We’ve been talking about the difference between parents and schools in upper middle class towns v. middle class towns. Here’s another difference for the list — the cookie police.
Ian’s birthday is next week. When it’s Jonah’s birthday, I drop lift a couple dozen Dunkin Donuts at his school and drive away. Ian is bussed to the upper middle class school district. For Ian’s birthday, I’ve been given a list of "acceptable foods." This list includes air popped popcorn and carrot sticks. NO CUPCAKES! NO DUNKIN DONUTS!
My buddy in the super rich school district on Long Island was telling me about a recent Board of Education meeting where parents were demanding the same rigid food codes that Ian has.
I love my friend, but she’s a food Nazi. She said, "Laura, can you believe that one woman got up and said that if the school forced parents to only bring in brown bread for lunch, her kids wouldn’t eat anything. What woman feeds her kids white bread in this day and age." Um… Raising my hand.
She said, "On the 100th day of school, the kindergarten teacher had them lick a lollypop 100 times. Why a lollypop? Couldn’t they have counted buttons?"
She really believes that nutrition should be part of the curriculum and that kids should be taught that cupcakes and donuts are evil things.
Fingernails on a blackboard.
I want my school to teach my kid how to add and how to read. I don’t want anybody telling me what I should feed my kid. My kids are doing just fine, thank you. They get their fruits and vegetables everyday and a donut doesn’t ruin their appetite. They have no cavities and are slim and muscular.
What’s so difficult about moderation?
Apt. 11d 
Sorry, I disagree with you about the cookie police. I have no problem giving my kids sweets in moderation also, but different families have different policies.
If a large number of families are parenting in a “reasonable” way, I see no problem limiting what you can bring to hand out at school, so that you are not undermining other people’s parenting. They have a “no sweets” policy, but you don’t have an “only sweets” policy.
No one is preventing you from giving Ian donuts for breakfast, dinner, or all weekend.
My oldest daughter went to a Jewish pre-school, where only dairy meals were permitted (no meat), no peanut butter was allowed (a kid had an allergy), and during Passover no bread was allowed.
Have you ever tried to feed a 4-year old kid lunch without bread, most grains, meat, or peanut butter? But really, it was just one meal a day, and you dealt with it. At home, you can do whatever you want, and you don’t interfere with other peoples’ parenting.
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I have no problem limiting what you can bring to school to share — I’d have some issues with them telling you what you can send for your own kid. But like Ragtime, N goes to a Jewish preschool, and they don’t allow meat..
T (my husband) actually sort of likes that the preschool doesn’t allow you to bring in home-baked goods to share (everything has to be nut free and with a kosher hecksher, which basically limits you to Entemenns). He says it reduces competitive parenting. It makes me a little sad not to be able to make cupcakes.
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My oldest kid went to a Jewish pre-school, too. Their policy was meat, but no dairy. Yeah, it was really tricky.
Couldn’t the parent who was anti-treats, just tell the teacher that his/her kid shouldn’t have the donut? Couldn’t parents take a vote in each class about the treat policy? Should parents be dictating what is in another kid’s lunchbox?
I don’t think it is a majority of parents who want the “no treats” policy. It may just be a vocal minority.
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I want my school to teach my kid how to add and how to read. I don’t want anybody telling me what I should feed my kid.
How about telling your kid that alcohol will kill you? Or, that using a plastic grocery bag is evil. Or, teaching middle schoolers how to protect themselves during anal sex. Or, that President Bush is an idiot. All these are recent examples in schools around here. You might agree on one or more of these, but many other parents would object.
I tend to agree with you on this one, but that train has left the station. The schools in New York are mandated to teach “character education”, and certainly are already imposing their values upon our kids.
Sorry to turn this into another public school bashing rant, but I found it hard to resist.
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I don’t think the Jewish preschool is a good example to present in support of this issue, since it was a school you chose for your child. (I’m making that assumption, but I stand corrected if that is wrong.)
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About the clash of parenting styles. I’m teaching my kids that there are tasty, yummy things out there in the world, but that they are best eaten in moderation. The same goes for alcohol. One glass of wine is actually good for you, but guzzling down a bottle or two is dumb. I believe that teaching kids that booze is all bad or that donuts are always the work of the devil is 1)scientifically false and 2)not teaching them how to moderate themselves when they leave our homes. So, a draconian “no sweets” policy undermines what I’m teaching at home.
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Couldn’t the parent who was anti-treats, just tell the teacher that his/her kid shouldn’t have the donut? Couldn’t parents take a vote in each class about the treat policy? Should parents be dictating what is in another kid’s lunchbox?
No, no, and not relevant.
It strikes me as particularly cruel to say that everyone but Jimmy gets a donut. I don’t think “majority vote” is the way to go either — being in a community means dealing with minority viewpoints, and we all make some sacrifices to help out some other families.
And based on the examples, you gave, no one is telling you what to put in Ian’s lunchbox, just what Ian can give to other kids. Your examples don’t really discuss any limitations on what he can bring to eat himself.
Let’s turn it around. Why is it important to you to be able to send candy to school?
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O.K., so they have a meddling list of approved snacks. What happens if you send in something not on the list, such as, *gasp*, a cookie? I would lay my money on nothing, if it’s anything like our school. Upper middle class schools and parent bodies love to make rules. It’s the enforcement which trips them up, because that would move the teachers and administrators into (unnecessary) conflict with well educated parents. The hard core parents who will actually follow rules bug out to private schools, where their kids can be kicked out for breaking a rule.
By the way, the public schools are all about undermining parenting. I can’t buy the argument that this is to preserve some sort of parenting truce.
My daughter’s school recently instituted a “no cupcakes” policy. This is ridiculous on several grounds, one of them being the dearth of plump kids at our high SES school. Girls who might have anorexia outnumber plump kids by a wide margin. Note for those who have young children: as your children progress in school, if at all possible, try to prevent the anorexic mothers from dominating the Wellness Committee. Mind you, our lunch room does sell sweet drinks and popsicles at lunch. If it provides revenue for the school, it’s magically healthy? Whatever.
In spite of what the policies say, middle schoolers are bringing pound bags of candy to school, and distributing it to friends. The teachers have to be aware of this, but no student’s gotten into trouble. This is the problem with passing bad laws: no one with an ounce of sense obeys them, and at some point, an attempt to enforce them looks silly.
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No dairy at a pre-school? I’d rather have the no meat. He’ll eat pasta with only red sauce 7 days a week. But without giving him cheese and yogurt, it would be a struggle.
At daycare (1-2 year olds), we told them not to give our son the cupcakes that people brought in for the birthdays. It wasn’t that big of a deal b/c we pick-up about an hour and a half to two hours before everybody else. We’ve since given the go ahead for treats, but we didn’t want him to start on the sweets too early. We wanted to wait until we’d gotten him more used to eating a variety of vegetables and until he was older (for fear of starting a food allergy). We started with cookies at Easter.
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It’s not important to me to send candy to school. It is important to me to have the freedom to raise my kids the way I want and for the majority to have the same freedom.
(And for the record, nobody in my family really likes treats all that much. I’m going to throw away a pile of chocolate bunnies from Easter, because nobody is eating them.)
These policies are going beyond the class party situation to making rules about each kid’s lunchbox. The SD in LI wants to make a rule that parents can’t use white bread on sandwiches.
I’m patient with the demands of the minority on many issues. For example, Ian’s school has a no peanut policy, even in his lunchbox. Ian is starting to turn against lunchmeat and has been crying for peanut butter sandwiches. He hasn’t been eating his sandwiches and is coming home hungry. Being a highly picky eater is part of his disability. He’s actually better than other kids in his class, but the lunchmeat thing is becoming a problem. Still, I do think that the one kid in his school (if there is even one) who has the severe peanut allergy has needs that outweigh my kid’s needs. And I am working very hard to work around that. Every day, I have to experiment with new foods to see what will work out.
However, if I think that a minority’s demands are unreasonable and interfere with my parenting philosophy, then I have the right to protest.
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Regulating what gets sent from home in lunchboxes seems a bit over the top to me. (As others have noted, making restrictions on what can be given to *other* kids is open season.)
That said, I personally very much appreciate the school telling everyone: no bags of cheez-its from Costco for snack. No fats, no dessert stuff. When it’s your child’s birthday they can bring donuts or cupcakes, but only on their birthday. It relieves me of having to be the awful parent — and it’s a total relief, because my youngest daughter is the biggest kid in her class. I don’t want to single her out any more than she’s already being singled out.
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In first and second grade they ask that you bring a new book as gift to the class on the child’s birthday. The child reads it to the class (or the teacher does). The birthday celebration doesn’t revolve around food that way.
Since that classroom is a combo team taught class, there are 36 students (3 teachers). If every kid brought cupcakes there would be 36 cupcake days per year. Then there is Valentines, Halloween, etc.
It’s frankly not that big of deal to me, but I can see the argument against it.
There is an approved snack list. It does include oatmeal cookies. Bagels and cream cheese. Apples and dip. So there are some treat like foods, but they at least have some sort of healthy component.
I am appreciative of the snack list because there were parents that were bringing red Power Aid and a pack of Cheez Its for snack. A lot of parents. Once in awhile I don’t care, 3 days a week and it’s a problem.
We are far from pristine eaters. We try to avoid high fructose corn syrup, excess fats, etc. in large quanities. But we still get plenty of crap. A case of girl scout cookies only lasted 2 weeks in our house.
If a parent wants to give their child white bread sandwiches filled with pixie sticks and butter, I don’t care. It doesn’t make them a bad parent. I just don’t want my kid to get that several days a week from someone else.
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Once you get on the sugar train, it’s awfully hard to get off. With my oldest, she used to love bagels. That was until she discovered muffins, at which point she didn’t want bagels any more. (Home-made or upscale store muffins can be very good nutritionally, but convenience store muffins are almost always members of the cupcake family.) Likewise, once a child has experienced sugary cereal, plain Cheerios lose a lot of their glamour. I’m not an anti-sugar freak (the kids get ice cream or cake practically every night), but preschools and schools are practically dealing. With our preschool and pre-K, I had the distinct impression that lollipops were part of the behavior modification regime (be good and you’ll get a lollipop at the end of the day!). I’m still seeing a lot of candy coming home in pre-K for birthdays and holidays, but I’ve wised up and started dumping about half the hard candies and lollipops that come home. My oldest doesn’t notice, since the quantities are so vast. Hard candy just has no redeeming value whatsoever, so I don’t think it has a place in our diet. I’m also hardline on sticky gummy sweets, including things like raisins.
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Make that “I’m still seeing seeing a lot of candy coming home in kindergarten.”
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Upper middle class schools and parent bodies love to make rules.
…
Note for those who have young children: as your children progress in school, if at all possible, try to prevent the anorexic mothers from dominating the Wellness Committee.
Hilarious, but true. I feel like these policies are encouraging disordered eating. I want my kids to realize that sweets are ok occasionally, especially for special occasions. A birthday is a special occasion! Having kids eat carrot sticks and rice cakes to celebrate a birthday sounds like the makings of an after-school special. Don’t forget the DexaTrim chasers!
Between these sorts of policies and homework being treated as desirable in “good” schools, I’m really, really glad that we stayed in the city schools.
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Whoops, that was supposed to be “homework for first-graders.”
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Pretty intense set of comments, Laura. I’m with you. Interesting, actually, ’cause it’s another version of the interaction between school & home and how they influence each other. I also think we have a value we’re trying to teach that’s harmed — we believe dunkin donuts (or in our case top pot) is OK in moderation, that one allows oneself experiences of many sorts, in moderation.
I think I’m consistent in my belief that schools should have little say about what the kid’s bring for themselves, ’cause I think school is a place where people get exposed to the different choices different people make.
I don’t have a problem with what they teach my kids about food in school, as long as it’s accurate. I think with young kids, we can’t really expect kids to avoid the things their parents object to when they are offered at school. But, at some point that stops being true, and it becomes the kid’s responsibility to refuse, rather than the school’s responsibility to police access.
I don’t know what to do with the group snack question — frankly, I don’t think schools should ask families to bring in group snacks. To me, group snacks, mean giving up control. I hate remote-control of other’s behavior. You can make your opinion known. but telling other people what to do seems crossing a line.
I find it interesting how fraught these food choices are, and am really interested in learning how childhood food habits will affect people’s adult choices.
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Our school has a policy of grouping birthdays by month, with May/June celebrated at the end of May and July/August celebrated just after school starts in August. As a summer-birthday girl, I like the way this policy includes all kids, and as a parent, I like that this policy limits in-class group treats to one day a month.
I think there’s a difference between a policy about foods served to all children (i.e., birthday treats) and foods served in lunch boxes. I think there’s nothing wrong with the idea that the community makes certain group choices about group foods, even if some parents feel judged. I still run into parents aghast that we let our kids eat the cafeteria lunches — all those processed foods! the tater tots! the horror! But I also have two kids with peanut allergy and I think it’s just common courtesy, on a day when you’re celebrating birthdays, to make some marginal effort to include all the kids in the celebration. If that means no dunkin donuts, it seems like a small price to pay.
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Yeah, Siobhan, I have the same feeling about birthdays celebrated with carrot sticks & rice cakes (and my kids like carrot sticks & rice cakes). It feels like we’re trying to kill all the joy in their lives. Kumon, carrot sticks, and then ACL injuries from high pressure soccer.
If you’ve figured out a way to make your kid’s eyes light up with carrot sticks — hey, fine.
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To be clear, two of our kids’ classrooms welcome cupcakes, one explicitly bans them. We eat a lot of sugar and I don’t really care what my kids eat in school, because it’s one meal a day and the stray cheetoh that another kid’s parent sent in as a “healthy” group snack isn’t going to kill them. But I don’t have any trouble with the classrooms where unacceptable group snacks are sent back home, either.
What I like about limiting the birthdays is the way it limits the stress of considering all these rules.
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I think there’s nothing wrong with the idea that the community makes certain group choices about group foods, even if some parents feel judged.
I actually agree with this completely. I can accept that at school my kids will learn lessons I might not agree with — like processed sugar is a NEVER, OH MY GOD NEVER food — and that I can counter it at home, just like I expect other parents to do with other issues.
What I object to are framings like this:
“If a large number of families are parenting in a “reasonable” way, I see no problem limiting what you can bring to hand out at school, so that you are not undermining other people’s parenting. They have a “no sweets” policy, but you don’t have an “only sweets” policy.”
It’s one thing to say, “Hey, I have a position about what shouldn’t be given out at school, and I’m going to advocate for it.” It’s another to claim that your restrictions aren’t really restrictions at all, and that my children aren’t being taught anything by your restrictions. You are undermining my parenting, in which I do my best to make sure my kids don’t attribute moral weight to what does and doesn’t pass through their lips. Hey, it’s public school: having my parenting undermined occasionally comes with the territory. But the “food nazi” position isn’t neutral and uniformly harmless, and it irks me to hear people claim otherwise.
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I think you are conflating two different things:
(A) rules that prohibit what you can send you kids for lunch (the prohibition on white bread hasn’t actually passed, I assume — and the examples given are either to apply kosher rules, or to ban peanuts for kids with allergies).
(B) rules that prohibit what you can pass out to other kids (no donuts for birthdays).
It reads to me like you are taking more outlandish proposals from (A) as support against (B), but there’s really a difference. Comments like “You are undermining my parenting, in which I do my best to make sure my kids don’t attribute moral weight to what does and doesn’t pass through their lips” is applicable to (A), but not to (B), and (B) is really what prompted the post.
I just don’t see how it is undermining your parenting to prevent what you can give to other people’s kids.
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I just don’t see how it is undermining your parenting to prevent what you can give to other people’s kids.
Surely you understand that kids find out about these policies, at least in families with less obsessive approaches to food? It’s certainly going to come up when I hand my kid a bag of celery sticks to take in as his birthday “treat”.
And surely you understand that the message that cupcakes are so bad that one isn’t allowed to bring them to school for one’s birthday would impact a child?
I mean, sure, I could talk to my child about frightened parents and cyclical nutritional fads, etc., but all an 7-year-old is going to absorb is that the authority figures at his school, which he loves, think sweets=BAD.
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Allergy and other medical restrictions are important, but they tend to add up. We can’t send any peanut products with either girl because of other students with allergies. Now autistic youngest has a classmate with juvenile diabetes and we’re not sending sweets for sharing snacks. The teacher has recently stepped in to provide a birthday snack suitable for all in that small class so as to relieve the problems of trying to cater to all of the special needs students’ sensitivities and allergies. Eldest has gotten beyond the birthday treats phase, thank goodness.
But given all of the regulations combined with dietary issues of our own means that there are fairly few foods we can send with the girls to school. When I pick them up after three, the first order of business is to get home for something to satisfy their hunger. (Forbidden peanut butter, yum!)
Frankly, if someone has the time to kvetch about what I send with my kids for their lunch? I’d tell them to go and get a life!
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I’ve been following the school posts with interest, but I have to comment on bj’s query about how to make your kid’s eyes light up at the sight of carrot sticks. The other evening, while I was peeling carrots for the next day’s crock pot beef stew, my 5 1/2 year old thought it was great fun to sneak some for herself. Seriously, you’d think she was nabbing cookies from the cookie jar from the look of delight on her face. I know, an oddball that girl.
This is not to brag about my oh-so-healthy kid. The carrots followed a dessert of leftover birthday cake with buttercream frosting (we have dessert for dinner most nights), and we are far from food nazis. But I feel like, by offering lots of healthy options at every meal, enough treats to make them feel like the kids they are, and an occasional happy meal without wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, we’re teaching them that food is meant to be both enjoyable and healthy, and enjoyable even when it is healthy. So basically, carrots = yum, chicken = yum, funny looking soup = yum, and cupcakes (though remember you can’t eat them all the time) = yum.
I’m guessing that what’s really bothering Laura is not the lost autonomy, but the feeling that schools are trying to regulate rationality out of kids’ diets in a way that’s harmful in the long run.
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Now brussel sprouts, on the other hand, even I can’t get them to eat those.
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Our school district implemented a wellness policy for snacks last year and at first I hated it (for all the reasons you mentioned)…but now I am finding I like it.
Our school is a very low-income school and almost of the stuff that came in on snack day was very processed junk food. A bag of potato chips is a lot cheaper than 15 apples. I’m fine with potato chips once in a while, but for snack every day, it got old.
But our policies are only for shared food. You can send whatever you want in a lunch box.
I think there is a happy-medium to all of these policies.
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My kid came home from school in spare clothes today. Apparently he vomited all over himself at lunch today, because he has a weak gag reflex and his sandwich grossed him out seriously today. I just fed him two peanut butter sandwiches. Am I really pissed off by the anti-peanut butter policy at his school today? Oh, yeah. Tomorrow he has a class trip and I have to pack a bag lunch that will be unrefridgerated. I can’t pack peanut butter and I guess he’s turning against cream cheese. Will someone please tell me what my kid can eat?
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Yikes, Laura. When my daughter demands home lunch (which she does on hot lunch days involving tomato sauce), I send her either yogurt or a cream cheese and jam sandwich. I was sending her PBJ, until I discovered much later that the little boy she sits next to is allergic. The sweetest thing in the lunch will be unsweetened applesauce, which is my subtle way of saying, kid, if you want a cookie, you’d better get school lunch.
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Laura, have you tried SoyNut Butter? Our school instituted a peanut-free school lunch policy, and switched from bp&j sandwiches to SN&J sandwiches. My son with the peanut allergy won’t touch it because, “it smells just like peanut butter.”
Have you tried sandwiches made with deli meats, such as bologna, pastrami, turkey, cheese, etc? My sons have at times liked a swiss & pickle sandwich.
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Is almond butter ok? ‘Cause that’s quite yummy. There’s also sunbutter which is made from sunflower seeds and therefore no tree nuts. I know both those are available in the US.
Up here in Canada we also have a product (and it IS a product) called “pea butter” that is – yup – toasted, dry, ground peas with a TON of fat and sugar that approximates the experience of peanut better.
Anyways, those suggestions given – on the bigger issue I would have a real problem with the type of bread I use being regulated. For allergen control, sure. But just to make me feed my child the “healthy food du jour” – no.
For the class snacks it is a little more fraught. Our daycare has guidelines for snack day (each family sends one snack a week for 6 kids) and it says no sweets. I do appreciate that not because we keep sweets from my child (I agree with your moderation policy wholeheartedly) but because the TIMING of sweets midafternoon really is not good for my particular child, who then tends to meltdown at pickup.
I really like the birthday grouping approach.
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Would it be really bad to send Nutella sandwiches?
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Nutella sandwiches = yum.
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Group snacks, provided by parents, are a terrible, and dangerous, approach to allergies. Our school considered such a policy, and I made my objections known to the administration.
First and foremost, if a child is so allergic that eating the wrong food can mean injury or death, then I am not taking on the responsibility of feeding that child. If I had a child who were so allergic–and I do–I would not trust another family’s kitchen to be free of the allergen. Only the parent of an allergic child has the incentive to avoid the allergen. Even parents of food allergic kids make mistakes sometimes, and it’s unrealistic to expect other parents to exercise the needed caution.
If the school wants to avoid a tragedy, then the school must provide the snacks, from their industrial grade kitchen. Period.
Secondly, once one adds up all the allergies a class may have, we’re left with fairly bland food, goldfish and carrot stick, perhaps. As the school lunches are very bland, and mostly carbohydrates, I like to send in fruit and varied snacks to even out my child’s diet. If my child doesn’t need to eat a restricted diet, there’s no defensible reason, in my opinion, to restrict his choices. As our school requires two snacks and lunch each day, the food he eats in school is a significant portion of his diet.
Strangely enough, when someone (me) spoke up against the policy, it wasn’t put into place. If the school couldn’t saddle the parents with the expense and liability of group snacks, it wasn’t worth the fuss.
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The only place peanuts have been banned in our school is certain classrooms for group snack.
Could there be a peanut zone or peanut free zone in a lunch room? My little vegetarian kid would starve if it weren’t for peanut butter or cheese sandwiches in her lunch.
I understand parents who have severely allergic kids, but is there a half way point that can accomodate all children- finicky included?
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Marmite?
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Hummus? Cheese?
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My son is allergic to peanuts and walnuts. I am very blase about it, though, which is probably stupid, but it helps me sleep at night. At his school, kids are allowed to eat PB, and I have no objection. I just don’t want *him* to eat anything with peanuts or walnuts. They are very careful when it comes to snacks or group meals (the spring breakfast, for example). They are more careful than I am (who knew that the crunch in YoCrunch was made in a factory that manufactures peanut products?).
At my daughter’s school, which he’ll attend next year, they have peanut-free classrooms and peanut-free tables. I’m not 100% sure what peanut-free classrooms are, but I am guessing E will be in one.
My daughter’s lunch every day is: drinkable yogurt, saltines, and a snack of some sort, usually graham crackery things unless I’ve baked cookies. She doesn’t eat meat or PB. When she goes on a field trip, I send the drinkable yogurt anyway. *shrug* We have iron stomachs in my family.
Other options: hummus rollups? Sliced cheese (crappy American slices or tasty Cabot cheddar slices)? Yves vegie turkey or bologna? Hardboiled egg? A pesto pasta salad?
I love how I make all these suggestions AS IF my kids would ever eat them. They both go to bed easily and don’t dawdle in the morning and are somewhat well-behaved. But they eat crap. My husband and I have begged, pleaded, ignored, warned, etc. To no avail.
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String cheese, edamame, plain bread or tortilla, bread and jam, mac and cheese in a container?
I’m surprised at how many elementary schools require snacks. My first grader eats lunch at 10:50, then doesn’t eat again until she gets home about 3:15. She and the kids in her class seem to do fine with this schedule. We are permitted to send in treats on birthdays, however, and the holiday parties are veritable festivals of the hydrogenated and highly-fructated.
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I think some of what is going on at the schools is parents signalling what good care-givers they are. It’s like a MacLaren stroller. We give little Chloe only spring water bottled in glass in Northern Scotland, and certainly a Chicken McNugget will never cross her ruby lips…
It’s sort of a pisser, in my kids’ school – there has been a healthy food putsch, and now my boys are both wistful for the old days and my #2 (who doesn’t eat enough anyway) leaves the food on his plate. I’m going to switch to sending him in with a lunch from home, of stuff he will eat. You should listen to him – “healthy” applied to food is basically an expletive.
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I think McDonald’s is onto something with their sliced, peeled apples with small box of caramel sauce.
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My kids *love* sliced peeled apples and honey.
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Speaking of honey, I once encountered some incredible Greek yogurt at Marvelous Market in the DC area. It was plain yogurt (with all the fat possible, I bet), packaged with a small container of honey for stirring in. If you combined something like that with Wendy’s sliced apples, that would be an excellent lunch, with a lot of recreational value from all that stirring and dipping. In fact, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
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Amy P it was probably Fage greek yogurt, it’s so good. Honey is the most common but they also have strawberry, peach and if your lucky cherry.
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Just a thanks to all who honor the school requests for no PB when they ask for them. I am 45, have the PB allergy and in many ways am lucky to be here. Back in my days in elementary school, no one had heard of a PB allergy and no one would have dreamed of instituting any policy restricting it. It was dicey every day, and I had to do a great deal of moving seats in the lunchroom, self-policing, and just being lucky. My kids are PB fans, but they are very aware and careful around me and their schoolmates who have the allergy. I survived on jelly sandwiches (on white bread!) in grade school. Not the best, but I haven’t keeled over yet and am still fairly svelte.
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Just another vote for Soy-Nut Butter, here. I’m not a fan myself, but the Raggirls prefer it to Peanut Butter now that they had to switch for the boy with the allergies.
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I’m very surprised that schools anywhere have the kids share food. I’ve never heard of celebrating birthdays with group food at school. Are we talking about pre-school?
What your kid brings in his lunchbox is nobody’s business really. Just cut out all formal food sharing, and where’s the problem? If kids sneak food to each other, that’s kind of their problem. If parents are too uncomfortable with the lack of control that gives them over their child’s behavior, then they might have to home school them.
When I attended, there was lunch at school, and no snacks. Even elementary school. What is this approved snack list? Obviously I don’t have kids, but it’s only been about 15 years since I was sitting in public schools.
And I didn’t know that just sitting next to a kid eating peanut butter was enough to harm a kid with peanut allergy. If true, then I guess peanut-free schools are a necessity. But if the problem is secretly eating peanut butter from a classmate when you’re the one with the allergy, then I think the onus is on the allergic kid’s parents to take care of it, up to keeping them out of school if that’s the only way possible.
And food nazis annoy me as much as anyone, often because they often don’t know what they’re talking about.
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In the truly allergic (and peanut allergies are almost always either severe or non-existant), even the smell of peanuts/peanut butter can trigger key elements of the allergic reaction (constricting of bronchial tubes). I have it. Not pleasant.
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Would you be allowed to distribute the cupcakes if they were all wearing condoms?
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