February 15, 2012

"What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly."

Says the mother of a child in North Carolina whose home-packed, turkey-sandwich lunch was deemed insufficiently healthful by the school authorities, apparently because there was no vegetable. The child was given cafeteria food, which included a vegetable, but the child only ate the chicken nuggets, and the family was charged $1.25. I was going to say the family should send the school a bill for the cost of the confiscated food, but the forbidden food was sent home with the child.

What is the best lesson learned here?
  
pollcode.com free polls 

94 comments:

Bob_R said...

Home schooling is really popular in VA. It started with evangelicals, of course. But I know plenty or yuppies and hippies (we even have yuppie hippies around here) who home school without a twinge of cognitive dissonance. When it's your kid having to face a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats all of the collectivist bullshit goes out the window.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Is it true the school's bill had a picture of an angry Michele Obama on it?

Btw - the moral here is "people love to do other people's job but not their own".

Anonymous said...

The charge is really insulting

Roman said...

This is so predictable, there are too many people who know how to live your life better than you.

SGT Ted said...

Quite frankly, it is NONE of the governments or any of its employees business what kind of food is in that kids lunch bag.

It's time to break up the public schools and restart it. They suffer very badly from mission drift and they are poking their noses into things that don't concern them.

Teach our children to read, write and do math and science. About the other stuff, shut the hell up.

Phil 314 said...

please tell me this didn't really happen

X said...

What is the best lesson learned here?

vote Republican

pm317 said...

Wow, this government control of school lunch is way too crazy. It can only come from the Obamas.

David Wharton said...

This has been going on a long time in North Carolina; it happened to us when our daughter (now 18) was in preschool at a state university run daycare.

Brian Brown said...

Welcome to "health care" in the age of Obama.

See, once the government is responsible for your health care, they get to dictate what you put in your body.

Can't wait until it comes full circle vis-a-vis, AIDS.

Brian Brown said...

Oh, and to paraphrase Ann from the other day:

It's absurd to declare the President's rule about contraception and insurance coverage is completely appropriate and turn around and say the government is acting outside of it's limits here.

tim in vermont said...

Remember the scene in 1984 where citizens were required to exercise where the tel-screen could see them?

Bill said...

Option 4: tar, feathers.

People really should lose their jobs over this. There needs to be a hard push back.

The next day the child should bring a Twinkie and an incandescent bulb.

prairie wind said...

“With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. “It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.” The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said.

Just stop explaining. Start apologizing. Someone told this child that her mother sent a bad lunch. Let's start with an apology for that, then let's move on to apologies for being stupid, officious twits.

Toad Trend said...

"It's good to flip the power by going public and getting people angry at the school."

It's good to 'flip off' the power by going public and getting people angry at the school.

//fixed

prairie wind said...

“The school may have interpreted [the rule] to mean they felt like the lunch wasn’t meeting the nutritional requirements and so they wanted the child to have the school lunch and then charged the parent,” she said. “It sounds like maybe a technical assistance need for that school.”

A technical assistance need? That's the lesson you draw from this story?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Subtext..

'Dont tell my kid I'm a bad mother.'

I got into a shouting match with my sister once when her kid was crying she wanted something, a frozen goody, and I wanted to give it to her.. when my sister/mother had decided she was not going to give it to her.

Thats my kid and I'm her mother..

Tank said...

Don't complain now. If you haven't been objecting to growing gov't for years, then just STFU.

Really.

This is your gov't.

It owns you.

You let it.

Now bend over.

And take it.

DEAD COUNTRY WALKING.

STFU.

You wanted help from the gov't, here it is. You thought food "guidelines" were Ok, maybe benign, well here they are. Michelle is going to tell you what your kid can eat, and you are going to STFU.

Have a nice day.

Brian Brown said...

said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division

I think we should weigh Jani and if she is found to be more than 5 pounds over weight, she should be immediately fired.

Or tarred & feathered.

Tank said...

Hey, I'm turning into Shouting Thomas.

Where is Shouting Thomas?

Bob Ellison said...

I'd have preferred that the poll had a fourth option: "Call the school and explain firmly the problems you have with what happened and how they handled it. If they don't apologize and say you can pack lunch as you see fit, then go public and raise holy hell."

Institutions of all kinds can get blind-sided with people saying someone should lose his/her job when one employee pulls a boner like this. The article doesn't say what the parent did (besides talking anonymously with a newspaper), but it's inappropriate to make a big deal out of it, saying someone should be fired, before at least confronting the miscreant.

Hoosier Daddy said...

This should not be a surprise to those who think the government should be taking care of them.

vet66 said...

This undoubtedly is union backed extortion. They know most of the healthy food is thrown away. Also, lunches brought to school negates the need for overstaffed yahoos who prefer food the kids don't like and the adults don't eat.

The more lunches they serve the more people they hire and the union food providers pad the payroll on down the distribution chain.

Brennan said...

Mom packed us kids baby carrots. We usually used them as projectiles in the lunch room. When squeezed with your thumb and index finger the really fly far. And best of all, you could launch them from underneath the lunch table.

We rarely objected to these vegetables in the brown bag.

Calypso Facto said...

Any school serving chicken nuggets better just STFU about nutrition.

And they ALL serve chicken nuggets.

Darrell said...

Every student "needing" lunch increases the payout the school gets each month from the Feds.

Someone should teach the inspector wher potato chips come from. I'm guessing potatoes unless we're talking Pringles.

SGT Ted said...

No, Bob, not in this day and age.

No more crap like this from government employees.

There's nothing sacred about government run public schools or the unions of their employees. I think it is time for a huge structural change in it. As in, break the unions and the bureaucracy. Too many credentialed strap hangers who have nothing better to do need to be fired and the money spent on teaching children something other than Global Warming and how wonderful it is to be gay or a Progressive.

They are suppposed to be our SERVANTS, not our Masters.

It is time to confront the school employees entitled attitudes towards public money and the control we grant them over our childrens lives.

Meade said...

'healthy' school lunch: .......$1.25

government provided condom: ....... no charge

Darrell said...

And that fat-free milk they made the child take? Well, it was starting to stink up the cooler, so what choice did the school have?

Brennan said...

The more lunches they serve the more people they hire and the union food providers pad the payroll on down the distribution chain.

Yep. They care not if the food is consumed. In the trash will do just fine. And say, isn't there a trash haulers union that is compensated based on the weight of the garbage?

Meade said...

The Department of Health and Human Services requires students to possess at all times: condom, diaphragm, lubricant, and two doses of morning-after pill or RU486.

James said...

I read about this incident yesterday; in fact I read the story several times and my blood boiled in every instance.

Then I started thinking..."Why is this mother sending a four year old to a pre-kindergarten program?" She isn't learning anything and would be better off at home; even just watching TV all day.

The federal government has already admitted that Head Start and programs of that type do not work: Head Start Impact Study

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Meh! Based on this:

http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html

The kid was going to a Gubbmint Day Care program. This sort of stuff is what you get when you let the Gubbmint raise your kids.

James said...

Institutions of all kinds can get blind-sided with people saying someone should lose his/her job when one employee pulls a boner like this. The article doesn't say what the parent did (besides talking anonymously with a newspaper), but it's inappropriate to make a big deal out of it, saying someone should be fired, before at least confronting the miscreant.

Oh please.

The mom did not originally talk to a newspaper, she went to her state representative.

This story first appeared in the Carolina Journal yesterday and gained wider circulation when Rush discussed it, then Drudge linked to it late yesterday afternoon.

It appears to have been corrected from when I first read it. It had said an "agent" had inspected the girl's lunch box and Rush interpreted that to mean a federal agent.

Temujin said...

Our National Government School System (or, as they are euphemistically know- Public School) is the greatest failure of liberal policies in this country's history. It's right out there- hidden in plain sight- for everyone to see.

If we, as a nation, opened up the layers upon layers of bureaucrats, divisions, and departments in our school systems, and actually looked at the people in these positions- their backgrounds, their world view, their mission- as it were- we would all be nauseous.

Educating the children is not the priority. Just check out the evidence of your senses. When you read about our national test scores in relation to the rest of the world, what does that say to you? If you speak to a young person, or read their fumbled sentences on a job application or in an essay- what does that say to you?

Hey...at least they're being shown the value of chicken nuggets. Seriously? Seriously? Want some real fun- ask a student to diagram a sentence. What?

Skyler said...

I shudder to think my child is in a public school, even for pre-k.

I would say that the mother should be reimbursed the $1.25 because the child was too young to contract for the meal.

And then she should sue the school for interfering with her parental authority.

And then get out of the government controlled school.

Fr Martin Fox said...

Liberals love to send the storm troopers--then disown them with Claude Rains-like astonishment ("I'm shocked, shocked! to find out there's gambling here!") when they behave in storm-trooper-like fashion.

Force those Catholics to provide contraceptives! Yeah!

Force a kid to eat a school lunch? Why, how did such a thing ever happen?

Brian Brown said...

Liberals love to send the storm troopers--then disown them

I wish.

I've yet to see any liberal acknowledge this story.

Remember, the school was following federal guidelines:

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.



Aren't you happy HHS has a divison of child development?

One wonders what is going on at the Department of Education...

James said...

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services

I'm guessing that's a NC State government department, not federal.

Has Bev Purdue spoken on this issue?

Tank said...

Karnival said...

Our National Government School System (or, as they are euphemistically know- Public School) is the greatest failure of liberal policies in this country's history. It's right out there- hidden in plain sight- for everyone to see.

****

Educating the children is not the priority. Just check out the evidence of your senses. When you read about our national test scores in relation to the rest of the world, what does that say to you?


Actually, if compare whites to whites, Asians to Asians, blacks to blacks and hispanic to hispanics, we're doing fine. See iSteve's blog.

Our schools are mediocre, but adequate. There are politically incorrect ways they could be improved for the students who are already doing pretty well.

We moved to a town known to have a "great school system." From K to 6 it was fine. Thereafter, mediocre. Disappointing.

RonF said...

How about if we do a garbage can census at the end of lunch period and determine the percentage of kids who actually ate the carrot the school provided? I bet it's in single digits.

Fen said...

“What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” the girl’s mother told CJ. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.

When the girl came home with her lunch untouched, her mother wanted to know what she ate instead. Three chicken nuggets, the girl answered."

Charge the school with child abuse.

Then sue them.

traditionalguy said...

The salt and sugar content of most school lunch foods would rule them out. But that is a job for tomorrow's government jobs.

Can a student refuse to eat a lunch? I bet Muslims get a pass on Ramadan.

Nathan Alexander said...

Nice juxtaposition, Meade.

Here's another one:

Obama Administration 2012 Budget proposal
Fed govt subsidy for Chevy Volt: raised to $10k
Fed govt subsidy for DC school vouchers: dropped from $8k to $0

Yep: gotta make the rich pay their fair share.

Michael said...

Private school. Deprive yourself of enough that you want for yourself to be able to pay for private school for your children. It is painful but it is well worth it. Your children will not be subject to this kind of torture and they will be challenged with coursework that will be much tougher than the public schools are offering. How do I know? The kids who have left the private school my son attends for the cheaper fields of public education have gone from C to A students and have learned that the bathrooms are the place to buy dope. They are breezing by because what they are being "taught" in the public schools they learned three years ago in the private.

MadisonMan said...

I have never sent fruit or vegetables in with my kids' lunches. They won't eat them at school. Why waste money just so some bureaucrat can check a box.

Freeman Hunt said...

This was the screaming headline on Drudge yesterday. I thought that was funny.

Wince said...

Qualifying for free school lunches is known as the gateway to myriad income support programs.

Just wondering to what extent does the school department have an incentive to want kids on school lunches so that their parents then evaluate their eligibility for a free school lunch?

edutcher said...

Have to agree with vet66. 5 will get you 10 there's a farmer's market or something getting a kickback.

(parents should have demanded if they had a warrant to search the kid's lunch)

Bob_R said...

Home schooling is really popular in VA.

Another way people are voting with their feet away from the Lefty Establishment. The number of households with a TV is declining and more people got their news off the Internet for the last election than anyplace else, for the first time.

Tank said...

Hey, I'm turning into Shouting Thomas.

Where is Shouting Thomas?


On tour, IIRC.

Karnival said...

Our National Government School System (or, as they are euphemistically know- Public School) is the greatest failure of liberal policies in this country's history.

Disagree. It's turning out cannon fodder for the dependent class in record numbers.

They aspire to nothing greater than aping the Kardashians, but forget that it bucks to do sex, drugs, and shopping.

(even then it won't save you; Whitney, anyone?)

And, yes, they're unthinking enough that they'll vote for the next Messiah the Demos send their way.

(notice how the current and last Demo Presidents are both sociopaths?)

Freeman Hunt said...

It wasn't school or government policy. It was the work of a single fool. I'm not seeing the big deal here.

I did enjoy reading the outrage that a school would ever give a child a chicken nugget, which is practically POISONOUS or so you'd think from what I read.

Chase said...

It's time to break up the public schools and restart it. They suffer very badly from mission drift and they are poking their noses into things that don't concern them.

STATEMENT OF THE YEAR!!!

Why do liberals always want to control everyone else's lives to the smallest detail?!?!?!?!?!

What part of life LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness (except for everything sexual) do liberals and Democrats missing in their fascist brains to help them understand?

AAAAAARRGH!!!!!!!!

Original Mike said...

"The Department of Health and Human Services requires students to eat lunches that consist of meat, milk, grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables."

I don't understand how HHS can do this. I can understand how they can require a school to serve certain things, but surely they can't dictate what a parent packs for her own kid.

Someone please tell me the school exceeded it's authority.

Tank said...

OK, Chase and Tank are both turning into Shouting Thomas.

Gov't does that to you, ya know.

Alex said...

Not feeding a growing child vegetables is tantamount to child abuse. I say CPS should take the child away and imprison the mother for negligence.

Alex said...

The most ridiculous part of the story was the schoolnazi substituting a chicken mcnugget for the half-healthy home lunch. Let's be serious now, giving fried potato chips as part of a daily lunch is WRONG.

Brennan said...

Methinks there is little here that HHS is dictating. I think it is more likely that the student just listens to the adults telling them what to do. If they only had Abbie Hoffman for a father they could reject and obstruct to every adult directive in the school.

cubanbob said...

This story is picture perfect for the next republican administration and congress to eliminate three federal agencies in one swoop. The USDA, HHS and the Dept. Of Education. And of course ban public sector unions.

Original Mike said...

"I think it is more likely that the student just listens to the adults telling them what to do."

The child was 4 years old.

Rialby said...

I've seen a number of people gripe about the $1.25 for the school lunch. What about the salary for someone labeled an "inspector"? How much taxpayer money is going to fund inspectors? Is there one at every school? How did we go tens thousands of years without food inspectors as a human race?

Christopher in MA said...

"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." - Albert Shanker, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

Insty says tar and feathers. I say rope and tree.

clint said...

Isn't bullying a major concern at schools now?

The parents should file a grievance against the bully who stole their child's lunch, forced her to eat crap, and then robbed her of $1.25.

That's textbook schoolyard bully.

Levi Starks said...

I'm sure the lunch inspector is a vital public servant who's been able to keep their job only because of bailout money sent from Obama. I'm sure you've heard him speaks about it all the time... Firefighters, Police officers, Teachers, Lunch inspectors. No doubt this position requires a Masters degree +
Vegetable identification is a task not left to amateurs.

Rialby said...

Levi - if what you said wasn't so true I'd be laughing rather than crying.

Rialby said...

But if you suggested to a Liberal that it's not important to hire food inspectors, they'd cite the instances where children died because of long-term exposure to illicit potato chips. Lesson: once the government creates a government job, that job can never be destroyed.

Original Mike said...

"What about the salary for someone labeled an "inspector"? How much taxpayer money is going to fund inspectors? Is there one at every school?"

Aside freom the salary, the existance of a food "inspector" implies it is school policy to inspect lunches brought from home.

Mary Beth said...

Do the teachers have to follow the same food guidelines? What if one brings a salad that does not include a grain product? Will he/she have to buy the school lunch instead?

maudgonne said...

Bizarre occurrences like this happen all the time here in NC.

It's like being on double secret probation.

Chase said...

Tank, LOL!

It's actually funny, because my current job is in the National School Lunch Program!

Serously, the Federal Government's New Consumer Protection Agency is going to rule your life in detail in less than the next 5 years - what you can sell, what you can buy, has to approve any loans you get. Add this to the EPA eventually telling you what kind of home you can live in and where you can live. I never believed this shit would happen in America, much less my lifetiume, but because it doesn't happen today, well just go back to sleep everyone, Okay?


Bend over - the Obama Democrat anal fucking is beginning in 5 . . . 4 . . 3 . .
They're already shooting their loads in Washington just thinking about it.

SGT Ted said...

Thes not about the nuggets, it's about the fascist inspecting this girls lunch with no warrant or apparent cause.

Or do parents sign 'consent to search your lunch for un-PC food items' forms when they enroll their 4 year old children? I don't rmember that when I was signing them.

It is about his assumed power to confiscate the parent provided healthy lunch with no communication with the parent beforehand and substitute it with processed snack crap.

What if there was a medical or other reason for the parent providing the lunch from home?

Antillious said...

To put this in a slightly different perspective. In Japan, if your child's lunch is insufficiently esthetically pleasing you will be notified by the teacher, and you will be required to take remedial cooking classes.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Why do hear this story from a British newspaper? No American press interested?

Known Unknown said...

To put this in a slightly different perspective. In Japan, if your child's lunch is insufficiently esthetically pleasing you will be notified by the teacher, and you will be required to take remedial cooking classes.

We don't live in Japan, which is still a fledgling democracy by my standards.

DADvocate said...

Inside the thoriac cavity of every liberal beats a totalitarian heart.

Freeman Hunt said...

I disagree with HHS being able to impose these lunch requirements on bagged lunches. They're even imposed at private schools.

But this particular case is one person's misunderstanding of the rules. It's not representative of the rules themselves, though it is, I suppose, representative of the errors inherent in bureaucracy.

Rabel said...

North Carolina has a voluntary, subsidized pre-K program for "at-risk" 4 year olds because the state supreme court ordered it to in 2004. The program is also available to non-at-risk children.

The program has requirements for providers.

One of them is:

"D. Nutrition

Sites must provide breakfast and/or snacks and lunch meeting USDA requirements during the regular school day. The partial/full cost of meals may be charged when families do not qualify for free/reduced price meals.

When children bring their own food for meals and snacks to the center, if the food
does not meet the specified nutritional requirements, the center must provide
additional food necessary to meet those requirements."

The child, having before her a homemade turkey sammich and a full school meal, ate the fried pressed chicken nuggets.

The parent was improperly billed $1.25 for the school meal.

The parent is pissed. Whatever.

The greater question of a court's authority to mandate pre-K education goes unanswered.

KCFleming said...

Face it, they literally own us, down to what we put in our mouths.

Hell, they own what's in our mouths:

Section 4102 of the health-reform law says, "The secretary shall develop oral healthcare components that shall include tooth-level surveillance."

Tooth-level surveillance.

Surveillance of out mouths, to the tooth.

Jesus Christ on roller skates.

Freeman Hunt said...

These requirements extend to private preschools. I know because my son attends one two mornings a week.

His school, however, just asks that the parents please send lunches that meet the requirements in case an inspector shows up. The school does not force and then charge for additional food. In fact, the school doesn't even serve lunch, but it still has to meet the requirements.

Crimso said...

I think the best lesson learned here is that we are fast approaching (if not already at) a point where we desperately need Herbert's Bureau of Sabotage.

"Help me, Jorj X. McKie. You're my only hope."

damikesc said...

I know nothing screams "HEALTHY PERSON HERE" quite like the lumpen mesomorphs who populate the government payroll.

Tarzan said...

Then I started thinking..."Why is this mother sending a four year old to a pre-kindergarten program?" She isn't learning anything and would be better off at home; even just watching TV all day.

That's a good question and there's a pretty good answer.

'Pre-k' programs are basically state-funded (or assisted) day care. Many public schools give preference (enrollment wise) to children who are already enrolled in a pre-k program at a given school, so there are incentives beyond fiscal for parents to usher their kids to the public pre-k programs. Especially so in cities like Boston, where 'school choice' has nothing to do with where you live. You can have a school around the corner from where you live, but if it's a popular one (and you're not a minority) you probably won't have a chance in hell of going there. You'll instead be given a long list of schools elsewhere in the city of boston from which to choose. This is all done in the name of fairness or something. The thought of your own child going to school with your neighbor's children is a thing of antiquity.

But they're providing lot's of jobs! Bus drivers with 3 kids on board driving from one end of the city to the other.

Because it's fair or something. I forget.

Tarzan said...

Can a student refuse to eat a lunch?

They don't care if the kid ate it or not. It's a statistical point in their favor where they get to say they 'provided' one. No different than mental institutions filling slots by making sure each patient's 'needs' appear to be as drastic as humanly possible.

Chip Ahoy said...

You all make excellent points and I find that I cannot challenge them, but I don't know, I'd have to look at that sandwich first before deciding. Maybe they really were protecting the child, not just from one bad sandwich but from an early developing life of bad sandwiches.

I still have issues about a particular poorly put together sandwich. Velveeta cheese and mayonnaise on white bread. It apparently left deep psychological scars. And that poor sandwich-making practice persisted in packed lunches as far as up to the sixth grade.

I do remember clearly sitting forlornly on a log, the kind of log segment that defines parking, in the full sun and with boys on both sides going in both directions as the log segments continued, recycled telephone poles probably now that I think about it, all eagerly tearing into our lunch bags, me with my squishy white slimy, wan, wrong texture-having soggy ass sandwich, and slumping into a depressed little knot right there in noon sun.

Would that somebody had noticed and intervened on my behalf and spared me the years of torment and hunger and the repeatedly reinforced feeling of abandonment.

Do you think I am exaggerating? It's a thing.

Methadras said...

Saying I told you so just isn't enough.

Chip Ahoy said...

Jamie Oliver tried to improve the school lunches in Britain and got nowhere. Then he came here to the U.S. and tried again.

I thought at the time, "You pushy little thick-tongued bastard." But he captures my imagination and holds it so I watched. He showed he has very good ideas. He demonstrated he can produce much improved lunches for less money and using local ingredients as Californians tend to agree is important. If I understand the situation, he got nowhere with it, but he did show what could be done.

But this is about the girl's turkey sandwich. I still say look at that sandwich. Ten to one odds it was Wonder bread. With one puny single flattened out piece of prepared sandwich slice water-added. Stored at room temperature for 4.5 hours. If it had mayonnaise, I'd take a lab sample.

Lettuce on the sandwich would have satisfied the requirement. And improved the sandwich. But further, it could enhance the child's developing attitude toward sandwiches and food in general and the child's sense of being cared for and nurtured, and yes, loved.

As a kid, I could never get enough fruit. I think even those ghastly fruit roll ups count for fruit according to them. So it really was a bad lunch, I think. And not just that one day that is being compared.

Now having made an issue of it and everybody is watching, the girl's mother must commit to improved sandwiches and that's a good thing. No more craptastic single-slice flattened out paper thin turkey slice with mayonnaise from a jar on white foam bread. No. She cannot get away with that anymore. The sandwiches will have lettuce and an occasional tomato, and the lunch bag will reliably have a banana or apple or orange, or dragon fruit, or durian or whatever.

prairie wind said...

Wonder bread should disqualify the entire lunch.

Velveeta on my mom's homemade bread...yum. Seen through a literary lens, it was just like the meals Grandfater prepared for Heidi. Except no goats.

Crimso said...

"Would that somebody had noticed and intervened on my behalf and spared me the years of torment and hunger and the repeatedly reinforced feeling of abandonment."

Ahh, but had you not been shaped by such early traumas then we wouldn't have the Chip Ahoy we have today. And there's not a bit of sarcasm in that. Having seen some of things you made and then ate (and the way you've made them!! Oh!!), you are a genius (seriously).

Alex said...

Regardless of nutritionally void homemade lunch, who's business is it except that family?

David said...

Where was the Federal government when I was in grade school?

We had no cafeteria. Everyone carried a lunch box. My mother's meat loaf sandwiches would have (and should have) been instantly banned, if only for the impact of greasy meatloaf with mayonnaise on white bread. The milk was warm and probably had too much butter fat. Vegteables? I would have had to bring a can opener to have a vegetable. Fruit was something you embedded in Jello. Sometimes it was better though and I got Spam.

And yeah I walked to school--more than a mile.

Oh, the deprivation.

(I am trying to find a way to blame my mother's lunches on Michelle Obama. I am sure some of our commenters find a way, even though this started for me in 1951.)

Saint Croix said...

No way Obama wins North Carolina this time around. This story, in and of itself, will kill him here.

Danno said...

Meade said...
'healthy' school lunch: .......$1.25

government provided condom: ....... no charge


Your comment ....... priceless!

Cincinnatus said...

We've allowed our children to be educated by those least qualified to do so - the products of the education academia.

The education academia consistently produces the lowest IQ, least competent, pack of morons of any branch of academia.

And this is going to really bite us in the ass as a society soon.

Cody Jarrett said...

Someone should tell Chips Ahoy that the sandwich was made on that whole wheat bread that looks like white bread so the kids will eat it (read the story. It's in there). Someone should also tell him there was a banana in the lunch.

Someone should tell Freeman Hunt that it's not just one person doing something stupid. If she bothered to read any of the follow up articles, she'd find that it's common practice, and now parents are coming forward about it where they didn't before because of certain government issues.

F4GIB said...

Never give in to these Nannys. Not even by a trival gesture like "throw in a carrot."

Like cockroaches, their idiocy cannot withstand the sunlight of publicity. Let their OWN conduct make them an object of public ridicule. No "public servant" likes to be laughed at. Ridicule does work, especially when they bring it all uopn themselves.

F4GIB said...

There is an upside and a downside to everything.

Economic opportunity for women pulled all (most) of the top-flight women who used to become teachers out of the schoolroom and into the business world at greater salary, etc.

The gap was filled by women of lesser ability and by men of lesser ability (who used to be sub-middle "managers" doing repetative tasks). So we really have "dumbed down" the elementary and secondary education systems. If you can't perform, you really do need a strong union.

Opportunity for some, a problem for our children.