Of
Felicitas Wilke
Kathleen Michl got rid of her car a few months ago. “Now I share one with my mother, and I’m 34.” She laughs softly into the phone, it’s not a happy laugh. Michl is an engineer, she works full-time and earns comparatively well. But she is also a single mother of two daughters – and that in times of worrying inflation. Her rent has gone up, as has the price of groceries, plus 500 euros for the after-school care places for the children. “I don’t fit the cliché of the pathetic single parent,” says Michl, “but there’s still so little left that I’m afraid of the next utility bill.” She now saves where she can, even with the car that she actually needs to get to work or to pick up the children from after-school care.