So, gentle reader, how's the housekeeping going?
If you're reading this a hundred years from now (that's one of the many strange things about the internet) you'll need reminding that the end of 2022 was the beginning of an austerity that might end up the worst since the depression of a hundred years before.
No point going over how come, but it's the reason I'm asking the reader of 2022 how their housekeeping is going, what with rocketing prices and declining incomes.
Blue Sky has made a cost-of-living payment to each and every one of their registered foster carers. It's a help, not only with the bills, but also to know that someone out there cares.
In our house yesterday one of our foster children finished an end-of-year exam and was let out early so brought a classmate home to revise. The two of them sat in the little room off the kitchen working on their laptops.
In their coats.
The heating doesn't come on in our house until 4.00pm. I swear I thought I saw the mist of their breathe. No-one complained. They were revising.
What we foster carers need to be watchful of is the effect of the wider world on our foster kids, all of whom are already bruised and battered by their own smaller world.
Are they aware of the economic crisis, and does it worry them? Our young people know a thing or three about the world we adults have created and are going to bequeath them. They see their inheritance as a dying planet choking itself to death. Dreadful diseases cover the globe, families imprisoned in their own homes. War raging. Not just war; politicians and protesters raging. Workers raging.
When I go shopping I often look out at people's faces. Dear God, we've become a grim and grizzly lot.
Surely it must get to the young, especially our foster kids, who deserve a bit of peace, and even a bit of hope for a better future?
We're having a chicken for Christmas lunch (if there are any left). First time in my lifetime we're swerving the turkey.
Instead of a pile of presents, we're doing a Secret Santa thing, with a max of two gifts per recipient. The recipient nominates what they want and stick to a budget.
Thankfully we've got a decent plastic tree and aren't topping up the box of decorations like we did previously, every year.
Our smart meter showed £21.87 for the 24 hours of last Saturday, when we have the heating on all day because everyone's in.
In the UK there are tens of millions of households that have to choose; heat or eat. Households that can only pay the rent or pay their monthly mortgage fee by going without. Food banks are proliferating.
We watched a perfectly well presented woman in our supermarket buy her shopping, then on her way out go to the tub where people can donate food for food banks. She picked up some tins from it, put them in her bag and shot off. The self-checkout tills are now festooned with cameras and individual TVs above every till so you can watch yourself being recorded and sense you're being scrutinised ed by security. This, I'm told, is because of the sharp incfease in shoplifting. But the thieves aren't crooks, they're people who can't afford food.
So, if you're reading this a hundred years from now let me ask you if the world has learned yet how to balance the books?
Here in 2022 there are over 108,000 children in care.
Do families in 2122 still rip themselves apart (the polite term is they are "chaotic")?
And if they do, does the country rescue the children still?
There's not going to be plenty of plenty in many homes over the coming winter of 2022. By plenty I mean extravagancy and waste; gaudy unecessaries, meaningless trinkets.
Maybe our hearts are better off when we're pitching in together struggling to make ends meet!
The two youngsters sitting together in our back room, revising for their future, buttoned up in their coats, touched my heart.
Their togetherness in austerity as they both strove for a better future was inspirational.
How awful - where I live people are certainly doing it tough (and our own "belt" has had to be significantly "tightened") but at least it's a warm county, where we don't ever need heating, and don't have to make the awful choice of warmth vs good. Heat in think is a little easier to handle.
ReplyDeleteI remember my own childhood, and a period when things were very tough financially, and I remember the sense of being united against it, of finding free things to do to brighten up our day (picking flowers for the table, etc), of becoming creative and frugal with clothes, of getting an after school job as soon as I could - they're mostly happy memories, but now as an adult I realise how very stressful it was for my mum. I hope today's children are also insulated a little - but fear not.