When I was a child, everyone went to school with a packed lunch. It was interesting to see what everyone else had in his or her square, metal, cartoon-character lunch box or brown paper bag. Parents tried to give children nutritious lunches, but they were not at all nutritious by today's standards. The usual fare for my lunch was a peanut butter sandwich on white Wonder Bread, a cookie, carrot or celery sticks, and an apple. Then, I bought either white or chocolate milk with the nickel I brought from home. That was pretty much it from kindergarten through grade twelve. Sometimes I would get chipped beef with mustard. I would have loved to have had chips in there, too, but I rarely did. My mother did not write"mommy love" notes in my lunches as I did for my son; she probably never thought about it, but I knew she loved me.The packed lunch was proof!
In the cafeteria, lots of kids would finger and touch that bread, make holes in it and make dough balls with bread. There was a lot of touching,poking and playing with food; especially the bread.
In elementary school, we were not allowed to eat until we prayed as a group. This taught us the importance of being thankful for what we had. Many of our parents had grown up in the depression or during World War II. We knew that our food was good and eating with our classmates was great!
A kindergarten boy I knew, who just happened to be the only black child in a white classroom, had very loving parents in the 1970's. They were starting to understand how bad that white bread was and packed his school lunch with rich, whole-grain bread. He was ridiculed and mocked by the other children, because they thought that only black kids ate that kind of bread. They had never seen brown bread. (I think the parents gave in on that one, because he got so he did not want to eat in front of the others.)
Another kindergarten child in the 1970's, who happened to be one of my students with ADD and very sloppy handwriting, started bringing whole-grain bread on his sandwiches. His mother was trying to help his inattention with a change in diet. It was hard to respond seriously when he told me he had to eat brown bread to improve his handwriting.
When I packed my son's lunch in the 1990's, I would never have given him anything but whole-grain bread and there was often a "mommy love" note in the brown bag or lunch box. They had "lunchables" by this time, which, of course, he loved. When he went to middle and high school the mommy notes had to stop. Sometimes he packed and sometimes he bought his lunch. What he ate for lunch was a big deal to me and his father. Providing the lunch was an act of love, but he would have rather bought his lunch I am sure.
Now I teach in an urban elementary school and the free breakfasts and lunches given to our students have nothing but white bread in them. The kinds of foods that would have been very unusual treats years ago: pizza, chicken nuggets, burgers, etc. are standard fare for the children, but they still seem to like them a lot. I hear about the nutritious school lunches, but the only part that is nutritious,in my opinion, is the fruit.
The children touch all their food; slather it with condiments; and rip, roll and poke their bread. It is,literally, the breaking of break together.
They love lunch time and love to eat with their friends and...their teachers.Everyday students ask me to eat with them. I wish I could do it all the time, but,maybe, then it would not be so special, if I did.
Another thing, that is more special than pizza, chicken nuggets and burgers, and, probably, ranks up there with eating with the teacher is bringing a packed lunch from home. The delight on my students faces can be matched by little else, when they tell me they "packed" their lunch. There may be only a few children on any given day that bring a packed lunch. What a source of pride to bring something prepared by Mom to school in a lunchbox or brown paper bag! Sometimes the brown paper bag is actually a supplement to the school lunch. Sometimes, when I ask what is in there,I find it is often a very large bag of chips! The favorite at my school are the hot, red chips that get all over your hands,face,and clothes.the red mess seems to be a red badge that you got something out of the ordinary! So much for my romanticizing or fantasizing on the theme of a packed lunch!
Sweet story!
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