I spent with my children, now I'm being punished in my 60's

[bear]

I will never regret the time I spent with my children, but society is punishing me for it in my 60s

Many of us who did what was once considered valuable to society are now just eking out an existence

Precarity; what does it mean? Why are so many women, particularly older women, living in it in a country as wealthy as Australia?

Precarity means living in a state of insecurity, worry or stress; it means there is no back-up plan. It means when you need a medical procedure you always have to remind your GP you need it bulk-billed and seeing a specialist is always now through the public system.

So far it’s worked out, but I have no choice at all. It means thinking with extra care about everything you do. Precarity can happen so easily to anyone but it happens a lot to women who have spent their lives caring for others.

It happened to me.

Here’s the rub: most people have no concept of how easily this could happen and they seemingly don’t care too much when it does. Friends have said to me, “You have your super though, don’t you?’’ Their demeanour changes and it puts me at odds with them.

My background is nursing. I was a hospital-trained registered nurse (RN) and spent many years working in paediatrics, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and general practice. As a young woman, I did the usual overseas trip and worked in London for a time. I travelled the world or some of it on my own.

Now I am 61. I am luckier than some, as I own my home, after a legal financial settlement with my former husband. In the settlement I got a chunk of his superannuation fund.

I didn’t actually have a huge amount of super; my husband had a good amount, though. Anyway, I used some of the superannuation from the settlement to pay out the mortgage on my home and thereby transferring the deed into my name. What was left is enough for me to live a modest life for two years – that’s it. I have a little stashed away for house repairs.

This month I submitted my claim for the disability support pension, as over the last few years my health has declined significantly. However, only around 30% of DSP applications are approved the first time round.

So there’s a real chance I won’t qualify, despite my specialist thinking I should. I will then have to try and eke out the superannuation with jobseeker, and then maybe just jobseeker, until I get to 67 and I qualify for the pension. As things get more expensive I will make do.

I’m kind of lucky I gave up red meat a couple of years ago and I can always drop off the car insurance – that’s been done before.

I think most people who have children do realise that it costs money, but what some aren’t really aware of is that when you have a family, you make choices. Sure, I made a choice to have two years of maternity leave – one after each baby – and only went back to work at weekends after the second baby. Eventually I worked as a casual for a while; it was too hard to get shifts to suit my husband’s business.

We never put our second child into childcare and juggled our business and my nursing shifts. Maybe that was our downfall; both parents essentially working part-time.

I became a nurse at 18 and stopped working due a failed knee implant in 2010, so I spent all my life looking after others.

Then in 2015, my husband went to New Zealand to work and never came back. My marriage was over and our two teenagers lived with me.

I look back on that time and wonder how I did it. By then we were living in a country town. I drove them 140km each way to the orthodontist – braces for two boys was $14,000, for those who are still wondering why I don’t have stacks of money.

Then there were the 200km round-trip journeys every second Saturday for clarinet lessons so the eldest boy could play in the state woodwind band. It was nice to have a day trip but it was also exhausting.

There will be a lot of people out there who will be a bit “judgy” and talk about budgeting and saving for the future. I will never regret having maternity leave and enjoying all that time I spent with my kids when they were little, but our society is intent on punishing women like me. Women who cared and enjoyed going to playgroup, helping out in preschool and the wet area in kindergarten. We are a lost demographic no one wants to acknowledge.

Many of us are unemployed or homeless, eking out an existence on jobkeeper payments, putting up with the punitive mutual obligations after a life of what was once considered a valuable contribution to society.

Louise Ihlein is a mother of two wonderful young men, a former nurse, university student and bromeliad lover.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/26/i-will-never-regret-the-time-i-spent-with-my-children-but-society-is-punishing-me-for-it-in-my-60s