I’m still pretty uneducated on the whole school lunch ideas that the Obama administration is pushing around, I admit, but from what I’ve read I don’t understand why so many people are so pissed off. I really don’t. And to be honest, most of the people I’ve sat and listened to bitch and moan are a) wealthy as fuck and b) would hate the president if he deigned to say that the sky was blue or that puppies are cute. Suffice to say, if you are wealthy enough to feed your children and smart enough to not overload them with junk food, then this new law is not directed at you. Okay?? So back the fuck off, because there are people out there who need what’s being offered them. I know how much y’all jus’ love to make sure that the have-nots remain the have-nots, but seriously. What is your damage, Heather?? Healthier lunches made available to low-income school children?? That’s a fuckin’ problem?? Oil your knees, grow a heart, obtain a brain and STFU because if you think this is a bad thing then you have no soul.
I’ve worked and socialized with children and families who come from all kinds of backgrounds. Or, as we’re supposed to say, “socioeconomic status.” At one point I was teaching preschool full-time at an establishment in Seattle which accepted a large number of DSHS children while working part-time teaching athletics at a private facility that is not known for being inexpensive, if you smell what I’m cookin’. It was an interesting time for me, especially as a broke single mom who had chosen poorly at her career (teaching), who lived well below the poverty level for both the city and the nation, had a baby daddy whose family wiped their asses with $100 bills while I was still taking classes part time at the community college.
I observed some interesting behavior when it came to food and parenting. The wealthy gave all: hot dogs, chips, milkshakes, French fries, pastries. No matter the circumstances or the time of day, child gets what child wants. For example, my own daughter was fortunate enough to be granted ice skating lessons by her grandmother, which meant sitting at the arena with her grandmother’s friends and their competitive skater children who inhaled pizza and doughnuts immediately before practice and considered me a food tyrant for giving my daughter fruit, crackers or veggies with peanut butter and water or juice before skating and allowing her to have pizza after. I heard what people said behind my back: I’d been a gymnast and that obviously made me an anorexic and therefore I could not possibly know how to feed myself, let alone a child. My mind railed against these stupid bitches!! When had they ever been athletes?? When had they ever eaten McDonald’s right before practice and went the whole afternoon with a stomach ache because of it?? They looked like all they ate was pizza and doughnuts. And who died and made them the food police?? If my kid is going to be an athlete, she should learn to eat like one. That did not and does not mean no pizza and doughnuts ever; it meant no pizza and doughnuts until after practice. What’s so mean about that I’m not sure I’ll ever understand, save for the fact that it’s not how the older, richer in-vitro moms fed their children.
When I began more full-time work with children again, I saw things that were even more disturbing. One week I would be working at the preschool, where one family was so poor they sent their two children to school with a lunch in one brown bag: two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on not dog buns. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, as a single mom there were times I’ve had to be creative with my daughter’s lunch, and times when I’ve had to send her to school without a lunch knowing that the school has an emergency lunch program that isn’t going to allow her to starve. Of course, they send you a bill at the end of the year, but I digress. So, on one hand it was sweet that this mother made the effort. That is not, however, a sufficient meal for children in full-time preschool. So, the food that had meant to be used exclusively for snack time was used to feed the really poor kids. Which, of course, meant less for the kids who threw away half of their lunches because they didn’t feel like eating pears that day, but really. In all fairness, it is the right of families to purchase food and have kids throw it away. Even at a low-income-friendly school. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s true. Obviously no school subsidized lunch program was offered, but when one child wastes while another child wants (or needs), it’s difficult to watch.
In the wealthier of the two environments, I would spend a week coaching athletic camps, fun camps, and almost every child signed up had a food allergy. (Care to wager how many of the low-income kids at the preschool had food allergies??) Half the kids had access to their parents’ member accounts and would purchase food the camp leaders had been told not to give them. Celiac disease?? My auntie. The kid who’s supposedly allergic to gluten just downed three hot dogs with buns, a bowl of mac and cheese and tried to sneak Mountain Dew from the fountain after the other leaders and I had restricted them to lemonade, water along with one paper cup of sprite each. Fortunately, no one got sick, no one told their parents about the crap they sneaked and charged to their parents’ accounts, and no one got in trouble. However, my astonishment at the lengths I’ve seen these kids go to just to have the junk food that they want remains, and I see very few adults saying no to these kids. I thought I was being the food police; making sure no one ate anything they were “allergic” to or didn’t have at least some nutritional benefit, or had beverages that had too much sugar or caffeine. And the longer I’ve worked at this establishment I’ve seen how indulged some of these kids really are. Every time I see them eat, they’re eating junk food. These are children whose parents can (and likely do) buy local and organic, which is something that low-income people can’t always afford to do because it’s so damned expensive, and their kids are scarfing hot dogs and Pepsi and no one is saying anything to the kids. For a time I thought that kids who are shitty food were from families who couldn’t afford healthy food, because let’s face it, healthy food is hella more expensive, but they’re not. They’re from families with educated parents, who should know better, who want their children to be athletes and serve them muy burgers and fries just as often as they are from lower-income families.
So the poor are too poor to feed their kids, which has a lot to do with the rate of childhood obesity in America. Yet, the wealthy don’t seem to give much of a damn what their kids eat. Do they think it’s all gravy (pardon the pun)?? That they’ll be able to afford dieticians and fat farms for their kids when they don’t know how to control or regulate their food intake then they’re older?? Who is teaching the rich kids that three hot dogs is not the correct portion, and who is sharing one with the poor kid who doesn’t have one??
At no point would I presume to say that all parents, of any income bracket, do not know how to feed their children. That is not the point I’m trying to make at all, and if you think it is then you haven’t been paying attention. Kids out there need guidance they are evidently not getting from their parents. Not all kids, but kids. Teachers talk about good nutritional habits, but not everyone in the world can afford them. We are adults, and our job as adults and as parents is to stand up for these kids and do what’s right for them even if it may not be right for us. It’s called being an adult, being a parent, and participating in the health and growth of the society in which you live.
And no, I’m not a socialist, but the more right wing, conservative, tea party propaganda I read about and hear makes me beg for Emma Goldman to rise from the great beyond and start kicking some ass.
Working with older kids, I’ve had the displeasure of hearing the horror stories of what the public schools offer to middle and high schoolers for lunch. One local middle school had a coffee cart, but they had to limit the consumption of coffee drinks to the cafeteria because children were buying coffees, taking them into the hallways and dumping them around; making messes and vandalizing the lockers of kids they didn’t like. Yeah. Middle school kids. Being served lattes and cappuccinos and mochas at school. Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks that’s fucked up and actually sees the problem here?? Other kids admitted to me that their parents packed them lunches that they threw away and used money to buy chips, soft drinks, doughnuts, coffee, fries. I knew these kids parents. Some of them were not allowed to have Gatorade at gymnastics class, yet they were tossing out their lunches in favor of crap.
So, yeah. Something needs to be done. Whether you feel like you’re teaching you children good habits or not, if they have the option to pitch their lunch in a trash can and mow down burritos so unhealthy even Taco Bell would say “hey, that’s just fucked up,” then they’re going to take it. These vending and a la carte options must be scrapped, and that’s something that this new law is trying to make happen. Why is that bad?? What would you rather have your kid be offered as a snack when they’re away from you: an apple or a bag of chips??
While I understand that some people feel like their intelligence is being insulted and their parenting methods undermined, fuckin’ deal!! As Americans, we embarrass ourselves every damn day and pretty much deserve to have our intelligence insulted. But this is for our kids: ALL of them, not just yours, you bourgeois geek. If you pulled your head out of your ass long enough to read something other than the GOP website, perhaps you’d understand that.
Anyway.
At ease.
Bill O’Reilly is on line one.
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