We’re walking one day. “What did she say Mummy?” Caleb, my four-year-old, said. “Nothing darling,” I said dismissively. But my little man wouldn’t let go of this bone. “Mummmmy,” he pleaded, “What did she saayyy?” All the parenting books that I have ever started to read, but have never quite finished, have said how important it is to answer your kids’ questions in a straight-forward and non-condescending manner. But I found it hard that Sunday morning, to explain to my child why I had just refused to give some money to the poor lady. It didn’t escape me, either, that we had just come out of church.

As if in mutiny, my other son, who is five-and a-half, also piped up. “Mummmmy,” he began. And I knew from the tone of that one single word that I wasn’t going to escape this one.

So I began recounting to them my own personal insights on the topic of begging. I explained to my four- and five-and-a-half-year-old boys how people should work. And how if we give money to people who beg, then it will only encourage them to keep on begging and not look for work, especially if they are able to work and are young and healthy.

“So if they work somewhere or do something which is work, then they can be given some money for what they do. Ok?” I didn’t go in to the lengthy details of how some beggars don’t even keep the money that they receive, as some of them are sent to beg by bullies or how some beggars use the money for alcohol and drugs. I just gave my boys a nice and simple explanation.

And I thought that was good enough, until the next time the subject arose. We were driving past a couple of teenagers rummaging through the street bins. And Cedar, the five-and-a-half-year-old said, “Mummy why don’t we make lots of jobs so that they can work and then we can pay them money. Then they won’t be poor anymore.” Well I almost welled up. His straightforward solution to what he was seeing was very compassionate and a bit unrealistic. I tried to explain that there were some good people that helped poor people find jobs so that they could work, but I didn’t broach the idea of us personally as a family setting up job-training schemes and employing the poor in order to alleviate their suffering.

It was clear that this issue about the poor wasn’t going to go away. And a couple of weeks later, driving in the muck and slush of the winter’s snow, my five-and-a-half-year-old made another wild statement.

And as a sideline, I have noticed that some of the most important conversations that I have had with my children have taken place as we’ve been driving. (I’m not quite sure what that reveals but... there you go!)

We were at the traffic lights of Tsar Boris III and the Ring Road. And the young kids that congregated there with their soapy water bottles and wipers were approaching the car, eager to “smear” my window – as I saw it. I automatically wagged my finger “No”. And as I looked back at the rear view mirror in preparation to drive off, I could see it in my boy’s face. A question was forming, and his little brain was tick-tick-ticking away… What would come out of those pursed little lips of his, I wondered.

“Mummmy,” he began, “Why did you say ‘no’?” “Well, I didn’t want him to mess up my window,” I explained nonchalantly, as instructed by my many half-read parenting books. “But Mummy,” came the adamant reply, “he was working!!” I could see the injustice of what he had just witnessed written all over his face. And with furrowed brows he declared, “Mummy, you said”(and I hate those three words) “you said that if he is working then we can give him money. And he was working, cleaning our windows!!”

It was too late for me to allow the window cleaner another chance to clean my car window again, but I did feel convicted at my son’s words. Convicted because his words placed a mirror in front of me and showed me how I had to walk the talk; I couldn’t just say good sounding soundbites and walk on by. There were people’s lives at stake that my life could affect for the better. And so, humbled in front of my son, I agreed to pay generously any kid who offered to “work” for us by cleaning our car windows. He contentedly agreed to this suggestion, quite appeased that his silly Mummy was going to do the just thing next time.

I have to say that from that day onwards, I have made sure that there are always coins in the car for the specific purpose of “paying” the poor boy or girl who “work” and “clean” my car windows. And I do this even when my son is not in the car!

Poverty is not just exclusively a Bulgarian problem – of course not. While I was living in London, it was a regular thing for me to travel by tube. And being squashed in London’s bustling metro is an experience that begs to be quickly forgotten. Rattling on those trains in rush hour from Leyton Station to Tottenham Court Road, often under somebody’s armpit, was not something I particularly enjoyed. But for a while there it was part of my sorry life.

One of the few pleasures of travelling by tube were the rare moments of spilling out of a train and being met by a waft of music, a smooth saxophone melody here or the strummings of a guitar there. I always found it beautiful, soothing and almost rosy smelling, especially after the often foul sardine experience I would have just had.

I was never “offended” or threatened by the musicians’ “begging”, partly because I never felt it to be confrontational. If you liked the music you placed a quid in, if not you didn’t, no big deal, and there was never a fear of the musicians hurling profanities at you for not being charitable.

But begging isn’t always so “nice” and polite. Sometimes it’s raw, and pitiful and almost enough to arouse anger in those witnessing its sensory-overloading smelly sourness.

It was after my second year of living in Bulgaria that we went back to England for a visit. And there on East Ham High Street, in East London, I witnessed something I couldn’t believe… a young gypsy mum squatting on the pavement with a baby in her arms. The High Street shoppers diverted their heads away from her as they passed, and their conversations went mute just as their shadows hit her skinny frame. And what did I do? Well, I did exactly the same as everybody else.

It just seemed weird for me to see somethiing in one country that one associated mostly with another. This weird parallel universe experience was further drilled home when we came to a traffic light somewhere on the 406 dual carriageway. There seemed to be a whole family of gypsies gathered there, a couple with soapy water-filled plastic bottles and window wipers and the others with babies under their arms tapping on car windows. It was a shocking scene for me, partly because I wasn’t used to seeing it in England. And the truth is, I’m still not used to seeing it in Bulgaria, either.

Poverty is unpleasant to the eye, it’s challenging, confrontational and heart-tugging.

And being quite a private and introverted kind of person, I often opt to the looking away approach, and only give a coin or two if I don’t feel “threatened” by the beggar.

We all have coping strategies when it comes to meeting beggars. And none of those strategies are wrong or right; they are just ways in which different people cope with an awkward situation.

But my son’s comment of “but Mummmy you said that if he is working then we can give him money” jolted my conscience into gear. Because that’s what I truly believe. I would like nothing more than not to see or smell or touch poverty, but it is the challenging reality that I live in and in that which my kids live in. And my conscience screams that those children at the streetlights should be educated, should be skilled and given job opportunities. And my conscience shouts that poor young girls in orphanages and ghettoes shouldn’t be hunted down by predators for the sex trade.

It’s hard to address poverty. It is the challenge of every age. But turning the other way and hoping it will disappear isn’t going to make it go away. So what am I going to do about it, according to my conscience? And may I ask, what are you going to do about it?