I have been ill again this week and the burly Welshman has been an absolute saint, doing the school run before work in the mornings, staying over at Axis Towers at night to look after everyone, and generally being completely brilliant. The Axis enjoy walking to school with him, as he'll tolerate a level of nonsense that I firmly refuse to. Yesterday morning, however, the Welshman nipped back before going to work, looking slightly perturbed.
I asked him what was wrong; he opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. Finally, he said, 'I think you need to have a word with Kong about Charity Day.' Charity Day is next Friday at school and the children have been invited to dress up as a famous figure from history. The Axis are all agog at this, their love of bloody warriors from the past writ large thanks to Horrible Histories. I'd already talked Kong out of going as Caligula, so was hoping for the best.
It was not to be. Apparently, on the walk to school, the Axis were discussing who they wanted to be for Charity Day. The Kong sidled up to the burly Welshman and said 'Er...I can't go as Hitler, can I? That would be wrong, wouldn't it?' The Welshman, slightly startled, assured Kong vehemently that yes, it would be wrong, and that many people might be offended by that, as Hitler was a very evil man...Kong nodded, pondersomely, then rejoindered: 'Do you think anyone will go as Hitler?'
As I reached for the phone directory to look up 'child psychologists (specialising in miniature dictators)' it occurred to me that actually, Kong's sense of right and wrong was beginning to implant itself (not before time, IMO) and that this was just part of it. I talked to him and his brother later and was satisfied that they are not plotting to take over the world. Instead, they will be going to their Church of England school in this truly Tory area dressed as Charles Darwin and Che Guevara. Win-win, boys.
Of course, this is only possible because we already own the clothes needed to make convincing costumes. As it's a prosperous area, a tiny minority will be coming in in the most ridiculous, wear-once-and-destroy outfits that cost more than my yearly clothing budget.
The inconsistency of my income makes spending a total nightmare. I've written before about my gratitude at living in a country that supports us when the chips are down. What's less edifying, however, is the hoops you have to jump through to get it, and the severe lack of competence displayed, the kind that would get you the sack working in any payroll department.
This is how it works when you're poor: your income comes from several different streams and you have to fight to justify your receipt of each them, continually. In my case, that's work/bursary, child benefit, child tax credit, and housing benefit. Altogether, these make up just about enough to live on. We don't take holidays abroad, rarely buy clothes, and shop in Aldi. We're frugal, I cook almost everything from scratch. If, like me, you've been foolish enough to take out loans in the past to help with your postgraduate education, then you have to negotiate with the bank when, suddenly, someone leaves your life and you are unable to pay as previously agreed. If you happen to work somewhere where you do the same hours every month, the company is stable, and you know how much you will be paid, brilliant. If, however, you work somewhere brilliant, but reliant on funding by capricious commissioners, the amount you get paid and the time you get paid every month will be different.
It's impossible to use a calculator to get an accurate picture of what will be paid to you and when. How can you budget for bills and food responsibly like you're supposed to - like you want to? If you phone up and ask for a breakdown of how payments are calculated, you are refused. Instead, my local authority sends out random automated letters every two weeks or so that make little sense. I'm no slouch, I used to handle big budgets at work and understand systems well. But it is a nonsense to me.
At least tax credits and housing benefits are now linked. Hooray, I thought, they can talk to each other and save some time! Not so. Instead, when you complete your renewal form in July, HMRC (for it is they) inform housing benefit that you have done so. Housing benefit then freeze your payments until they've processed your tax credit renewal. Last year it took them 10 weeks to do this. 10 weeks with no rent money, followed a couple of months later by another seven when I left my job to retrain.
It's surprising how much time you spend on the phone to people, knowing full well nothing is going to get sorted unless you jump up and down about it for a good six weeks. NHS Bursaries have consistently messed up my profile since September. For some reason they keep thinking the Axis have gone up in smoke and therefore they don't incur childcare costs of several hundred pounds a month.
With all these services, the same thing happens. You ring, and talk to someone, they promise to sort it out. They don't. You ring again, someone else says they don't understand why it hasn't been sorted, and promises to sort it out. They don't. You feel desperate and, if you're me, weaselly and guilty for depending on the state in the first place. You take out a debt to cover the missed payment. The interest on that, and all the others, accrues wildly. You stop sleeping at night.
Recently I heard someone who works full time and earns what would be a prince's ransom in my world complaining about people on benefits. 'I'm a mug,' they said. 'I spend all this time working and paying tax, for people on benefits to sit around doing nothing.' It's a gripe many of us will have heard before. No, they're not doing nothing. Most people I know are working and claiming benefits because the work doesn't pay well enough. With the rise of zero hour contracts, that's only getting worse. And a life dependent on the state is not pleasant. There is no financial security. There is the constant fear and anxiety that suddenly, there will be no money in your account and the rent will be due and the children will be hungry. There is the knowledge that there is nothing you can do about it because jobs that are flexible and pay well are anathema when your children are at primary school.
Before the children, I worked full time, I worked hard. I paid taxes. In fact, apart from two lots of maternity leave, I've always worked and paid tax, and been happy to do it. The longest I've been unemployed in my life is three weeks, and that's a total. I've never been unfortunate enough to have to claim Jobseeker's Allowance, or Income Support, or any of the illness-related benefits, but I've heard friends tell how demoralising the process is. I've worked in social care and welfare for nearly 15 years, dealing with some of the most troubled families in the city at times. In all that time, I can only think of one person I met who I would have said should have been working instead of claiming benefits. I heard she's been done for fraud, now, anyway, so the system caught up with her, and sharpish.
Look, we get it. The state supports us, so we should be grateful. We are grateful, truly. But you don't get to demoralise us, play havoc with our lives with no explanation, and treat us like something you stepped on. We might be down now, but we will get back up, and sooner if you don't destroy us while we're down here. The effort of hiding all this from the Axis is immense, but letting children worry is wrong, and I want my little Darwin and Guevara to have a childhood free from worry and full of laughing, playing, discovery and joy. I want them to grow up to be happy, fulfilled and sucessful.
How else are they gonna pay for my fancy retirement home?!
Friday 15 May 2015
Sunday 10 May 2015
The Election Section
'You can't kill Bowser. He always comes back. Like Nick Cotton. Or David Cameron.'
Sunday morning at Axis Towers. Following the success of last night's Sausage Sizzle at church (no, really), the burly Welshman and the Axis are firmly tucked into a Nintendo marathon, with a little bit of political indoctrination thrown in to boot. The Axis have displayed a great deal of interest in this election, and a fair bit of confusion about the voting habits of some of those closest to them. Axis Towers is in a true blue constituency, whereas their father resides in a traditionally lefty spot in the inner city. Mindful of our position here, and the fact that we have kind, wonderful neighbours and friends who may well vote on the right, I've not been particularly vocal about my red leanings, something I now somewhat regret.
The past five years have been characterised by a fair bit of financial and political vulnerability for me. When I became a single parent in 2010, I was initially terrified and convinced I was going to end up on the streets. I then became amazed at the safety net that was there for me in the form of the welfare state. I was, and remain, incredibly thankful that we live in a country where, when the chips are down and you cannot support yourself, for whatever reason, the state steps in. But over the past five years, the scope of this has changed remarkably.
It is clear that the system is now designed to put people off wherever possible. Renewal letters now come worded densely with threats, warnings and suspicion. Information is hard to come by and incorrect assumptions make huge delays in payment. Last year, we went 10 weeks with no housing benefit at one point. I'm still paying off the interest on the debt I accrued in order to keep the rent being paid on time - despite the fact I have the most fantastic, understanding landlords ever, I refuse to abuse their good nature and paying the rent on time, in full, is incredibly important to me, as it is to many in my position. What can be more important than keeping a roof over your children's heads?
Last summer, I began to have problems breathing. At first I thought it was a cold, then a chest infection, but as the weeks turned into months, I realised something was afoot. Eventually I was diagnosed with an organising pneumonia, caused by a reaction to an antibiotic I should never have been prescribed, as you don't prescribe it to people with chest history. I'd been given it by an emergency GP on a Saturday, who was rushed and stressed and didn't know me. Over the months, as I became iller, I realised we were in a precarious position. I couldn't keep working, my health wasn't up to the frequent trips to London and the travel around the southwest. Having been considering a move back to university to retrain, I decided now was probably the right time to spend a few months sitting in a lecture hall and resigned, without telling my boss I was ill. He was surprised and upset, understandably. I was afraid, very afraid. A CT scan and some breathing tests revealed I had a quarter of the lung capacity I should have. The picture showed my lungs were full of a substance that looked like candy floss. I could only take shallow breaths by now. It took me 20 minutes to climb the stairs to put the Axis to bed.
By this point, I was fortunate enough to have the burly Welshman to pick up the slack with childcare, as well as my amazing supportive friends and neighbours. I have been having treatment and am getting better. I feel like I've dodged a bullet - for now.
However, what happens to those who don't recover? Those who, like the people I have now started working with, rely on DLA and state benefits? Who suffer horrid, debilitating illnesses, and on top of that have the anxiety that comes with the constant reassessment and poking and prodding of their bodies and lives? Those who are given a demand for bedroom tax days after a loved one dies, those who have to deal with the incompetence of the JobCentre, famously losing paperwork and creating targets for sanctions. What happens to them? (Apologies for the anecdotal evidence. I'm ill again and will look up references for these later, if anyone particularly wishes)
I fear for them, and their carers, and their children. And for mine, who don't understand why sharing doesn't appear to be something adults have to do with good grace. The Axis, however, also don't understand all this talking of fighting. The left want to protect the vulnerable. The right say we need a strong economy to do this and there must be casualties. Must there? Surely, they say it's better to talk and work out an answer between us?
The Axis are right, of course. Is it possible, though? I hope so. The culture of mistrust and suspicion that has begun to creep in our country is pernicious and must go. Now, *that* is something I think we can all agree is worth fighting.
(Next time, no politics, more tales of epic farting from Axis Towers and the sunny Stoke Bishop area, promise) xx
Sunday morning at Axis Towers. Following the success of last night's Sausage Sizzle at church (no, really), the burly Welshman and the Axis are firmly tucked into a Nintendo marathon, with a little bit of political indoctrination thrown in to boot. The Axis have displayed a great deal of interest in this election, and a fair bit of confusion about the voting habits of some of those closest to them. Axis Towers is in a true blue constituency, whereas their father resides in a traditionally lefty spot in the inner city. Mindful of our position here, and the fact that we have kind, wonderful neighbours and friends who may well vote on the right, I've not been particularly vocal about my red leanings, something I now somewhat regret.
The past five years have been characterised by a fair bit of financial and political vulnerability for me. When I became a single parent in 2010, I was initially terrified and convinced I was going to end up on the streets. I then became amazed at the safety net that was there for me in the form of the welfare state. I was, and remain, incredibly thankful that we live in a country where, when the chips are down and you cannot support yourself, for whatever reason, the state steps in. But over the past five years, the scope of this has changed remarkably.
It is clear that the system is now designed to put people off wherever possible. Renewal letters now come worded densely with threats, warnings and suspicion. Information is hard to come by and incorrect assumptions make huge delays in payment. Last year, we went 10 weeks with no housing benefit at one point. I'm still paying off the interest on the debt I accrued in order to keep the rent being paid on time - despite the fact I have the most fantastic, understanding landlords ever, I refuse to abuse their good nature and paying the rent on time, in full, is incredibly important to me, as it is to many in my position. What can be more important than keeping a roof over your children's heads?
Last summer, I began to have problems breathing. At first I thought it was a cold, then a chest infection, but as the weeks turned into months, I realised something was afoot. Eventually I was diagnosed with an organising pneumonia, caused by a reaction to an antibiotic I should never have been prescribed, as you don't prescribe it to people with chest history. I'd been given it by an emergency GP on a Saturday, who was rushed and stressed and didn't know me. Over the months, as I became iller, I realised we were in a precarious position. I couldn't keep working, my health wasn't up to the frequent trips to London and the travel around the southwest. Having been considering a move back to university to retrain, I decided now was probably the right time to spend a few months sitting in a lecture hall and resigned, without telling my boss I was ill. He was surprised and upset, understandably. I was afraid, very afraid. A CT scan and some breathing tests revealed I had a quarter of the lung capacity I should have. The picture showed my lungs were full of a substance that looked like candy floss. I could only take shallow breaths by now. It took me 20 minutes to climb the stairs to put the Axis to bed.
By this point, I was fortunate enough to have the burly Welshman to pick up the slack with childcare, as well as my amazing supportive friends and neighbours. I have been having treatment and am getting better. I feel like I've dodged a bullet - for now.
However, what happens to those who don't recover? Those who, like the people I have now started working with, rely on DLA and state benefits? Who suffer horrid, debilitating illnesses, and on top of that have the anxiety that comes with the constant reassessment and poking and prodding of their bodies and lives? Those who are given a demand for bedroom tax days after a loved one dies, those who have to deal with the incompetence of the JobCentre, famously losing paperwork and creating targets for sanctions. What happens to them? (Apologies for the anecdotal evidence. I'm ill again and will look up references for these later, if anyone particularly wishes)
I fear for them, and their carers, and their children. And for mine, who don't understand why sharing doesn't appear to be something adults have to do with good grace. The Axis, however, also don't understand all this talking of fighting. The left want to protect the vulnerable. The right say we need a strong economy to do this and there must be casualties. Must there? Surely, they say it's better to talk and work out an answer between us?
The Axis are right, of course. Is it possible, though? I hope so. The culture of mistrust and suspicion that has begun to creep in our country is pernicious and must go. Now, *that* is something I think we can all agree is worth fighting.
(Next time, no politics, more tales of epic farting from Axis Towers and the sunny Stoke Bishop area, promise) xx
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