Children who qualify for free and reduced lunches (about 31 million) might also be served DINNER at schools under this new bill. I find this absolutely appalling. I'm not even sure why breakfast is served at school, but now dinner too? Where is the parental responsibility? Where is the time at home around the family dinner table? Dinner is not a meal usually eaten during school hours, so why should schools have to be responsible for serving dinner? Are children going to come to school at 7:30 am for breakfast, attend school, go home, and then come back for dinner? Or, even worse, are they going to stay at school for 10 hours straight in order to get their government-sponsored meal?
Most of the families who take part in the school lunch program are also on food stamps, or SNAP (Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program). If children are eating 3 meals a day, 5 days a week at school, then these benefits need to be drastically reduced for the families participating in both programs. I think SNAP has its place. Our family benefited from the program for a while when we were in graduate school, and I felt we received plenty of money to provide all of our meals. I can't imagine how much money we would have saved if our children ate three meals a day at school. As the bill stands now, SNAP benefits are supposed to be reduced, but politicians are guaranteeing that they will be restored. Why take money away from meals at home and transfer it to meals at school?
I am not sure what's going on over in Washington or what I can do about it, but this is not the direction our country needs to be moving in. I don't want children to be hungry, but I also don't want parents to give up all responsibility to the government and the schools to provide meals for their children. Sure, school lunches could be healthier (I actually don't have my kids eat them because so much of the food is processed), but this should all happen on a LOCAL level, using local foods as much as possible. If any of you watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on TV this summer, you saw how hard he had to work against the government regulations for school lunches, and how ludicrous they were.
If you are interested in reading more on this topic, here are some recent articles:
NY Times
Youth Today
Post-Trib
Now get a cup of cocoa, snuggle up by the fire, and enjoy the holidays! I promise not to rant again until January.
8 comments:
Yeah, that is dumb. And where is the money going to come to serve them dinner? In CA they are talking about serving meals on weekends too. Because these poor people have food insecurity, and everyone else should feed them. (that is not my sentiment, just their argument).
Maybe the processed food industry is lobbying for the bill. You didn't know I am cynical, did you?
R
Oh didn't even hear about that. What a nanny state we have become.
I hate that our government coddles irresponsible parents so much, but unfortunately I've also worked with the results of those irresponsible parents. Programs like that are created because they know that if they send those kids home they won't be fed at all. It doesn't matter if there are food stamps available...in some cases they aren't being used for their children. It's sad, and I hate that we're the ones that have to pay for it, but I spent a year working with a little girl who wasn't being fed, couldn't read, couldn't talk, and was scared of EVERYTHING. The thought of someone stepping in and helping her with something as simple as food makes it worth it to me.
In the case of kids like Megann mentioned, school dinners are not the solution. That wouldn't help the underlying problem. It's not economically feasible to feed every low-income kid school dinners, nor would it be effective to have a blanket approach like that. School dinners would rob parents of their duties and create more debt for our government. If parents are not feeding their kids, their kids should be taken away from them, instead of saying, "Hey, let's just feed the poor kid dinner too!"(way more than you wanted to hear from me, I am sure!)
I think this is really interesting...I just watch a movie called food Inc. it talked about the opposite. it's the low income families (on food stamps etc.) that make up a HUGE percentage of the obese population. Let's face it, it costs way less to eat poorly. I find it funny that Michelle Obama is all about kids getting into shape and part of that is serving 3 meals a day at school.. have you seen the school food?? TERRIBLE!! I don't know much about the bill but if kids will be eating there that much then the quality of food need to change!! I don't let my kiddos eat school lunch (unless I'm totally desprate) just because they are so UNhealthy. LOVE Jamie Oliver food revolution!!
I agree that school lunches are not very healthy. Don't get me started on the ice cream bin at our school that kids can purchase ice cream tickets daily for. Bringing the cost for school lunch almost to 2.65. I only let Warren eat school lunch once per week.
I totally agree that children would be better served to have a caring mother or father at home that would provide their meals for them. The sad thing is that there are many families who cannot be there in the morning or the evenings to do so because of work schedules. There are also drug addicts & and just plain selfish and irresponsible parents who let their children fend for themselves. Having known many families who fall into different categories and thinking of the children affected, it is more comforting to know that these children could gather together and eat dinner with someone and get something more nutritious than 5 bowls of Lucky Charms chips & candy for dinner.
It seems to me that if families are benefitting also from food stamps and their children are eating 3 meals a day at school, their food stamp benefits should be reduced as well. It's a sticky situation but their needs to be accountability somewhere.
I also agree with the point that in an ideal world if parents can't feed their children they shouldn't have custody of their kids however, that is a far more costly government intervention than providing dinner at school. It's really traumatic for children to be taken from their homes, even if their home life is is neglectful. The state already has a hard time finding homes for the kids currently in the system. Therefore I say let them eat dinner but make parents accountable in some way (like decreasing food stamps, etc) if they do.
Couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for sharing that. Hope you guys are having a wonderful holiday season.
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