KIMBERLEY: YOUNG MUM TEN YEARS ON
Critically-acclaimed filmmaker Daisy Asquith returns with a follow-up to the multi award-winning documentary Fifteen . In 1999 Kimberley was a teenager with big dreams. Now a 24-year-old mum of two, she lives on a South London council estate in a one bedroom flat on a budget of £110 a week. She has already had one child removed from her by social services, and is in danger of losing another. But Kimberley is determined to turn her life around. This tough yet tender portrait asks just what makes a good enough mother, and explores how we pass our behaviour down through the generations.
Thursday 23 April 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4
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I really feel the need to comment that the so-called ‘vicious’ cycle of deprivation is a social construct to serve the needs of the ruling class. Kimberly struggled with the socially constructed lack of recourses available to a young working class woman and like millions of other young single parents, was denied opportunity from the moment she was born.
The ‘vicious cycle’ needs people like Kimberly and her children to provide the social care market with the necessary commodity so that they can provide a public service such has social services and then Blame the service users’ for a complex web of social, economic, moral, political and religious factors that are not their responsibility.
Kimberly was not provided with the roots and the nourishment to develop a nurturing parenting style. Indeed this is denied to many of the victims of a completely unequal social world. It is easy to make assumptions and blame people for a corrupt political system and fail to recognise that the social worker’s needs is greater than Kimberly’s.
The ‘vicious cycle’ creates the service users’ of the mental health system, the homelessness sector, the prison’s, the probation service, the drug and alcohol agencies and the ‘looked after’ care system and the health service. These jobs would not exist if not for the unequal distribution of power along the lines of class, gender, race and ability.
The denial of nurturing parenting which is necessary in maintaining an healthy body and mind is corrupt and I feel enormous compassion for Kimberly. It is not Kimberly’s fault that she has not had this start in life. I would like to tell Kimberly that she has done remarkably well and I admired her strength and determination in struggling to live a life characterised by poverty and abuse.
Kimberly; you deserve so much more. You are not to blame because you were raped at twelve years of age. You are not to blame for domestic violence; you are not to blame for poverty you are not to blame because Harvey’s father is not in his life. You are not responsible; the corrupt political system that creates the ‘vicious circle’ is ultimately responsible. You can regain control of your life and drop the burden of guilt and shame. You are a fine young women and you are doing the best that you can do with the knowledge that you have. You can change your internal beliefs about your self you can achieve your heart’s desires. You can choose different beliefs and values and choose to let go of your guilt and anger. I wish you well.