In our house we are no stranger to the effect of recession. Hubby works in manufacturing industry and has been made redundant no less than 4 times, twice as a direct result of recession (1979 and 1991). It is no joke when you have a small baby and are still on maternity leave to wonder just how you will last longer than a month. How you will pay the mortgage and the bills and how you will buy food. Luckily for us, every time it has happened something has turned up and unemployment has not been for long. Luckily for us too, my job even taking account of recent uncertainties is pretty safe. Indeed it is at times like this that applications for nursing, teaching and other public sector careers increases.

I am getting pretty fed up however with the attitude of the media, particularly that on the TV and as I watch it most, the BBC. Tonight in my opinion, amongst what was an ‘I told you so’ mentality of what appeared like glee with a straight face they showed us a 5 months old baby whose whole life has been spent in recession!! I ask you? What is that about?

I am pretty serious about this topic myself. It is truly awful – redundancy, short time, extended leave with or without pay, people unable to get credit, unable to get mortgages. But really for most people is it really all that bad? If you can maintain a roof, if you can buy food to live, if you can heat your house, if you can still drive your car? Then actually isn’t this just the opportunity many of us need. We need to learn that what we earn is what we spend. We need to understand that if our car is older than 3 years old it will not fall apart and blow up. We need to understand that we don’t need to eat out every week. We need to learn that we don’t need a gym to get exercise. We need to know that we can’t have everything we want.

Maybe the recession will be painful (and even if it isn’t the BBC will tell us it is), maybe it will be long (lets hope not) but maybe some of us might just learn more about what is important in life and on the way learn something of the value of money and the danger of credit.

Thanks to Chris for this link