Any of you who have ever tried grocery shopping with two toddlers know how confusing, frustrating and embarrassing it can be. Now add to it a ridiculously specific grocery list and method of paying that screams "I'm poor!" and you have a perfect recipe for humble pie.
I have a real love-hate relationship with WIC. When I first got on it in Massachusetts, it was interesting to me that I actually recognized about half the families I saw at the WIC office. They were people I knew from church and from playgroup. They were well educated and often times they were people who were actively looking for jobs or worked at least part-time. Many of them were like me - mothers who chose not to work full time because they wanted to actively raise their children.
This was my first view into the world of modern America, where higher education does not necessarily buy you a spot in the American Dream. It braced me for dealing with life on a strict budget and started easing me into the idea that I might never actually "make it." By "make it" I mean being able to have a house in the suburbs and maybe take a nice trip on my 25th anniversary or something.
I also learned to see the tell-tale signs that someone was on WIC - the bountiful supply of Juicy-Juice bottles in their house. Which brings me to the "hate" part of the program.
For those of you who have never heard of it, WIC stands for Women, Infants and Children. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding a child under 1 and children from working families below the poverty line are eligible. It is not the same thing as well fair. You have to work and bring in at least some money to qualify. Any way, you get these checks for each person in the family who qualifies, and the checks are dated so they are only good for one month. One check might let you buy a gallon of whole milk, a 16 ounce block of cheese and a dozen eggs. If you have eggs in the house, but need the cheese, you may end up getting it any way and suddenly finding yourself with two full cartons of eggs and two extra bottle of milk in the fridge. It's very inefficient and there ends up being quite a bit of waste. We have checks for 8 1/2 gallons of milk this month. Seriously, does any family of four drink that much milk? Also, checks for the child under 2 say "whole milk only" and checks for kids over 2 are skim or lowfat. I'm know that may sound straight forward, but when you are dealing with three or four different checks at a time and trying to make sure you have the right amount of everything, you inevitably end up at the counter with a gallon of whole and a half-gallon of skim when it should have been the other way around.
The biggest problem is the massive amount of juice they give you. Seriously, we couldn't drink that much juice unless we had a birthday party once a month or so! And yet there it is on the check, begging you to pick up two more 64-ounce bottles...just in case. I would much rather have a check for the same amount of money, but for more veges and fruit or something. Maybe another loaf of bread. I wish they would let you have a little more say in what checks you get, like say I could tell them, "No we don't need that much juice, but we would love another check for fresh veges!" We used to go ahead and get the juice and then we would use it as our donation for potluck meals at church. Now I know that any money not used on the check goes back to the WIC program, so I just don't use them. But I know a lot of people with less nutritional knowledge than me are getting these checks. Is it really a good thing that the government is giving out so much juice to children while at the same time telling parents not to give their obese children so much juice!? Even the nutritionist at the WIC office told me she thinks it's ridiculous. I sometimes get the feeling that the nutrition lists are created by lobby groups.
Any way, I hope that one day they re-write the nutrition lists to make things a little more simple and and straightforward. I mean, why is it that Chex is ok, but Raisin Bran isn't? Why is it that I can get a 16 oz loaf of bread, but not the 8 oz? Any way, that's just my little rant for the day.
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