It is a blessing Ayla Dearnaley is too young to comprehend the unbearable stress her mum endures every day.
Faye, a 38-year-old student who hopes to become a music teacher, keeps a brave face for the sake of her two-year-old daughter.
But under the surface she is paddling to keep her head above water financially in the face of a horrifying cost of living crisis.
As things stand, her income of just over £1000 a month leaves her and little Ayla just £17 a month away from abject destitution.
Imagine the helpless fear she feels then at facing extra costs of up to £200 a month by the end of the year.
Energy prices are expected to double for many households in the summer, while an already eye watering inflation rate of 5.4 per cent masks the fact supermarkets have put up the price of basics by up to 344 per cent.
Faye has sleepless nights worrying if she will be able to put food on the table for Ayla while heating their home in Leven, Fife. That squeeze that will be felt by all but the most affluent households in coming months.
But while better off families will perhaps have to forego holidays, for the poorest it is going to be a devastating hammer blow.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says 20,000 kids could be plunged beneath the poverty line if governments do not act to avert this slow motion car crash.
They want Westminster to provide an emergency £500 payment to low income families and for Holyrood to extend its Scottish Child Payment benefit and to take action on energy prices.
In the face of this emerging national crisis you would expect the Scottish Government to do everything in its power financially to avoid thousands of families being plunged into a poverty trap from which they may never emerge.
Nicola Sturgeon will argue with some justification that her hands are tied by Westminster’s block grant.
But the Sunday Mail today reveals how £50million of taxpayers’ cash has been ploughed into a forestry fund run by asset managers Gresham House, which helps the super-rich reduce their tax bill while profiting from land and timber.
The Scottish National Investment Bank says it wants to “encourage others” into the scheme, despite question marks over its environmental credentials.
While Faye and Ayla stare into a financial abyss, Gresham House’s “high net worth” clients have seen their wealth skyrocket over the pandemic. It seems magic money trees do exist after all.
Why the Scottish Government is spending our money helping millionaires harvest them as a poverty epidemic grips the country is mind-boggling.
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