What Happens In A Recession?

A poem I wrote many years ago but only recently added the last verse.

I’M UNEMPLOYED MUM

This morning I wept for my children

A thing that I’ve not done before,

The total futility, humility

Hit me as I worked on my chore.

My position in life is quite humble,

A working class housewife am I,

But what role is there left for my children?

For a role they must have or they die.

What effects will this unemployment

Now have on the likes of us folk?

Adult “children” remain our dependants

In unemployed families, now broke.

My unemployed son went to college

To improve his chances you see,

Though he gained a whole wealth of knowledge

They still turned down his CV.

My middle son, twice made redundant,

Decided to be self employed,

Then set himself up as cab driver

So he’d have no unemployed void.

My youngest son’s plans were much grander,

A university degree,

To keep him away from the dole queue,

So successful in life he could be.

Now, more than twenty years later

All working, and families have they,

Yet recession and unemployment

Revisited again… today.

Carole Parkes ©2014