We were poor, and we knew it.
Updated: Apr 30, 2023
I resonated with the following lines in Viola Davis' memoir, "Finding Me", as she took me back to when I was a tiny-for-her-age kid, almost always in dirty clothes and unkempt hair:
"We were "po". That's a level lower than poor. I've heard some of my friends say, "We were poor, too, but I just didn't know it until I got older." We were poor and we knew it. There was absolutely no disputing it. "
Thinking back now, I wasn't really "po"; it just felt like it for the better chunk of my childhood, from standing out in social spaces for looking untidy to not being able to attend school trips and take part in extramural activities due to financial constraints, not having the right shoes for choir competitions, to being out of school for up to two weeks at a time because our school fees were not paid. This also extended to having to take our cold meats in the fridge to neighbours multiple times when our fridge was either broken or our lights were cut off due to non-payment of the electricity bill, cooking on a hotplate stove or a small gas stove because the electric stove broke and was never fixed and just not being able to invite friends over to the house cos it was the off-screen version of the American documentary show Hoarding: Buried Alive on the TLC channel.
It was effortless to feel "po" in the circumstances described above, especially in comparison to the kids we schooled with or went to the same church as, but being South African and having witnessed the living conditions of the majority of our people in townships and rural areas, with two fully employed parents and a comfortable house in the quieter and neater section of a well-established township, most of the issues I faced were as a result of "po" life choices, "po" parenting and "po" home management fuelled by the crippling effects of mental health challenges. It's not that my father couldn't afford our electricity bill, to buy us the correct shoes for choir competitions or to fix the stove when it was broken. No. The decisions that were made in the household were not conducive to a healthy upbringing. I have no idea how and why my father made his choices, but I can attest that his mental health played a huge role.
Growing up, I witnessed my father transform from being a charismatic, sociable, and kind, albeit physically abusive man, to someone who ate, smoked, and spent every passing day on his bed in his unlit and beyond-Hoarding: Buried Alive bedroom. He barely communicated with us or completed parenting duties, such as checking if our homework was done or if we had clean clothes to wear to school the next day. He was eventually diagnosed with depression and anxiety and was put on medication. In my opinion, from that point, he deteriorated even further. He isolated himself from the world, was hospitalized in psychiatric wards multiple times, and seized to be kind to us in action and spoken word.
Being brought up in such a space resulted in me being a psychologically unsafe child who grew up suffering similar mental health issues. The effect of a parent's mental health challenges on their children is varied and unpredictable. Although parental mental health challenges pose biological, psychosocial, and environmental risks for children, not all children will be negatively affected or affected in the same way.