The Wages Of Hope Are Disappointment

The time when the word 'maladjusted'
most aptly described me in school
was when the class was taught maths.

I knew how to do sums.
I'd learnt my times tables by rote,
out loud in infants school. Aged 7.
I could add, subtract and multiply, fine
-as long as the numbers were abstract.
But the older I got the more often maths
was applied to something called 'real life'
-which was the very thing that divided me.....

I was tasked to do a sum based on wages
and deductions and my mind froze.
My bones knew about work, wages and taxes-
they all caused worry and created a stress
where we were glad when domestic violence
was merely occasional. Where it happened
it was a respite for some, whilst for others
it reinforced a cowering dependence with no exit.
Because of this my parents house was silent
on all matters pertainign to sex, poltics, religion,
or money. Nobody ever talked about wages. 

The pressure to live cheaply brought more pressure,
to live more even more cheaply. Under pressure
we censored all discussion about why we lived that way.
My father kept this rule by keeping the figures
on his pay slip to himself. Mother colluded in this
by accepting what he chose to give. His earnings
were one of our many of very well kept secrets.

I know now that I should have said to the teacher
'I can't do your sum because my family does not discuss money,
you will have to write to my Dad and ask him what the answer
to this sum is since it is about wages. Only he in the family knows about them.
The questions I am permitted to answer have to have no relation to real life.'.

Or I could have asked the teacher the following....
'Where in this sum is the man's drinking money?'
and 'If drink costs X per pint then how much cash
will he have to spend with his mates in the pub,
for them to remain suffuciently sober enough to get home
without falling over, but still drunk enough to threaten
and beat up their wives when they arrive?
How much alcohol will they all need to keep in their system
to collectively forget/deny their actions the following day?'.

But this was maths, not real life.
Questions about substances could only be asked about in Science.
And all talk of money was to meant to teach us grattitude at being kept.