Frank Borg has something to say about working class stereotypes

I am against the PL proposal for a living wage. The idea of a living wage introduces the dangerous precedent of different people being paid differently for the same work. However I am in favour of increasing the minimum wage as the Caritas study amply demonstrated that at present it is nothing short of exploitation.

The usual right-wing bloggers were up in arms against any increase in minimum wage and I can understand their economic arguments. What I cannot understand are the spiteful, stereotypical comments about working class people. I was shocked by one blogger who wrote that increasing the minimum wage would simply mean that workers would spend the money on gambling and cigarettes.

I come from a working class family and what was written hurt because it cannot be further from the truth that I lived and experienced first hand. I grew up together with my siblings and parents in a small house in the middle of a village. I attended a kindergarden run by nuns when I was 4 and then went to the village government primary school. By the time that I was about to finish primary school, government secondary schools had been ruined, so my parents decided that I should attend a church school. At the time they were not free and very exclusive. I had always been made to understand that my family’s budget was limited so I studied hard and managed to obtain a scholarship for one of the best church schools. However, uniforms, school books and a dozen other things all cost money and it was at that time that my father gave up his only habit… smoking.

My mother started taking in sewing jobs and my father took part time work as a gardener. One English lady whose garden my father looked after asked him whether my mother could look after her house when she was abroad. This meant that my mother started cleaning this woman’s house. I was sometimes taken along and was once severely reprimanded by my mother for opening a drawer in this woman’s house. It was just a boy’s curiosity but my mother instilled in me the value of not poking my nose into people’s private business.

On another occasion while I was with my father who was gardening at another English lady’s garden I picked a few flowers to take home to put in front of the Madonna. Once again I was given a lesson by my father in not taking what was not mine. He did not want to listen to my explanation that the flowers would die unappreciated because the English lady was abroad. “What is not yours cannot be taken. That is stealing,” was his final word.

I am proud to say that I have never eaten a burger in my life. It was always understood that what could be cooked at home would not be bought ready made. Ice cream was a once a week treat in summer to complement our diet of soppa tal-armla, meat, vegetables and fish. My mother in her working class wisdom had struck up an agreement with a childless couple who lived in our street. The husband was a fisherman so they would share with us his catch and in return my mother did their laundry together with ours. We also got to be taken out by this man and I cherished the children’s parties thrown at the Nationalist party club of which he was a member.

Soft drinks could only be had at the dinner table and they were rationed to one glass per person per day. School lunches were lovingly prepared and my mother needed no nutritionist to tell her what was good for us. She always gave us good advice about life in general such as choosing one’s friends carefully and that no job was shameful. When I entered university, and I must add that it was not for some easy degree course but for a tough science one, I was again reminded by my parents that work of any kind never is shameful. That is why in the evenings I did part time jobs and, among other things, one job included washing shop windows in Cospicua. My father kept repeating to me that there was nothing to be ashamed of in doing any work as long as it was honest work.

My parents’ priorities were always in our best interest. We might not have had the nicest clothes and the trendiest toys. I did not even get a bicycle but had to do with my father’s when I was old enough to reach the pedals. However when I needed an operation my parents found the money to send me to a private hospital because my mother said that St Luke’s was not good enough for her children.

That is why I say ‘How dare you!’ to those who write about working class people when they clearly have no idea what a working class upbringing is.