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Okay. I& #39;ve debated tweeting this because I feel very vulnerable about it. But I think it& #39;s important.
I& #39;m a single parent. I& #39;ve been one for 16 years (not going into details here, but trust me, it wasn& #39;t my life plan). I can cook. Well. Roast dinners, pasta, cakes, biscuits, stews, soups, you name it. I& #39;m good at managing money (working class family, Mam is an excellent manager)
I& #39;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& #39;ve had people claim they& #39;ve lost their business chequebooks AND their debit cards...
I& #39;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& #39;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& #39;ve never had to leave a full trolley of food because your card got declined...if you& #39;ve never had to superglue your kids& #39; school shoes together...
If you& #39;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& #39;ve never had to wonder how you& #39;re going to GET to work with no money for travel... if you& #39;ve never had to worry about how to replace your broken printer... Then don& #39;t - DON& #39;T YOU F*CKING DARE - pontificate about people needing to learn to cook and budget.
There& #39;s more - a lot more - I could say, but my blood pressure won& #39;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.
