Food, or Shelter? Musings of an American Political Pawn

My four year old daughter loves broccoli. It’s one of her favorite foods, and she becomes genuinely excited when she learns we are having broccoli for dinner. My three old son can easily go through a pound of fresh strawberries in one day, leaving him smelling sweet and sugary for hours afterward. They will both happily request fruit after dinner, then fall asleep with bellies full of pears, tangerines, and red grapes.

Over the past two weeks, my weekly trips to my local Market Basket for groceries have become even more stressful than usual; and not because of the post-church crowds on Sunday afternoons or the frustratingly long wait at the deli for fresh sandwich meat. With the end of October rapidly approaching and the end of SNAP, WIC, and Head Start, three government assistance programs that my family has relied on heavily over the past several months since I was laid off from my job, becoming more and more likely, the weight and volume of fresh ingredients in my cart brings a thrill of panic throughout my body.

I know exactly how many dollars I have left in my SNAP account, down to the cent. I open my WICShopper app to review how much I have left to spend on fresh groceries—it’s much less than I thought.

The Massachusetts state government has advised families reliant on SNAP and WIC to use their funds to purchase shelf-stable food that will last while the federal government continues to use our families as pawns in their political game. My children will have to live off of less of the fresh, nutritious food that their little bodies need at this stage in their young lives.

I wonder what it must feel like for government officials to issue advice like that. Do they feel the guilt, shame, and dread of a mother walking past the fruit section to the processed food section, buying food she knows is not as good for her children but getting it anyway because something is better than nothing? Do they feel like they’ve failed in their responsibility to serve the people?

They should.

I count myself lucky—my husband runs a successful carpentry business and we have enough income and assets to weather this storm. But there are many, many others, especially in rural communities like the one I live in, that are either laying awake at night or crying themselves to sleep, wondering how they will survive the coming New England winter should the politicians in D.C. continue to treat us like bartering chips in their dirty game of cards.

It’s not an easy thing to admit being one of the eight Americans on government assistance, but I know there is no shame in it. I lost my six figure, executive job, that I had worked for ten years to achieve, unexpectedly over six months ago, and have been stumbling my way around the worst job market since 2009 ever since. But I want to share my story because it’s not just my story.

It’s the story of America in a downward spiral, where the most vulnerable of us are cast aside as collateral damage in a game we never wanted to play. An America where it doesn’t matter how hard you work, how good your heart is, or who you voted for—you and your children are just bodies in a political war in which no one wins, just survives.

And ultimately, if any American parent has to make the choice between food or shelter for their kids because the federal government refuses to wield its authority to help them, then the American dream has become a dark nightmare.

America, the great experiment, is failing. And we have no one to blame but ourselves.