Confession: packing kids' lunches [1] isn't my bag (ha – see what I did there?). I've heard tales of parents who send their children to school with enviable, Instagram-worthy spreads, and a quick Pinterest search for "school lunch ideas [2]" confirms their existence. They pin creative, beautiful, munchable masterpieces: from cutout sandwiches to fruit "sushi" to artfully appointed, perfectly portioned bento boxes [3]. The meals are always healthy, always fresh, always prepared with care. And they're awesome, a lunchtime treat for the lucky recipients.
Unfortunately for my kids, I file those types of lunches under "ain't nobody got time for that." I always tuck a note into their lunchboxes [4], but that's about as creative as it gets. Typically they'll get a PB&J sandwich, maybe a bag of chips (mini rice cakes, if I'm feeling a particularly high level of Mom guilt that day), a string cheese or a tube of yogurt, and a piece of fruit. It's not exactly the nutritional gold standard to which all lunches should be held, but it isn't terrible. Or so I thought.
See, until recently, I believed that the only judgment my kids' lunches were facing was theirs (or my own, when my plain Jane offerings pale in comparison to the fancy Pinterest stuff). But then I started to see news story after news story about parents being reprimanded for the contents of their kids' lunchboxes [6]. In school cafeterias throughout the world, lunchroom monitors are peering over their proverbial glasses to see what kids are eating and then clutching their proverbial pearls. There are notes coming home [7], sanctimoniously informing moms and dads that their child's midday meal is not up to nutritional snuff, and they need to step their lunch game up . . . or else.
So now, not only do I feel obligated to live up to those cutesy, fun-to-eat Pinterest spreads, but I've also got to worry whether that chocolate-dipped granola bar I packed my kid is going to be deemed unworthy [9] by the Lords of the Lunchroom? Ugh. I don't recall the contents of my lunches as a child, except that they probably involved some bologna and fluorescent-orange cheese and a Capri Sun – not especially wholesome, but it was food, and I probably dumped half of it out anyway. Whether I ate it or not, I certainly don't remember anyone being particularly concerned about what it was. Sure, this was a hundred years ago in the '80s and '90s, but the kinds of things I brought to school then are the kinds of things my kids bring to school now. Only then, nobody gave a crap.
Lest we forget, these are the same schools that serve kids things like burgers and tater tots and chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese, which aren't any better nutrition-wise than those lunch meat sandwiches on white bread. Until they're serving food befitting a health spa, I'm pretty sure they don't have any business judging parents' choices. And no matter what we pack, we all have the same goal: for our kids to eat it. After all, what good is an organic cheese and alfalfa-sprout sandwich on whole grain bread if it goes directly into the trash?
If I send my kid to school with, say, Pixy Stix and a Mountain Dew, by all means, be concerned. But until then, I fully intend to keep packing the same type of standard, nonfancy, mediocre lunches that have sustained schoolchildren for decades.
Maybe I'll buy the 25-percent-less-sugar granola bars next time, but that's about it.