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|  | | | The Social Worker on the Bus
When I was born in 1979 my mother was living in St. Paul with two children under the age of four. I never knew my father, just as my mother had never known hers. Both she and my grandmother worked full time but had trouble making enough money to feed themselves plus three hungry little mouths. I cringe to think that my brother and sister and I might have lived off of a candy bar each on nights when money was too short to buy any fruit or vegetable or any of the other foods that children—and all people—need to eat to be healthy.
By chance one day my mother struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to her on the bus to work. That woman, it turned out, was a social worker who listened as my mother, who was usually a quiet and very reserved person, told the woman about us, her children, and the problems she was having affording to feed us what she knew we needed to be eating. By the time my mother had to get off at her stop, the woman had told her about WIC (Women, Infants and Children), the special supplemental nutrition program sponsored by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture,
which provides nutritious foods to low income pregnant women and new mothers and their children younger than five years old.
I can’t say that my childhood was perfect, or even say that I can never remember feeling very hungry. That wouldn’t be true. But I do know that things could have been much worse. My mother was never ashamed to tell us the story of the woman on the bus, and to tell us about the WIC program and how we had so much to be thankful for. I know there are so many women out there today who, just like my mother, want so badly to feed their children the best food there is, but they just can’t do that alone.
I don’t have children yet, but when I do I’ll make sure they know what foods are right for them to eat to keep their bodies healthy. And if I am ever on the bus next to someone who wants to talk, I promise myself I’ll listen. And if I ever hear that a woman cannot afford to feed her children the food they need, I promise myself I’ll tell her about WIC.
Alexandra H.
Television Producer
St. Paul
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