Could You Be A Cereal Mom?

Assuming that the middle class has, in fact, shrunken into oblivion and is therefore for all intents and purposes non-existent there remain two classes of people. You know what they are, so I'll leave the class warfare conversation to trudge onward without me.

If all households in America can be lumped into two income ranges, then it stands to reason that only two classes of moms exist as well. I started thinking of what these classes might be called. Certainly not upper and lower class. That's not creative enough for us crafty mom-types. As a stay-at-home mom, pretty much everything I do from baby care to preschool snacks and crafts and beyond revolves around what I buy at the grocery store. Based upon this information, what follows are my proposed Mom Class Divisions:

Cereal Mom: At our house there have been more weeks than I care to think about where we've lived on little to no meat, boxed 'flake' potatoes, and some frozen corn that my husband's aunt and uncle grew in their garden last year. The main beverages we consume at our house are milk and water and while we're waiting for payday, most often when the milk is gone, the milk is gone. One thing we are never without, however, is cereal. I realize that cereal is not the cheapest item on the supermarket shelves, but just as there are (or were) subdivisions in the middle class (upper, lower, was there one in between? The middle middle class?) so too are there various levels of Cereal Momdom. I personally am what I'd call a Malt-O-Meal Mom. I purchase the ginormous 39 oz. bag (that's well over 2 lbs. for those mathematically challenged moms such as myself). I try to select a reasonably healthy, low calorie variety and then let those kids go to town. They eat cereal for snack, breakfast, and sometimes other meals as well. Does this happen on a regular basis? Of course not, but you know how the old saying goes: A Cereal Mom is always prepared... to feed her family cereal.

Caviar Mom: Obviously to be considered a Caviar Mom one need not buy caviar exclusively or even often or even ever. Just as there are various levels of Cereal Momdom, so too are there many levels of this class status. In my humble opinion, which matters because I'm the only one doing the writing (and most likely the reading) here, the lowest level of Caviar Mom is simply the ability to make a grocery list, go to the store, buy everything that is on that list, come home, and pull up your bank account online without wincing and/or scrambling for the nearest calculator. In other words, if you're familiar with the choice between paying the bills and eating, then you are not a Caviar Mom.

One day... I aspire to become a Special K Mom (that's a couple of rungs above Malt-O-Meal Mom on the cereal hierarchy, just above Generic Store Brand Cereal Mom). I know it's a stretch, but hey, let a mom have her dreams...