Tipos de equipos

Food clearly plays an important role within family life. For the interviewees with dependent children, their children were their priority when food shopping and deciding what to spend on food. As Sonia, a lone parent and refugee, described in relation to food shopping: “My kids first, I don’t care for myself. For me it’s first my kids, I don’t care for myself”. Moira, working part-time and living with her partner and four children, spoke about having to manage a food budget and meal planning which could accommodate for

“fussy eaters” and sometimes having to prepare different meals for each child. Wanting to please their children and buy food they would eat, while also ensuring that they had a healthy diet, as well as one which was affordable, was often described by mothers interviewed. Martha, a lone parent of four children, spoke about the pressures from her children when it came to food shopping and trying to manage her food budget:

“that’s why I don’t like going out with them. If I dare have all of them follow myself then, oh my god, this one will say “this is what I want”. This one will point at this, this one will point at that, at the end of day I’ll end up buying everything they want. And I’ll say – “oh, you can’t be like that, I don’t have money to waste like this” (Martha, GoWell participant)

Parents expressed desire to be able to feed their families well, suggesting concern that this was a marker of good parenting. However, restricted food budgets also meant for some that they were not always able to feed their families the sorts of foods they felt were important for good health:

“well this week has sort of been a struggle, but then I said right well we’ll empty the freezer…Cos I’ve got no like fruit for them this week…normally I’ve got like apples, bananas, so I know they are getting something fresh” (Moira, GoWell participant) While the price of food was important, this was also balanced with a concern for making sure their families ate well.

Food poverty clearly had a considerable impact on the role of food in family life. For Moira, a restricted food budget also meant not being able to enjoy regular family meals like a weekly roast: “You see we used to always have a roast, you know how on a Sunday.

But that’s just every now and again now. So we do, we have cut back”. Several

interviewees also described not being able to enjoy sharing meals with family or friends for special occasions such as birthday parties, meals out or barbeques because they were not able to afford to participate.

The issue of food within the family evidently carried particular expectations regarding gender roles and responsibilities for food provision and preparation. It was apparent that the experience of food poverty had an impact on people’s ability to fulfil these roles and therefore on their sense of identity within the family. Describing the experience of having to manage on a far more restricted food budget than he and his wife had been previously used to, Jim commented:

“I think it’s harder for her [his wife, Karen], she used to say ‘look I’ll do you a steak for when you get home fae work’” (Jim, GoWell participant)

The significance of gender roles, and the importance of autonomy in food provision in order to fulfil those roles, was also identified by service providers. Stuart, a housing officer, described an asylum seeker who had refused help despite having no money to buy food for his family. Here Stuart suggested that this was a cultural as well as a gender issue regarding identity in relation to food provision:

“that guy, he’s came fae a country where the man’s the man. You know and it’s the man that wins the bread. And if that isn’t being met that can be quite embarrassing” (Stuart, housing support worker)

Mothers in particular described the need to always have full cupboards, to be able to bulk buy and have food in reserve, in order to feel secure. Jennifer said that she always worried about running out of food before there was money to buy more. As mentioned at 7.2.2,

Martha explained her strategy for making sure she always had something she was able to feed her children:

“I always buy things in bulk, I always have something to cook…all the time I make sure there is egg, just two or three to put in the fridge. If anytime there is not anything to eat in this house I boil the rice, I boil the egg, I do my rice and they eat, you’ll see the way they eat they will be so happy –only sometimes they will be too fussy, “eh I don’t like that”, but if there’s no food I say “there’s nothing, if you don’t want it then I don’t know what’s next”, and they will eat it”. (Martha, GoWell participant)

The wider as well as the immediate family also had a central role to play when it came to food, and certainly the family was where the majority of residents suggested they would turn to for help if they were struggling to afford food. A number of instances were described of informal support with food being provided by family members in circumstances where for financial, health or other reasons people struggled to feed themselves. Both Arthur and Richard, interviewees who had addictions, described how their siblings took responsibility for ensuring that they ate. A similar situation was described by Colin, a retired man living with his grown up son and grandson, who spoke about how he would provide food and prepare meals for his daughter who also struggled with alcohol problems. Pointing out the portions of prepared food from his brother which he had in his fridge and his freezer, Arthur described the essential role which his brother played in meeting his food needs:

“well I think I’d be into food banks and all that, just things I cannae be bothered wi’, if it wasn't for him ” (Arthur, GoWell participant)

When it came to food, it was the family which clearly performed a safety net function and was felt to have a responsibility to prevent family members going hungry. It was the provision of food specifically, rather than the money to buy food, which family members seemed most motivated to do in situations of extreme need. Jennifer described a time when she had particularly struggled:

“they all ended up chipping in and putting food in the cupboards, and in the fridge and the freezer. Stuff like that. But I’d rather do it myself” (Jennifer, GoWell participant) Here Jennifer also expressed a sentiment which was recognised by others, - that while family was understood to be the first port of call for help, even receiving help from close family could to some extent be felt as a failure or loss of agency. Turning to others for help

with food specifically appeared to imply a state of child-like dependency on others, while being able to make one’s own food choices and being able to provide for one’s own family was an important marker of independence and self-expression. Food was clearly felt to be the responsibility of the individual as an autonomous adult.

Certainly in their exploration of the relationship between shame and poverty Chase and Walker (2013) describe how pride, as a feeling of self-esteem and self-worth, is

jeopardised when having to seek out help in times of extreme need. The family is evidently an important source of support for those experiencing food poverty, but simultaneously perhaps also a source of shame in the process of having to admit to those closest to us that we have failed in the most basic task of providing sufficient food for ourselves and our dependents.