Being poor is not inevitable or due to personal flaws. Yet, every single day, people all over the US and the UK live with the gross injustice that is being poor and with the humiliation of being blamed for circumstances beyond their control. You might not have thought about what it feels like to have no choice but to swallow your pride and go to a food bank to stock up on essentials because you don’t qualify for state assistance – or what you do qualify for falls far short of what you actually need to survive and help you get back on your feet.
If you have never lived on the breadline, it’s probably difficult to grasp, for example, that for many people, no matter how hard they work at their minimum-wage precarious job/s, they just never have enough to make the rent, eat nutritious food every day, or buy a much-needed new pair of shoes for their kids, or a warm winter coat. But, when I first began to understand that we were looked down upon or pitied by many more financially fortunate people, the undercurrent of shame stayed with me for a long time.Īnyone who has grown up poor will have similar stories to tell: those small or large experiences or encounters that force you to register that your family is not just lacking in material things (as hard as that may be), but that as a kid you are set apart from other children. Like most poorer families – and this is true today – we lived our lives in the poorer parts of town. Although we were far from unusual – west Belfast, which was also one of the main flashpoints during Northern Ireland’s sectarian conflict in the 1970s and 1980s, was among the most deprived areas in the whole of western Europe – I hated how much we had to struggle and how much shame there was in not being able to afford what others could. While we had enough food to mostly meet our daily needs (we had to borrow from neighbours when things got really tight), occasional treats were often paid for by going into debt with loan sharks. Even within a community where many people were in the same situation, this was a source of humiliation: relying on state assistance to get by was seen by some as a sign of parental failure. Later my dad became unemployed and had to claim the “dole” for long periods of time. My mum kept it immaculately clean and looking as nice as possible, but there’s only so much makeup you can put on a pig. Having a fridge or washing machine was unimaginable. The house was overrun with rats there was no bathroom, indoor toilet or central heating and the kitchen was a makeshift scullery with a plastic corrugated roof. Like realising our first home, where I lived until the age of seven, was nothing short of a slum: eight of us slept in two tiny, damp bedrooms. Being poor or “on welfare” was a source of shame. That was the first time I felt the sting of other people’s pity and when I realised, on a visceral level, that being from a poor background came (though I certainly hadn’t heard of the concept yet) with a stigma attached to it. One by one they edged me towards the back. Girls, clucking loudly and preening, raced to the floor and took up spaces. I approached the long table at the front of the room, my hair still wet from the rain, where I handed over my 50p entrance fee and a middle-aged man gave me a white, square piece of paper with the number 11 on it. I’ve been pitied by more financially fortunate people, the undercurrent of shame stayed with me for a long time' Mary O'Hara A posse of mothers followed the girls, all carrying little pink-coloured cases.
Groups of girls began piling in, giggling and sparkling in the most incredible outfits I had ever laid eyes on. I’d never been to that side of town with its big houses and manicured gardens. That Saturday I put on my best red blouse under the denim dungarees I practically lived in but which were an inch too short, and laced up my one pair of decent shoes after polishing the toes and began the three-mile walk in the rain to the other end of the city. I gave my parents a pound and kept the rest. “Sorry, love,” Mum said, “we just can’t afford it.” “It’s only 50p to enter,” I countered, but she said nothing and looked back with sad eyes.Ī week later I won £1.50 at the bingo. My other siblings were out in the street playing. I ran home to tell my mum, who was peeling a bag of potatoes in the living room as she watched the TV, with a baby and a toddler. Peggy said I was good, that I should enter the regional disco-dancing championships.
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