''Earning'' money/a living is a fallacy.

Social mobility is middle class propaganda.

Note, by the way, that "poverty" doesnt seem to have had much effect on Indian immigrants, many of whom grew up in households earning income below the UK average, yet who now as a group have educational achievements and salary above the UK average.

This is missing the point - the study you are linking to shows that there is a difference between the brains of poor children, and non-poor children. Noone denies this. The issue is whether that difference is a result of environmental factors (i.e poverty), or whether it is a result of genetics (i.e. they inherited that brain structure from their parents). Nothing in that paper is relevant to that, while there is an enormous literature showing that shared environment (i.e. upbringing and parenting) doesnt play a huge role on most behavioral and cognitive traits.

Additionally, even if non-genetic differences do exist (which they almost certainly do), the next question is who's "fault" they are. Poverty itself does not have any causal effects - its not like £50 notes emit magical radiation which increases the intelligence of children growing up in households containing lots of them. In reality, the most likely channels for poverty to impede brain development are going to be a) the mother's behavior during pregnancy (poor mothers are more likely to be heavy smokers and drinkers), b) bad childhood nutrition, and c) bad parenting during the crucial early years of life (not reading to your children, not challenging them intellectually, etc). All of these basically fall under the heading of "bad parenting", and if poor families are more likely to be bad parents, then who's fault is this?

Note, by the way, that "poverty" doesnt seem to have had much effect on Indian immigrants, many of whom grew up in households earning income below the UK average, yet who now as a group have educational achievements and salary above the UK average.

Let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time my grandparents lived in 2 small rooms along with their 4 sons in a shared house in Kenya. One day my grandfather received a job offer from the UK, my grandparents decided this was a brilliant opportunity to improve their lives and so they took the offer and booked a flight, planning to stay with a relative who already lived in the UK. Everything was looking great until about 2 weeks before the flight when my grandfather was involved in a car crash that killed him.

Despite what my grandfathers family said, my grandmother moved to England anyway and stayed in the spare room of the relatives house, along with her 4 kids. She found work stitching together fabric in a clothes factory, despite speaking very little English, meanwhile her eldest son who was 14 started working in a warehouse while also going to school. Eventually the family had enough money to rent their own place, a small room above a newsagents.

After a few years the eldest son managed to get a job at a bank and between them they finally bought their first house. Then the second eldest son went to uni and the third eldest bought a newsagents. Then finally the youngest went to uni to study electronic engineering. Today the oldest is an accountant, the second oldest owns his own IT company, the third oldest still owns the shop and my father ended up working in radio. So far all of their children have ended up in uni.

So basically an Indian single mother of 4 kids, who could barely speak English moved to the UK alone and ended up fairly well off. Remember that this was during the 70s when a significant chunk of the population was less than thrilled at having non whites in their neighbourhoods. So how can you possibly say social mobility is middle class propaganda?

Bad parenting skills are more common in poorer communities. That's not to say they aren't good parents, they just lack the skills needed to raise their children like the middle class. It's a chain that goes on and on. Outside sources creating a campaign against the poor does not help. Children grow up seeing families just like their own being called 'losers' and 'scum'.

Isn't lacking the skills needed to raise your children part the definition of being a bad parent?

Another fallacy.

But it isn't cherry picking, there have been so many similar cases like this. So many African Asian families built up their lives from next to nothing after arriving as immigrants simply because they were willing to work their arses off.

Why is it a fallacy? Surely not having the skills to raise your kids makes you a bad parent, in the same way not having the skills to fix a car makes you a bad mechanic. Please explain the fallacy here.

Fallacies everywhere in this thread.



Bad parenting skills do not make somebody a bad parent. A good parent is a parent who cares about their child and does all they can for them.

lmfao yes it does, caring about them isn't going to feed, clothe, educate and prepare them for the real world. Good intentions alone don't mean jack-sh*t.

Fallacy detected.

Please explain why my reasoning is faulty

I have already explained. A good parent is a parent that cares for their child. Lacking certain parenting skills does not make somebody a bad parent.

Now stop with the fallacies and conjecture.

It's much easier to work hard in school when you grow up in a middle class family. You have educated parents, and so when you're in school you have background knowledge to draw on, you grasp concepts more easily, and when you go home you have support with homework, advice on colleges and university from people who have been through the process themselves.

By whose definition?

It's all the lottery of birth. You cannot claim to have deserved anything until everybody is on a level playing field.

The middle class can get mad all they want, but it is true.

As somebody born to the underclass myself i don't believe its entirely a lottery and indeed social mobility statistics back me up. If i exceed the median wage in the UK, it will be because of my brilliance rather than luck. If i fail, i have nobody to blame but myself.

Need info on your background.

Parents are long term unemployed (household income of £8k). I myself still see no reason why i can't reach the median wage given that i'm bright and ambitious. By time i die i expect to own my own home and have sent my children to Oxford.