Read on Twitter
Okay. I've debated tweeting this because I feel very vulnerable about it. But I think it's important.
I'm a single parent. I've been one for 16 years (not going into details here, but trust me, it wasn't my life plan). I can cook. Well. Roast dinners, pasta, cakes, biscuits, stews, soups, you name it. I'm good at managing money (working class family, Mam is an excellent manager)
I've been self employed pretty much my whole adult life. So, yes, employed. I work my a*se off. Being SE means you rely on others paying you promptly. This does not always happen. I've had people claim they've lost their business chequebooks AND their debit cards...
I've had people give me FAKE NAMES of finance employees to avoid paying me. So I work and then very often have to chase payment. Sometimes every day. For weeks.
I also have CFS which causes brain fog. You can imagine how much fun that makes pursuing late payment. I can't tell you the number of times, when the kids were younger, when I had to juggle childcare payments, rent payments, utility bills and food shops with £0.
I usually managed that by delaying, for example, a rent payment in order not to have the gas cut off. Let me tell you, if you've never had to leave a full trolley of food because your card got declined...if you've never had to superglue your kids' school shoes together...
If you've never cried at a letter from school telling you that non-uniform charity day costs £2 per child and that means the £6 you had budgeted for lunches is wiped out...
If you've never had to wonder how you're going to GET to work with no money for travel... if you've never had to worry about how to replace your broken printer... Then don't - DON'T YOU F*CKING DARE - pontificate about people needing to learn to cook and budget.
There's more - a lot more - I could say, but my blood pressure won't take it. Suffice to say...
If you get a little thrill of pleasure at the thought of malnourished, hungry children because you feel in some way that punishes their parents for whatever moral failings you imagine them to have - then you are the one with the moral failing.
Right. Off to have a cup of tea and calm down.
