Motherload

In the brilliant, provocative, honest  Nickel and Dimed , Barbara Ehrenreich takes a deep dive into the world of low-paid work in America. The story she has to tell is in some ways predictable. She can't make ends meet on the kind of money the lowest-paid make. No shit, Sherlock. What saves her account from turning those low-paid people into victims, and turns them instead into the  victimised  — people thrown under the wheels of a systemic problem: Capitalism — is that she never tries to hide the fact that she is privileged, well-educated and cushioned. Her honesty in admitting and claiming this (she makes no bones about the fact that she would never willingly choose to take a low-paid job) means that her work exists in a realistic framework. She is in no sense romanticising the 'poor who are always with us'. And she is not justifying herself.  No one can accuse you of what you claim as your own. How I love that her name means 'rich in honour'...

The other day I was announcing the fact that I'd wangled a month in the country to write a book. Usually there are very few comments on my blog — but this post was somehow noticed by Mumsnet, and then caused a micro-ripple in the blogosphere.  The gist of the post was that I had felt the ire and judgement of people when I told them I was going away, and had assumed they thought I was a bad mother for leaving my duties for such a long time.  But the comments were an absolute revelation — people were not judging, they simply felt jealous .  I'll write about jealousy another time, but in the heat of the moment, this is what I felt, and wrote as a comment.  I saw afterwards that it's really the heart of the book I am trying to write: Oh no! the last thing I want to inspire is jealousy — I want everyone to find a way to do whatever it is they need to be happy.   — Part of that is a serious critique of the ideologies governing life...