Help is always available - yeah right
“Help is always available.”
“Just reach out.”
Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?
Like a tui ad.
Gentle. Reassuring.
But those phrases often mark the moment help becomes a performance… and collapse becomes a private burden.
💔 The Reality of Reaching Out
My life had fallen apart.
I was barely holding myself together just to get through the Ministry of Social Development’s scrutiny.
Not a moment of grace.
Not a flicker of trust.
Just paperwork, suspicion, and the kind of silence that makes you question your worth.
I wasn’t avoiding crime.
Crime was the alternative.
And I chose help.
Which meant walking into a system that treated me like a criminal anyway.
Single mum, left holding the baby—judged, audited, and in the words of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, labelled a “bottom feeder.”
💸 Scrutiny for Some, Silence for Others
They didn’t see a woman trying to survive.
They saw a case file.
And they applied more scrutiny to my broken life than they ever do to the million-dollar contracts they hand out—taxpayer money, no questions asked.
Funny, isn’t it?
The shame is reserved for the single mum.
Not the consultant.
Not the contractor.
Not the minister renting out properties while the rest of us stretch $165 a week—the maximum accommodation allowance in Auckland.
Less if you live anywhere else.
I’d be very interested to know which of those ministers could survive on that.
Or better yet, which ones are quietly pocketing it.
🧠 The System Was Designed This Way
It’s not just single mothers.
It’s jobseekers.
People made redundant by the very political system that engineered a David-and-Goliath work contract scenario.
Want a job?
You play by business rules.
No negotiation.
No protection.
Unless you happen to be a lawyer—or know one.
The rest of us?
We sign away our rights just to stay employed.
We’re told to be grateful.
To smile through restructures.
To accept “consultation” that’s already been decided.
And when the axe falls, we’re expected to bounce back with a LinkedIn post and a Canva resume.
🧵 Still Here. Still Building.
I worked in IT.
Single mother.
Tech sector.
Do you know how rare that is?
Women in tech are already rare.
Single mums in tech? Practically invisible.
We open doors while others shut them in our face.
I made a plan.
Finished my degree.
Broke the glass ceiling.
And for a while, it worked.
But now I’m over 50.
Thirty years in IT.
And suddenly, I’m “too experienced.”
“Too hard to place.”
“Too slow for new tech.”
Funny how quickly you go from trailblazer to relic.
🕶️ The Ministry of Visibility
Still, I haven’t stopped.
I’m experimenting.
Spotting mistakes no one wants to fix.
Unpaid, yes—but sharper than ever.
That’s why I started the Ministry of Visibility.
Because if I’m invisible, I might as well use the cloak.
And trust me—this cloak comes with x-ray vision.
We’re pushing open doors that have been slammed in our faces for far too long.
Not asking for permission.
Not waiting to be invited.
Just walking through.
🧓 Generational Amnesia
And don’t get me started on the Karen thing.
If that’s the mic drop, maybe the millennial generation needs to ask why they’re still relying on memes to dismiss women.
They’ve inherited platforms, language, access—so why aren’t they empowered to make decisions?
They speak out because our generation made space for them.
But don’t confuse that with silence.
We were silenced by the ones before us.
And now we’re dismissed by the ones after.
And here’s a little reminder for the sweeties:
Those devices they clutch like lifelines?
The ones they use to film injustice, post hot takes, and swipe left on nuance?
They didn’t exist when I was a child.
They were designed by the very generation they love to mock.
We built the digital bridges they now dance across.
So maybe a little respect wouldn’t go amiss.
Because honestly—how would they survive without them?
No phones. No apps. No curated outrage.
Just a landline, a library card, and a whole lot of grit.
👩👧 Same Spiral, New Generation
Now I’m watching my daughter go through the same thing.
Same judgment.
Same suspicion.
Same tears.
Different decade, same damn tissue.
And I have to ask—
Is it Ministry of Social Development’s job to judge?
Or is beneficiary fraud someone else’s department?
Because if you’re treating every single mum like a criminal, maybe the system needs a bit of debugging.
🌀 Final Dispatch
This is your dispatch from Nanny’s Corner.
Where help isn’t romanticized.
Where survival isn’t a personality trait.
Where shame is named, not swallowed.
And where I’m still the star of my own story—
Not written by the generation before.
And certainly not about to be written by the one after.
You’re the star of your own story
