''How the other half live''

[Clevercat]

Take one struggling family, in debt, living on the bread line, social difficulties etc, and pair them up with a more affluent successful family, and voila, you have a heart warming programme to watch and two families with changed opinions and aspirations.

Anyone else seen it? Just letting the children watch it now.

[Tag]

When is it on CC?

[Clevercat]

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/how-the-other-half-live

Some details here T.

Hope you are well.

[Tag]

Thanks CC.  Well, I've a cold but otherwise I'm good!  Just trying to decide what to do with the day 

[Clevercat]

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/how-the-other-half-live/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1

This programme left me slightly uneasy last night. It was a catch up episode featuring a family run by the single mother (WHERE WAS THE DAD??) who were living below the poverty line like so many others in this country.

They had been helped by a very generous wealthy family who bought them clothes, tranformed their flat etc.

But the private boarding School nearby to the rich family decided to help also and the two older girls were both given the amazing chance to board there, and to then go on, at the age of thirteen to the next private boarding school.

Amazing of course, what an opportunity.  They quickly adapted, their academic levels shot up. They were socialising well etc.

I just felt so so sorry for the mother who remained in her grotty flat, in an area  where crime is 5 times higher than the national average, who comitted the selfless act of letting her girls go, but who seems broken by it also.   Her youngest misses her sisters, and the sisters, as they progress, contacted their mothers less and visited less too.

I cant help wondering whether the right decisions were made for all.