Dickens-Style Poverty or Just Bad Parents?

This morning I read an article on the Sky News Website, Kids Still Living In Dickens-Style Poverty.

I'm just not getting it. Not from a money angle, anyway.

When it comes to money, I'm just about the poorest of the poor. My sole income at the moment is from state benefits.

But really, what direct connection is there between parents' income and children's toilet training?
I really can't understand why being poor means that kids can only eat with a spoon.
Nor how it affects whether or not they know who the "father-figure" is at home from one month to the next.

That's got nothing to do with money. That's just the result of bad parenting.


I am pleased, however, to see that  Leslie Ward of the Association of Teacher and Lecturers can see beyond the money aspects:

"The best way to raise achievement in schools is to get rid of poverty - not just financial but aspirational and emotional,"

She has hit the nail on the head. The problems children are most likely to face are, as she says, aspirational and emotional poverty. It's a culture. The root of all evil is not money. It's bad parenting.