So how do children learn when the parents don't have the skills and don't know what to teach?

Mollydukes "So how do children learn when the parents don't have the skills and don't know what to teach?"

The eternal challenge - some might suggest parents who do not live up to their responsibilities should have their children taken away.
However, the result of that strategy is usually more disasterous than leaving children with poor parents (be it the stolen generation, Lenins ideas of "state parenting" or poor English children shipped to Australia and systematically abused by Christian Bothers).

I have also known and experienced the resulting twisted nature of someone who was abandoned by her mother at age 7 - the result of that separation from the parent is the worst thing that can happen to a developing child, leaving them with a fractured personality.

My view - people will rise or fall based partly on their parents and partly on exposure to the greater general circle of people. An inquisitive and questioning mind can and will overcome almost anything - but thinking you are doing any good by state sponsored institutional equality is too niave for words - all you get from that is the the glorification of the mediocre.

To quote dearest Margaret Thatcher "Let our children grow tall, and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so."

Nothing will hold some back - just as anything will hold others back.