Karen Matthews

[poliphilo]

It's remarkable how we all went out of our way not to notice the squalor and fecklessness of Karen Matthew's life- the five kids by different fathers, the stinky house, the rat-like, younger boyfriend (or partner as we respectfully called him). What we saw on screen was a sorry slob, what we pretended to see was a grieving earth mother. There was an unspoken conspiracy to lend her dignity

We just don't know how to relate to the poor- by which I mean the truly poor, the underclass, the ones who are not just short of cash, but short of everything else- culture, education, motivation, ambition. Our merciful, Christian Socialist state should have educated, welfared, social-cared these people off the face of the earth decades ago. But here they still are- an intractable mass- the unlovely proles- the poor who- in the annoyingly prophetic words of the New Testament- we "have always with us."

They're an offence and an embarrassment and we're afraid of sliding down hill and winding up among them. We're also afraid of appearing snobbish- uncaring; it's a terrible quandary they put us in. We get round the problem of looking them in the eye by mythologising them.  They're not to be held to the sort of standards we impose on ourselves because they're either demons- hoodies, gangbangers, pramfaces- or icons of suffering nobility, blameless victims.   And because we turn so squirmingly soft in their presence a halfway cunning lowlife like Karen Matthews is able to con us rotten. 

We should have trusted to first impressions. She seemed to be selfish, stupid, squalid, amoral- and that's just what she is.  And the ratlike "partner" turned out to have kiddieporn on his computer.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

We could easily tidy up most if not all of these families. The problem is, we could only do it by taking away their autonomy and acting as "benevolent" dictators. One issue we'd have to face is the compulsory sterilisation of the "feckless", because otherwise if you take their babies away, they'll just have more. We'd have to break up families and farm kids out to nice middle-class parents.

But the question is, do we really have the right to do that, and if so, who decides what standards we apply? At what point is someone just a bit disorganised and when do they become dysfunctional enough to step in and deny then any control over their own lives?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think many of us would be willing to give the state that much power. After all, once they'd sorted out the riff-raff they might come gunning for us.

[(Anonymous)]

"We'd have to break up families and farm kids out to nice middle-class parents."

And what's wrong with that? It's called adoption, and providing the children become available for adoption before their brains are hard-wired for cruelty (about 6-12 months) it works out well for everyone. It doesn't happen in the UK at the moment. Children are left with families like this one until they are neglected, abused and traumatised for life. Adoptive parents (like I might have been) will not generally take them on, so they stay in so-called "care".

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

"We'd have to break up families and farm kids out to nice middle-class parents."

And what's wrong with that? It's called adoption, and providing the children become available for adoption before their brains are hard-wired for cruelty (about 6-12 months) it works out well for everyone. It doesn't happen in the UK at the moment. Children are left with families like this one until they are neglected, abused and traumatised for life. Adoptive parents (like I might have been) will not generally take them on, so they stay in so-called "care".