So, my German friend Paul is such a mansplainer that he once, in all seriousness, tried to explain to me what the worst part of being a single mum was.
“I think the hardest thing about being a single mother,” he said to me, gravely, “must be all the worry about old age poverty you do.”
I am too busy trying to pay my rent right now to worry about not being able to pay it in the future
“What!” I shrieked, in the most unladylike manner imaginable. Like seriously guys, I’m such a feminist that the only tattoo I have ever thought seriously about getting was a mermaid on my forehead followed by the words #IStandWithAmberHeard on my chin, and even I thought I sounded a bit shrill.
“You must worry about your pension all the time,” Paul said sympathetically. “I’d worry about it all the time. There are your exes, working full-time, earning so much money for their pension pots, while you do all this part-time work because you are so busy doing this unpaid labour and then, when you’re old, they’ll be rich and you’ll be poor. It’s really unfair.”
“I literally never think about this problem, ever,” I hissed at Paul icily. “I am too busy trying to pay my rent right now to worry about not being able to pay it in the future.”
The only solution to any of this is: Männer enteignen. Expropriate men.
So here I am, right now, in the present. Stuck in quarantine with my five year old, worrying about paying the rent and if we have enough H-Milch and corona tests in for the next however many days. NOT thinking about old-age poverty. Too busy surviving.
You see, the thing is: are single mums really that much more likely to end up in old age poverty than married mums? I don’t care what the statistics might say, the fact of the matter is that married mums also work part-time more than men do – and in fact, single mothers are more likely to be in paid employment than married/partnered up mothers are.
And you know what could easily happen? There you are, happily married, working part-time, caring for your kids more than your male partner, who is concentrating on his career and his pension pot when BOOM! The fucker hits fifty and runs off with his secretary. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m not afraid of repeating myself. The only solution to any of this is: Männer enteignen. Expropriate men. Fuck Deutsches Wohnen Gmbh. Let’s expropriate the whole lot of them!
