“That said, I do have questions. Where were her family and child’s father when he was begging for more bread and jam? Why did they let her do sex work?”
They were all right there, @Bnxybee engaged and helping her. But this is where her timeline can only be charitably described as “unclear”. In various publications she has herself described her poverty as lasting for a only a few months or a couple of years (or 10 years), dependent on food banks for months for formula (although they’re not allowed to give this out, particularly for a 2.5year old), or only a few times. In a podcast with Sophie Ellis Bextor last year she described the actions of her parents as “the wrinkle in her story”. In the podcast she says she accompanied a friend once to a foodbank, saw a friend of her parents from their church volunteering there, and confessed all to her parents immediately before they found out from the friend. Her parents then turned up the same afternoon with bags of food. She claimed she was “too embarrassed to tell them”, preferring to let her child go cold and hungry? (You will doubtless be aware that she herself has provided different versions of this over the years, so 🤷♀️ )
Her parents foster children, and do not give the slightest impression that they would let their grandchild suffer in any way. So again 🤷♀️It really doesn’t stack up.
Her ex partner, the actual resident parent has been involved since pregnancy, with completely shared custody until she came back to Essex after the split with Allegra, when he became main carer as the boy got a school place in his town, not her’s. She thanks him here amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/27/jack-monroe-motherhood-thank-you-brave-father
And I believe that her ex’s new partner appeared on a mumsnet thread some years ago decrying the way he’d been depicted in her tales (not sure the thread still exists as her threads have previously been zapped immediately…) and setting the record straight re custody, maintenance etc. She has always been a co-parent, not an “abandoned single mother” as she often paints herself…. His grandparents on his fathers side also seem to be very engaged.
Her timelines change so often and I think are deliberately obfuscated so that it is impossible to work out when it was even possible for her to take on “sex work” (a term which covers everything from chat lines to prostitution and beyond). I’m afraid I don’t believe she ever did this - and there’s no way such engaged parents and partner would stand by and let this happen. If she couldn’t sort out childcare for her fire service job, how could she sort it for a spot of light prostitution? (I don’t mean to be flippant, I know there’s a lot more to say about sex work in general…)
I think like with all her tales there’s perhaps a nugget of truth in parts of this, but it’s been exaggerated and twisted for impact so much that the truth is lost. And I think she really believes whatever version is the most current, thus all these big contradictory statements, using her own tweets and publications, that have caused such a splash over the past couple of days.