I know many of you can relate to this. We work hard, have a good job, set up home, get married and have a family, live happily ever after......well it happens in the fairy tales doesn't it? Well my fairy tale was going pretty well until Arthur decided to up his game and I lost my job due to medical grounds and I was forced to claim disability benefit. It was the most soul destroying time of my life. I went from being a wife, a mother and the main income earner. We had our worries like everyone has but we got by OK.
Scroll forward a few years. Hubby has a job as a teaching assistant. It's not a highly paid job, in fact it doesn't bring in enough to reach the first income tax bracket but we make do. It amazing what you can do without. Priorities are re-evaluated etc. Our children always come first but we can no longer afford Clarks shoes and make do with supermarket shoes. They are cheap and they don't last but when 3 pairs come in at about £45-£50 instead of £150 it's a no brainer. So how do you think I feel when my beautiful daughter comes home from school upset because the head teacher has told her off for wearing black boots to school? 1) heart broken because she has done nothing wrong and she didn't ask for her school shoes to fall apart in the last week of the Christmas term. 2) annoyed (that's putting it mildly) as she was told "you'd better get some quickly " when she explained she didn't have any school shoes.
Christmas came which was an added stress and we hado the gas and electric bill to pay as well as the usual mortgage , council tax and food bills. My daughters school shoes are on the list to be replaced when my disability benefit/child benefit goes in at the end of the month. Her boots are a) black b) smart and more importantly c) do not have holes in.
Way to go school! You made me feel a failure as a parent and my daughter upset and more worried about money than she already was
Might be worth getting the school to think about this in the context of single equality act 2010 where discrimination could also be towards someone who was in a family that has someone disabled, gay etc. whilst not directly discriminating they are failing to make reasonable adjustments. I am frankly surprised.. particularly with so many families needing to use food banks etc that ... that shoes sometimes have to be lower down priorities. Have just asked one of my kids if they can wait two weeks more with cramped shoes because my budget wont run to it now.... good luck !
ReplyDeleteYou have made a valid point Elayna thank you. We replaced the two boys shoes as their toes were cramped and in one case had a big hole in the sold. As our daughter had a pair of smart black boots we told her to wear those which meant I didn't have to find the extra for a 3rd pair of shoes. I can't be the only parent who is struggling at the moment. She's still smart and in school colours. Im not sending her to school in her PE plimsolls. I completely understand how tough it is making not a lot stretch a long way. Hope you manage to get your kids shoes too xx
ReplyDeleteWow, now that's a horrible attitude to take to any child let alone a child in a family where money's short. WTAF? I've not much good to say about my old secondary school, but they did at least try to help out girls who were short of uniform, rather than pointlessly hound them to get things that the family simply couldn't afford.
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