Sit­ting in her liv­ing room, the 43-year-old moth­er shook her head as she read a news sto­ry on her cel­lu­lar phone.

On her screen, in white let­ters against the back­drop of a po­lice car em­bla­zoned the head­line, “Woman ar­rest­ed for steal­ing books.”

But the moth­er’s ges­ture was of sym­pa­thy and not con­tempt. And while we’re un­sure about the mo­tive be­hind the theft, the moth­er of four told Guardian Me­dia that as a strug­gling sin­gle par­ent, she knows all too well the feel­ing of ab­ject des­per­a­tion.

And she could not help but spec­u­late that this was one such case.

“Steal­ing is wrong, we all know that. But it hurts me as a moth­er to know that is where she reach, be­cause I know a lot of moms per­son­al­ly who have felt like that, my­self in­clud­ed,” she lament­ed.

The 43-year-old looked at her chil­dren and said it even crossed her mind to steal bread at one point.

“I have been tempt­ed at times, for ex­am­ple, you have no bread at home, and you go to work and see a few slices ly­ing around and you’re think­ing what if I just car­ried that home?” she said in a tone that ex­pressed shame at even the thought.

Food is scarce in their home. And grow­ing chil­dren eat reg­u­lar­ly. Try­ing to feed her fam­i­ly on the lit­tle that she earns at her part-time job means that of­ten, she is the one who re­mains hun­gry.

“It has nights I will go to bed with­out any­thing, I will drink wa­ter, or I may get a cup of tea just to make sure they get some­thing,” she lament­ed, “I know they’re not get­ting enough nu­tri­tion that they’re sup­posed to be eat­ing at their ages and it both­ers me.”

‘Why so ex­pen­sive?’

Now, the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion pe­ri­od is up­on her.

And the moth­er, who al­ready has sleep­less nights won­der­ing how she will meet their ba­sic needs day by day, now has three book­lists in front of her.

Three of her chil­dren are mov­ing in­to Form Four, Stan­dard Two and Sec­ond Year.

“The books are ridicu­lous­ly ex­pen­sive now. One of my daugh­ter’s text­books will cost $330. Why so ex­pen­sive? These are kids us­ing school­books. And then next year you come out with a new edi­tion, and you can’t use it any­more?” she com­plained.

She added, “Two years ago, when the old­er one was prep­ping for Forms Four and Five, I re­mem­ber when I cal­cu­lat­ed the book list and uni­forms and every­thing it was up­wards of $3,500, and this was two years ago. When I look at the cost of some of these books that she used back then, now the book has gone up in some cas­es up to 50 per cent, the same book.”

While thank­ful for the Gov­ern­ment’s promise of a $1,000 book grant, she said sad­ly, it is not enough even for her child go­ing in­to Sec­ond Year.

“You don’t want to feel un­grate­ful for it, but it’s not go­ing to touch the book lists that these kids have. Be­cause a sec­ond-year child’s book list can cross $1,500,” she ex­plained.

Her daugh­ter, who is about to en­ter Form Four, needs eight text­books. Guardian Me­dia sought the prices for those books from a pop­u­lar re­tail­er and al­to­geth­er they cost $2,022. This cost does not fac­tor in the sta­tionery, flash dri­ves and sci­en­tif­ic cal­cu­la­tor in­clud­ed on the list. There is, of course, the text­book rental pro­gramme but the moth­er in­formed us that there are not enough books to go around.

For her son go­ing in­to Stan­dard Two, his five text­books will cost around $460.

And books and sta­tionery are not her on­ly wor­ries.

“A uni­form for my eight-year-old, last year, was $125, they are go­ing to school five days a week, even if you buy three uni­forms, that alone is $375. We are not even talk­ing about sneak­ers. You’re not get­ting a sneak­er for $100 any­more. $200 is my bud­get for sneak­ers and they don’t even last a term,” she said with tears start­ing to form.

Cry­ing soft­ly now, the 43-year-old said she knows that her fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion puts her chil­dren’s ed­u­ca­tion at a dis­ad­van­tage be­cause she nev­er has every­thing they need in time for the first day of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

“It im­pacts them be­cause they come, and they say they need this, and I tell them I can’t buy it now. One of the kids, their friends will take pic­tures of their book and send them to them to com­plete an as­sign­ment,” she said with a wry smile.

She won­ders why this coun­try has not made mean­ing­ful at­tempts to lessen the de­pen­den­cy on phys­i­cal text­books and move to­wards an e-book mod­el which could prove to be a less ex­pen­sive op­tion in the long run.

More sup­port for

sur­vivors of abuse

Look­ing around at her apart­ment it was a stark re­minder that pover­ty can take many forms. From the road­way, the con­crete walls of the house give the im­pres­sion of fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty. But in­side it is sparse­ly fur­nished with a tele­vi­sion that does not work.

“I may not be the typ­i­cal sin­gle mom where, you know, peo­ple would be see­ing that we are not liv­ing in a shack. But I be­long to that cat­e­go­ry of sin­gle moms that you will see go­ing out there, smil­ing at work, com­ing home, mak­ing sure your kids are okay, clean­ing, cook­ing, and wash­ing. But at the end of the day, when you put every­one to sleep, you will lie down and cry; cause you will ask your­self, how I am go­ing to do this again to­mor­row?” she cried.

The 43-year-old iron­i­cal­ly re­flect­ed on what had got her in­to this po­si­tion. In Jan­u­ary, she left an abu­sive re­la­tion­ship and took her chil­dren with her. While fi­nan­cial­ly life was some­what eas­i­er, with two teenage daugh­ters she did not want them to feel do­mes­tic vi­o­lence was nor­mal. So she left. But that move sev­ered all sup­port from her part­ner. She thought it fun­ny in a grim sense that so­ci­ety urges women to leave vi­o­lent part­ners, yet the sys­tems to sup­port them af­ter are not there.

She wants par­ents in her sit­u­a­tion to con­tin­ue the fight and to re­mem­ber that no mat­ter how tough things get, break­ing the law is not the so­lu­tion.

“It makes no sense do­ing some­thing that will leave your kids alone or en­dan­ger your­self. And don’t ever be afraid to ask. Don’t be afraid to ask a neigh­bour for a hand of fig, be­cause when I had chil­dren all shame went out the win­dow,” she ad­vised.

And for the chil­dren who do not make the most of the ed­u­ca­tion that their par­ents worked hard to fa­cil­i­tate, she urged, “Ease your par­ents up a lit­tle bit, ease them up. Go to school, do what you have to do and fo­cus, it’s just a few years you have in school. You can work hard for the next ten years and do some­thing bet­ter with your life and en­joy the next 60 or 70 years, or you can play the fool and then suf­fer for the next 70.”

Any­one wish­ing to help the moth­er of four can reach her at 272-9266.