Lee Unitt

@lee_unitt

Joined January 2013

37 Following

33 Followers

328 Posts

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Josiah

@josiahjdp

21 days ago

Every Tuesday morning, I did the same thing I’d done since the girls were in elementary school. Coffee. Laptop. Accounts. I wasn’t paranoid; I was practical. My mother used to say the world doesn’t steal from you all at once. It takes a little at a time, and it counts on you being too busy to notice. That morning, the sun was slanting through the kitchen window, turning the steam above my mug into a ribbon. I logged into our accounts and clicked on the one labeled COLLEGE FUND—LIBBY & NATALIE. I expected to see the number I’d grown used to. The number that represented overtime shifts, missed vacations, bargain groceries, and the kind of quiet discipline that never makes for good social media posts. $180,000. The page loaded. The balance blinked onto the screen. $0.00. At first, my brain rejected it like a typo. I refreshed. Then again. Then again, harder, like force could bully reality into changing. Nothing. My fingers went cold. My coffee cup rattled against the saucer. Seventeen years of planning sat there as a blank space, like someone had erased the future with the swipe of a hand. I called Brandon, my husband. Straight to voicemail. I called again. Voicemail. A third time. Voicemail. “Brandon,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady even as my throat tightened, “call me back right now. Something’s wrong with the college fund. The money is… it’s all gone.” I hung up and stared at the screen as if the numbers might return out of shame. Footsteps thumped on the stairs. The girls. Libby came in first, hair pulled into a tight ponytail, backpack already slung over one shoulder. She had that focused, serious look that made teachers praise her and made me wonder if I’d ever been that certain about anything at seventeen. She’d been talking about Stanford since freshman year, the way some kids talk about Disney World. It wasn’t just a dream. It was a destination. Natty followed, eyes on her phone, thumbs moving quickly. She was the tech kid—always building something, always taking something apart to see how it worked. If Libby was a straight line, Natty was a circuit. They both froze when they saw my face. “Mom,” Natty said, phone lowering, “what’s wrong?” I opened my mouth, and for a moment no sound came out. How do you tell your children the bridge you built for them is gone? “The college fund,” I whispered. “It’s… it’s gone.” I expected panic. Tears. Rage. Questions that would slice me open. Instead, Libby and Natty looked at each other. And then—so help me—they smirked. Not cruelly. Not gleefully. Just… like they already knew something. “Mom,” Libby said, voice calm, “don’t worry.” “We handled it,” Natty added, as if I’d told her the dishwasher was leaking. My stomach twisted. “What do you mean you handled it? The money is gone. Your dad isn’t answering. This isn’t—” Natty patted my shoulder like she was the adult and I was the shaken teenager. “Trust us. Everything’s going to be okay.” “Girls,” I said, voice breaking, “I don’t understand.” Libby’s eyes softened, but there was a hard edge underneath, something protective. “There are things you don’t know yet,” she said. “About Dad.” My heart lurched. “What things?” Before they answered, the clock on the microwave flashed the time and reminded them they were about to be late. They grabbed their backpacks, headed toward the door, and Libby turned back with the strangest look—half promise, half warning. “Just… don’t do anything yet,” she said. “We’ll explain after school.” “And Mom?” Natty added, hand on the doorknob, “whatever Dad says today, don’t believe it. Not all of it.” Then they were gone, leaving me alone at the kitchen table with a zero-dollar balance and a house that suddenly felt unfamiliar. I tried Brandon again. Voicemail.

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Striver Striver

@AStriver

23 days ago

I get their frustration, it looks unfair. But let’s step back. The English stopped having enough children to replace themselves decades ago. That’s not an opinion; it’s demography. Fewer working-age people means fewer tax receipts, while pensions and healthcare costs for an aging population keep climbing. The government isn’t funding “those people” out of kindness, it’s plugging a hole that English left open by not procreating enough. And before pointing fingers at migrants, let’s remember, Britain cheered on privatisation and globalisation like they were pints of amber nectar; dismantled our industrial base, pivoted to services, and called it progress. Then unemployment bit, wages stagnated, and communities were hollowed out. That wasn’t done by immigrants, that was done by successive governments, advised by public-school baboons who’ve never clocked in for a shift on a factory floor. So yes, we now need immigration to keep the pension pot from collapsing, to staff care homes, to run NHS wards, to pick crops, to drive delivery vans. That’s not ideology, it’s arithmetic. For at least another generation or two, unless the “English” suddenly start having 2.1 kids per woman again, they don’t have a choice. Don’t blame the people coming here. Blame the system you voted for, the elites who sold it, and the mirror. Because the real issue isn’t them, it’s you, the “English” whatever being “English” means nowadays.

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Lee Unitt

@lee_unitt

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