KATHY AND her partner Tom find they talk about little else but money these days, about how they will be able to afford “x, y and z” for their family of two children, aged 10 and two.
They both have jobs – she is a classroom assistant and he is a civil servant – but major pay cuts in recent years have meant they can no longer afford the mortgage repayments on their Dublin home.
They budget very carefully. “Food comes first – feeding the children, we have what’s left,” she explains. “Then payment plans on bills.” Sometimes they have only €10 remaining to get through a week.
The financial strain is taking its toll on their relationship. They can’t afford to go out together and “I’m always snappy”, she says, “so is he”.
Undoubtedly many couples in Ireland today would identify with Kathy and Tom (not their real names). Most people have had some degree of lifestyle change forced upon them and are having to cope with the stress that can bring.
Social workers at the Lucena Clinic, a child and adolescent mental health service in Dublin and Co Wicklow, are seeing the wear and tear on families across all sections of society.
“We are meeting individuals who have different roles in the world but we meet them as parents,” says principal social worker at Lucena, Dr Dermot O’Reilly. “They don’t come here for marital counselling, they don’t come here for career advice – but it is amazing how much the changes in people’s lives are reflected in parenting.”
Research indicates that the impact of a recession on children tends to be primarily through the effects on significant carers, he explains. “Children are not so much affected by indices of economic disadvantage directly, it is through parenting.”
Parents tend to become more “aversive”, consistently focusing on a child’s negative behaviour. A basic tenet of positive parenting is “Catch your child being good”, but stressed parents are more likely to “Catch their child being naughty”.
A longitudinal study that was running in Finland between 1990 and 1994, when the country’s rate of unemployment rose from 3 to 18 per cent, examined the impact of this severe economic downturn on families.
“The economic stress affected the individual; the individual then brought to the marital table, if you like, more stress; that led to more conflict between couples and more aversive parenting,” O’Reilly explains.
However, previously people had assumed that adults would be most affected by depression at a time like this. The Finns found anxiety was a bigger problem.
“Irritability is like the pawn in chess, it is the ghost of the game,” says O’Reilly. While people think it is the major explosions that might occur once a fortnight that are harmful, in fact “it is the low-key irritability that is, over time, most wearing on parents and their kids. That leads to the big blow-ups”. The children fight back and you get a cycle of negativity.
He is seeing households where role-changing has caused huge upheavals. Fathers who have to take over the main care of the children after losing a job can feel undermined, and their partners who have to go out to work all day may be resentful.
“When we meet parents like that – once you get them thinking and talking about it, that’s half the battle. They have already made the major changes; it is really the fine-tuning of living it with their kids.”
Very often differences between the couple are reflected in parenting, so what looks like a parenting issue has been caused by a lifestyle problem – as a result of the economy.
What O'Reilly and his colleagues are keen to stress is that there are steps couples can take to help themselves and their children to weather the storm emotionally. He and Helen Kavanagh, a psychiatric social worker, will co-present a talk entitled Parenting in a Recessionat the Lucena Clinic in Rathgar, Dublin next Monday evening (September 26th).
“It is very important that resilience is not seen as a personal trait – as something you are born with; it is something you develop,” O’Reilly says.
Individuals can do this by challenging negative thoughts and self-blame, affirming strengths, seizing opportunities and recognising what can be changed versus what can be lived with. The practice of “mindfulness” is also helpful: concentrating on the moment, rather than hankering after the past or fretting about the future.
As a couple, mutual support and problem solving are the key to coping. “If you can encourage a couple to support one another emotionally and to think more logically about their problems, they do better and then they are better at parenting,” says O’Reilly.
People’s style of parenting often changes when they are stressed, says Kavanagh, although they might not realise it. Typically, fathers withdraw from parenting and mothers tend to be tougher than they would be normally.
“It is about recognising that in themselves and looking at how they build resilience in their children,” she says. Techniques include:
- Maintaining a stable emotional environment for children no matter what adversity the adults are facing. If one parent is becoming harsher or withdrawn, the other might want to step in.
- Being careful about reacting negatively to children’s behaviour.
- Building self-esteem in children helps them to develop their own resilience and problem-solving skills. “If you are emotionally available to your child,” Kavanagh explains, “that will build a secure attachment, which helps the child branch out from you and become more independent.”
- Providing opportunities for extra curricular activities is another way to help children develop self-esteem – and these can be available quite cheaply in the community, she suggests.
Kavanagh acknowledges how difficult it is for many families, but hopes that making them aware of what research shows about the impact of what they might, or might not, be doing at this time, could be helpful.
A significant upside to the recession is that many parents are able to spend more time with their children. During the “good” years when the Lucena Clinic was seeing parents who were finding a child difficult to manage, they were often both working and had little time to develop their relationship with that child.
Children want time with their parents. “It doesn’t matter,” O’Reilly adds, “whether they are playing with pots and pans or hi-tech toys.”
Tough Times: 'We haven't hit rock bottom yet and that scares me'
Michelle, a single mother of three children aged eight, four and one, is very stressed as she tries to prioritise the spending of her income from the one-parent family payment and reduced maintenance, since her former partner recently lost his job. She pays all utility bills first, then food and petrol.
She is using a credit card to cover expenses for her eldest daughter, who plays tennis on the Munster squad.
“I know there are those who would say I should stop the tennis, but this is such a big opportunity for her that I don’t want her to miss out.”
Michelle is facing the winter with dread, as she anticipates a cut in welfare payments and a rise in fuel bills. “By March, I will be thousands of euro in debt,” she says. “It is soul destroying.”
She thinks it is “crazy” that the vulnerable are being hit so badly in budgets. She is also very conscious of the “negative energy being focused on single parents”.
“It’s hard enough being in this situation, trying to do your best with limited support, without everyone else pointing a finger at you, assuming you are scamming the country.”
She does not apply for some entitlements because “there’s such a grilling involved”, and she hates having to relive the failure of her relationship.
Michelle believes things are only going to get worse. “We haven’t hit bottom yet and that scares me. I want to give my kids the best opportunities I can, but the Government seems to be making it harder.”
It's not the way we want to be parenting; it's not the way we want our marriage to be'
It is part of the wind-down to bedtime every evening at about 6.30pm: Eimear’s two young children chat to their father and show him drawings they have done in the creche that day.
But this is only possible through Skype because he works more than 5,000km away from their Cork home.
A quantity surveyor, he lost his job early in 2010 and, after an unsuccessful attempt at starting a business, he has taken a two-year contract in Ghana.
“It was a massive decision and not one we made lightly,” says Eimear. “There was a lot of talking, a lot of sleepless nights, wondering was it the right thing to do.”
Like countless families in this recession, they have struggled with the effect of job loss and have been forced to make difficult decisions. It was not the way either of them imagined their life would be when they got married five years ago.
“I always wanted to be the classic stay-at-home mum with the kids running around my legs,” she says.
Instead, she had to return to her full-time job in banking after her second maternity leave, while her unemployed husband was at home to mind the children – a role that just did not sit comfortably with him, she explains.
“His morale was low; he’d say, ‘I’m fine’, but I knew he wasn’t. It was very, very difficult for him.”
He envied her going out to work and she was resentful of him being able to stay at home with the children.
“It was a very tough time for us as a couple. It is terrible the effect this is having on couples at a financial and emotional level.”
They could have “survived” on her salary, she acknowledges, but they were thinking long term – such as college for their children, who are now aged two and three. They are in negative equity with their house and have a mortgage to pay for many more years to come.
Also her husband believed he was going to lose his qualification if he didn’t have a job, “and it would end up being worthless if things ever did turn around”.
So they decided to give this opportunity in Ghana a go; he is away for three months at a time, followed by a two-week break at home.
The fact that the children are so young was a factor in them deciding to do this now.
On the one hand, it is very difficult, she says, because at this stage you miss an awful lot when you are away from them. But on the other hand, they feel young children are so adaptable.
“Obviously, they were the main concern all along,” says Eimear.
“You are doing it for their future but you don’t want it to affect them now.”
But sometimes she wonders is the situation having a bigger impact on them than she gives credit for.
However, they are very happy in their creche and, because she is working slightly reduced hours, she can pick them up about 3.45pm each day.
As a couple, living apart is having a “huge impact” on them – in different ways. “He is missing the kids; he is missing out on a huge part of them growing up, which is very, very difficult. It is not the way we want to be parenting; it is not the way we want our marriage to be.”
She finds it very tough balancing everything. “If I am not at home with the kids, I am at work.
“You have the whole guilt thing. When I am home, I feel I shouldn’t not want to be with them. It is a vicious circle – I am tired, but if somebody said to me I will take them for half a day on Saturday, I’d say no because I want to see my children.”
When she has bad days, she knows it’s wrong, but she feels annoyed with her husband.
“The kids are so demanding and sometimes you have to just walk away from the situation and I can’t; I am kind of cross with him that he can’t help me in disciplining them.”
His first trip home had its challenges. “It was fabulous to have him home, but it was kind of strange and it took time for all of us to readjust to it.”
She adds: “It is terrible it has come to this, it has made me so sad. But you have to make difficult decisions and be an adult. I keep telling myself I am trying to do my best.”
Admission to the
Parenting in a Recession
talk at the Lucena Clinic on Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin on Monday, September 26th, 7pm-8.30pm, is free but you must register in advance by e-mail: marie.mccourt@sjog.ie or by tel: 01-4923596.
