On a 3 News blog by Lachlan Forsyth – A poverty of ideas:

Annie G  commented:

It really concerns me I am a teacher of 37 years working in a decile 1 school and I know that much of this comes from inadequate ignorant parenting.

Whilst I agree kids with empty bellies are bad news I am concerned that feeding them at school at an added cost to the tax payer is breeding yet another generation of needy unable to cope and support a family people.

I used to run a food supply at my school during a prolonged freezing work strike. It ended because I knew parents were using it as an easy option.

We need to put money in to:

1. Getting parents out of bed in the morning to feed their kids.
2. Teaching parents that a baked potato for example is better than noodles or expensive cereal.
3. To leave food for the kids set up on the table if they cant be there in the morning due to working hours / whatever.
4. Feeding the kids is NOT the responsibility of the tax payer.
5. Money for drugs and alcohol is NOT a priority.
6. Bring back basic cooking and budgeting lessons. Not the “technology type of clap trap taught today.

Surely some of the money Iwi have received in Treaty settlement could go towards educating the parents and feeding the kids.

Sadly many sympathetic New Zealandrs who think feeding kids at school is the way to deal with this issue have had no experience of the inadequacy of many of our kids parents. Some parents need to think about where when and how they spend their benefit $$

I know of many low income wage earning kiwis who struggle to feed their kids but they manage as they think about where the priorities lie.

John Key travels whilst NZ falls deeper in to the mire of poverty and lack of vision.

Vicki responds:

Annie G you are wrong, there isn’t enough money on a low wage or benefit to pay housing, power and then food on top. The typical low income or benefit covers housing, power, petrol ..there is nothing left after that for food.

Also the majority of beneficaries are only short term, long term benefit use is a small minority….you seem to be prejudice against certain people, but the fact is, working or not food and housing is so insanely expensive something has to be done to help these kids.

And Katrina respionds to that:

Vicki I don’t think Annie G is being prejudice, she sounds like she knows what she is talking about after having been at the coal face.

Anyone in a school environment on a regular basis sees the variety of parents within a school. Some are genuine people who have fallen on temporary hard times and some parents really are of a different mentality where they expect everyone else to do everything.

We see this different attitude in schools that are a higher decile as well the attitude is the same just the bank balance is different.