Government Cheese
I received my first WIC coupons today. Milk, eggs, peanut butter, cereal, juice...... and cheese. 2 lbs of it. It felt kind of wierd to be back in the Public Health system, but I'm not stupid, and I know better than to look a gift horse blah-de-blah. It's nice that our food bill will be going down even more, but at the same time I feel guilty. I'm a fairly well-educated, articulate, independent woman, and I feel like I am taking advantage somehow. I read through the pamphlets, and everything is printed in both English and Spanish, and with pictures to boot for folks that can't read either of these languages, and I can't help but think... these pamphlets were written for people who need waaaaay more help than I do. I look around the room at the posters, and most of them seem geared towards people who are clearly not too bright (posters about not drinking when you are pregnant, not shaking your baby, and so on). I fill out the forms (without the assistance of someone to read to me or an interpreter) and half the questions don't apply to me because I am not homeless.
One of the services offered to me is a nurse to come and check on me to keep an eye out for post-partum depression, and make sure Madeline is growing well, and to answer any questions that I "would be afraid to ask my doctor." I think she would come in, see the computers and the Wii, see the toys that are strewn across Elias's bedroom, see our decent relatively new furniture, see Maddie's beautiful bedroom, and probably tell us to sell our shit if we need money and that we should be ashamed of ourselves. I'm not sure if I want to take them up on that particular offer.
I appreciate the help, and I am grateful for it. We need it. But not as much as some... and for that I feel bad.