The Maternal Survival Instinct That Helps Me Handle Food Insecurity

Why I forgo my favorite foods as an invisible sacrifice so my kids can enjoy theirs

Strawberries from the Wrightstown Farmer’s Market in late spring

Trader Joe’s creamy tomato soup is one of my ideal comfort foods. Poured from a tetra pack into a bowl, then microwaved for two minutes, stirred, and sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan cheese that melts into a clump. It’s been a staple in my kitchen cabinets for over a decade and is, in my opinion, the perfect tomato soup, but despite always stocking two boxes of it in my cabinet, I haven’t eaten it in almost nine years.

When I first enrolled in SNAP more than a decade ago, my kids were 2 and 3. The funds we were granted didn’t cover our monthly food costs unless I stretched them to a near-breaking point, so one of the habits I developed was always saving foods my children loved for them. The range of foods I’d eat was much broader than the range they were willing to try, and so whenever my kids liked something, I stopped eating it.

Naturally, they discovered foods they loved through me, so I gradually phased out dozens of foods I’d long enjoyed. I came to know early summer strawberries only by their scent and the color of their stains on my kids’ shirt collars. Same for Honeycrisp apples from a local orchard, garlic scape pesto, my favorite homemade cherry pistachio granola, seasonal butternut squash mac and cheese trays, tinned lentil soup, overnight oats made in near-empty Nutella jars, and salted maple ice cream.

There were other foods I ate that my kids didn’t: leafy green salads with mustard vinaigrette and toasted sourdough ends, escarole sauteed with garlic, white beans simmered in chili oil, green tea. I cooked for myself only the foods I knew they’d never eat, and while I was often nourished, I was also establishing a habit that carved deep trenches into my psychology.

In 2020, three years after we stopped receiving SNAP, my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. Her nearly three years of treatment included rounds of steroids which left her overwhelmed by cravings for very specific foods: garlicky creamed kale, crispy fried tofu, dark meat from a whole roasted chicken, and pizza dipped in blue cheese dressing—all foods that I had been preparing for myself over the years. Instead of cooking them for myself, I made huge batches of whatever she was craving and then packed it all away, saving every bite for her.

For most of my life as a mother, there has been continuous math happening in my head: calories per dollar, how many days until an EBT deposit, the cost of broccoli crowns and milk, how I might make everything stretch, what would happen if I just ate a little less. Staving off food insecurity with kids in your home means becoming a master of invisible sacrifices. I learned to prefer the heels of bread loaves and am forever eating the remnants of yesterday’s dinner for lunch. My kids were growing, needing more nutrition than me, and my survival instincts for them were in high gear as I tried to balance on the ever-shifting ground of my fluctuating budget and food costs.

Any time my kids asked about why I was eating a different meal at dinner, I told them I didn’t want leftovers to go to waste or that there were ingredients that needed to be used up. More often they didn’t ask, since they were too young to remember how much I loved what was on their plate—late spring strawberries and thick slabs of fresh bread with salted butter and jam, or crispy salty roasted broccoli florets. They were fed, and fed well, and that was enough.

As our financial situation improved, I got high on the ability to buy groceries. I came to love shopping for food. Knowing my card would never decline at the grocery store made me giddy, but I never got back into eating the foods my kids enjoyed. It’s like some strange reflex; I haven’t stopped saving food for them. There are dozens of abandoned foods scattered throughout my life, like emotional landmines I’ve learned to step around.

I often cook foods and then never eat them, like the apple pie bars I made three days ago: sweetened oat-flour crust and crumble layered with sticky homemade cinnamon apple filling baked in a 9x13 pan. There was more than enough for three people to enjoy over the course of the week, but I left it all for my kids to enjoy as dessert or an after-school snack. There’s an enduring delineation in my mind between “kids’ food” and “my food.” “My food” is often things I enjoy, but it’s also only ever things my children don’t.

My teenagers make about half of their own food now. They’re not in danger of going hungry, and they’d probably think I was unhinged if I explained to them my long-held avoidance of some of their favorite foods. I can hear their voices in my mind, incredulous: Mom, that’s crazy! There’s enough for everyone! They don’t remember a time when there wasn’t.

Food insecurity doesn’t leave when the crisis hour is past. It rewires your brain, creating patterns of self-denial that become part of your personality. It carves tracks in your mind that last a lifetime. You never forget worrying about food. It takes work to remind myself that it’s okay to eat things that my kids like, that there will be enough, that there is a seat for me at my own table.

Food insecurity is so often discussed in terms of policy: statistics, benefit amounts, eligibility requirements, means testing. What gets lost is the psychological aftermath. Poverty doesn’t just limit options in the moment; it changes how you see yourself in relation to resources, to pleasure, to even the basic act of feeding yourself.

I’m writing this on a cold November afternoon. My kids are off from school for Election Day, and my daughter asked if we could have tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch. She wants to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas and decorate (too early, in my opinion) for Christmas. I’m going to allow her this vulgarity, and then I’m going join her on the couch—twin bowls of my beloved Trader Joe’s tomato soup cradled in our laps, warmth radiating through the dish’s blue ceramic.

Elizabeth Austin’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Harper’s Bazaar, Electric Literature, and others. She is working on a memoir about being a bad cancer mom. She lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with her two children and their many pets. Find her at writingelizabeth.com.