Guest post: “It’s the worst feeling imaginable to be worrying if your children have enough food to get through the day, or if they’re going to be too hungry to sleep at night.”

[NicolaDMumsnet]

My name is Nikki, and I’m a mother in my forties. I live at home with my three children.

I’m currently unable to work as I’m suffering from ill health and am waiting on an operation. My main battle each week is to make sure there is some food on the table for my family due to Universal Credit and disability support not being enough to cover the essentials.

I’ve lost my eldest son to suicide and the impact of the last few years on us as a family is impossible to put into words.

It breaks my heart to think of the pain my kids have suffered over the past few years, and it’s a constant challenge to try and support their mental health as best as I can. I really want to take the opportunity to raise awareness about the system we have in place that is meant to help people in their hour of need but is simply not fit for purpose.

We urgently need to fix our social security system if we are to be able to move forward as a society and help families when they fall on hard times and need it most.

Families like mine, who a few years ago would never in our worst nightmares have imagined that we’d ever be needing to make choices every week between things like heating and eating. But that’s the reality of our situation. And it’s far more commonplace than a lot of people realise, happening to people from all walks of life up and down the country.

To set the scene a bit, before the pandemic I worked for a major airline and, like many of us, had no idea what was to come when news first broke about Covid-19.

Amidst all the uncertainty that everyone was thrown into, I found myself first being furloughed, and then ultimately made redundant. In hope, I applied for child maintenance to get some support from the non-paying parent. I found out I was entitled to £50 a week but because of the inadequacy of the child maintenance system I only received £6 a fortnight – unwarranted deductions were being taken from the payments before I even received them. Six years later, nothing has changed.

For the first time in my life, I was left in a situation where I had no idea how I was going to afford to provide for my children.

I’m sure there will be mums reading this who have experienced something similar, it’s the worst feeling imaginable to be worrying if your children have enough food to get through the day, or if they’re going to be too hungry to sleep at night.

When it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to work, I knew I was going to need to turn to Universal Credit and disability benefits to help me get back on my feet. I had no idea of the finances involved or what I’d be eligible for, but very quickly it became clear that we weren’t going to be able to get by without additional help.

Thankfully, someone I know suggested looking to see if there was a local food bank that could help provide essential meals for us and, in all honesty, looking back now if it wasn’t for the Trussell Trust I don’t know how we’d have survived.

Most nights I don’t eat dinner, which has seen me lose over a stone in weight. It’s far more important to me to have enough for my kids, and even though they’re very understanding of our situation, I know they must really be desperate for the day where we can have a snack in the cupboard for them. Even just a bag of crisps or something for a treat that isn’t a cracker, or some dry toast. They won’t say it, but I know how they must be feeling. It sounds terrible to say out loud but I genuinely don’t know if we’d starve to death if it wasn’t for the generosity and kindness of the Trussell Trust and the people helping us.

I promise you nobody wants to have to visit a food bank, but all I remember is how warm and kind-hearted the people volunteering there were.

The main thing that struck me is just how many people are turning to food banks and how much need for their parcels there is. It’s absolutely shocking to me, that in such a rich country - we’re in the situation we are, and it has been a complete eye-opener for me to see just how vulnerable we all are to this. I know of teachers and nurses, legal professionals. Lots of people with degrees and jobs are working but still unable to make ends meet. There is a massive disconnect between what some people think of when they hear the word ‘benefits’ or those that use food banks, and the actual reality of it.

We’re in the middle of a massive problem as a society. We seem to have normalised what would have once been completely unthinkable to us as a country and we desperately need to come together to call for change.

The Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation are leading the call for an ‘Essentials Guarantee’ to be made law, whereby nobody in this country would have to go without essential items because they can’t afford them.

Their research has found that there’s on average a £35 per week gap between the money that people on Universal Credit receive, and the actual amount that essential items cost. People are literally being forced into a worse financial position by the systems that are supposed to be designed to help them!

On top of that, we have a child maintenance system that’s not fit for purpose, with many families like mine losing out on support because of a lack of enforcement and a poorly designed system. Simply put, as a society we seem to have forgotten what the whole purpose of the welfare system is. 

It just can’t go on, and it angers me so much to see that more and more people are needing food banks each year.

For families like mine across the UK, the Essentials Guarantee would mean the world to us and allow us to actually start living our lives again. For me personally, I’d be able to prioritise my own mental health and general wellbeing and reach a point where I can get back to work, something I’d love to be able to do more than anything.

It needn’t be this way in this country, and a recent petition calling for change has raced to well over 100,000 signatures and has since been delivered to Parliament. But we still need more people to get involved to make it clear how strongly everyone feels about this. We really need to show those leading this country that there is a huge problem that they don’t seem to have eyes on, and it’s in their hands to fix.

If you agree with me that the system needs to change, and the UK needs an Essentials Guarantee, then visit the Trussell Trust’s website to find out more.

Together we can all help make the change that will create a future where nobody needs to turn to a charity for something as essential as food.

[Theemeperorsnewclothes]

I am so sorry to hear how hard it has been for you and your children. You provide for your children, you take on all of that burden. NRP (dad) in the current system has no moral or legal obligation. It’s a disgrace of a system and we are a disgraceful nation for allowing this failure of a system to continue. You and your children deserve so much more. I pray reforms are made in our children’s lifetimes but it’s going to take a lot of fight. It shouldn’t be this way. Sending love and support.