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When my son was a baby, I was poor. I lived alone in a housing association flat on the 9th floor of a block of flats where the lifts rarely worked. His dad and I were together, but he had his own place because we broke up every other week.
He was an alcoholic. He didn’t work. Most of his money went on cheap beer, so raising our son was up to me on my benefits. I can’t remember how much it was, but it wasn’t much. Once I’d bought nappies, formula or food for the baby, electric and gas for the week, it was gone.
I used to buy oxo cubes to drink. I’d occasionally eat my son’s rusks. I remember buying cheap coffee that tasted weird, like liquorice. I had milk tokens which I used to pay the milkman, so at least I had milk.
I was lucky. I had brilliant parents. They lent me money, bought things for my son and eventually, when I accepted that I couldn’t afford to live alone, they welcomed me and my son back home to live with them.
Eventually, I got a job, went back to college, then to uni and during all this I broke up with my son’s dad once and for all and met my first husband, who also turned out to be a much better dad and provider for my son.
I had those brilliant parents who totally covered for me when I did what they’d warned me against and got myself knocked up by a loser at 19. Without them, I probably would have struggled to feed my son as he got older. The amount I was living on was a pittance.
Yes, my rent was paid and council tax waived, but out of that tiny pittance, I had to pay for heating and light, food, nappies clothes for a rapidly growing baby, dummies, bottles, Sudocrem. Food for me was the last priority.
So all these people suggesting that parents aren’t trying hard enough to feed their kids are clueless. I can see how easily it could have been me and it absolutely wouldn’t have been my son’s fault if he was hungry. Anyone denying children food is soulless.
Here we were back then. Me and my world.
