Karma sent .
Good luck with the new job and I hope all is going good for you,

Lolly already sent you a pm other day hun . Stay positive . I know its not easy but all will come good in time.

[jedimaster]

Originally Posted by cashman

no chance shes yer superior.

always two there are, a master and an apprentice!

Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.

[Royboy39]

Originally Posted by jedimaster

always two there are, a master and an apprentice!

Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.

Tell me what you are drinking and will pass it on to a friend.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by Royboy39

I'll take bets on it.

You are on for a sawbuck .... she might not do the obvious; it takes common sense to do that