The summer of biscuits and being woke

When I was growing up, there wasn’t a heap of money.

Don’t get me wrong: there was enough to eat, and equipment for school. Clothes were hand-me-downs, but that wasn’t uncommon – and because it was the 80s, and people wore brown and yellow towelling shorts and skivvies, having a lot of money didn’t help that much. Everyone looked like a dick.

The problem, if you want to call it that, was being a large-ish working class family in a community that was reasonably well off. The problem was feeling different.

At a community gathering one time, following a pot luck meal, the ladies who’d organised the do pushed leftover salads on my family. As other families milled around and chatted, the ladies dumped all the different leftovers into a single tub, pressed it on us.

I watched, saying nothing. I don’t remember the details, what the event was about, not even how old I was. But I remember my vivid thought that the tub was like a trough of scraps, something you would give to animals. And I remember how I felt.

I know the ladies meant well. I know they just weren’t thinking. But sometimes good intentions don’t cut it.

Whether it started that day or some other, I’ve had a long-held mistrust of what I thought of as charity. I questioned the motives of people who did it. I questioned the usefulness for people who received it. I figured my job was to think big thoughts about big things – poverty and inequality – and to give donations, be on a board.

You know, do things for people in a way that doesn’t involve … actually talking to those people.

If the passage of time has taught me one thing, it’s that you’re never too old to admit how completely frickin wrong you are.

I’m a grown-up now, and things have looked up for me. Whenever I want a tub of substandard food, I can just go to KFC. In fact, I can drive there in my 2007 Prius, which we bought a few months ago, and I just can’t stop talking about, although it’s long since ceased to be interesting and is actually starting to make people uncomfortable.

And yesterday I made hummus. HUMMUS! It was probably the most bourgeois thing I’ve ever done. (In fairness, there are really only three ingredients, unless you count incipient middle classness.)

The welfare state worked for me – educated me, kept me healthy, helped me into a job – exactly as it was supposed to. No complaints here.

It was my buddy R who woke me to that truth about myself that wasn’t altogether comfortable.

She did it accidentally, of course; she is very kind. She’s the type of person who will tell you how wildly over-committed she is and sign up for some new good cause, all in the same breath. She can’t help it. Kids going hungry, just a short walk down the road in our small town, keeps her awake at night.

Just before Christmas, I learned what R had been up to on the sly – taking part in a discreet local Facebook group that distributes kai and support between families, from those who have something left over, to those who put their hand up because they’re having a tough time. Simple. And it’s not charity. In R’s words, it’s direct community action.

I looked in my fridge and cupboards. There is so much in there – too much. It won’t all get eaten, even though it’s perfectly good. I realised I just need to chuck it in a empty shopping bag, maybe do some baking, jump in the car, drop it off around the corner.

Maybe I’d been worrying too much about the theory of being kind, and not enough about the practice.

I can’t lie: the first couple of times I did it, I felt like a pretender, a meddler in other people’s business, and basically a bit of a dork.

Here’s the one-woman team-talk I give myself, intended to squash all the hang-ups in my head:

- Stop tying yourself in knots because you’re afraid of being patronising. If you care enough to worry about it, you’re probably doing OK. And what’s the worst that can happen? If you get it wrong, you might get told to bugger off, and if that happens, you’ll suck it up and learn from it. No one will die.

- Stop worrying about not giving people an austere 5+ a day diet. Big thoughts about big things are important, but they can wait for another day. Give people something their kids will eat. And if your kids won’t eat it, theirs probably won’t either, so don’t pass off the crappier items in your pantry. (I’m looking at YOU, tinned tomatoes.) Nobody wants to feel different or lesser than their neighbours. But everybody wants chocolate biscuit fudge cake. So get busy.

- Stop thinking that if you support people who have less than you, it must be because you think you’re better than them. You just flagrantly broke the ‘no shoes no entry’ rule at Save Mart. And then you repeatedly had to saunter away awkwardly whenever the staff came near you, and hide your feet behind the racks of misshapen polyester. Truly, don’t worry about this one.

- Most of all, take your hat off to people who put their kids first and ask for help when they need it. Think about the times you should have done the same, but you weren’t brave enough to admit it, to face the judgements of others. Offer something, and learn something in return.

If you find me on your doorstep, with home-made biscuits gladwrapped onto a paper plate, be patient. I’m trying to pretend I’m not scared of your dog, which fools no one, least of all your dog. I’m trying not to put my foot in it with some ill-judged comment. I’m trying.

Here’s what I learned this summer. Small acts of kindness that show we care for our neighbours aren’t charity. They are manaaki, friendship, welcoming. They’re the empathy-builders that help us when we think big thoughts about big things.

I’m not the best baker you’ll meet, but in the last few weeks I’ve come to learn that just about anything can be improved by a think layer of icing, and a side-serving of kindness.

It’s not perfect – nothing is – but it’ll do.