- Image via Wikipedia
This post is not what you think. I am not going to sit here and give you great ideas for healthy snacks. Perhaps another time will be more fitting. No today I am going to complain! At school the kids are in a healthy eating program. They are supposed to bring in only healthy snacks for the rest of the year. To be honest this in no way worries me because I always send in fruit and water or a juice box. I tend to lean to the healthier snacks. Here is where my annoyance arises.
The other day I was speaking with another mother, OK it was my sister in law, but she is still a mother. She had said a friend of hers had recieved a phone call from the nurse. I had assumed that this phone call meant that her children, who are in the same grades as my children, had cooties or something. I listened carefully to find out what is going around so that I could try and avoid it. Kids get the nastiest things you know.
The mother continued to tell me that she received this call from the nurse and that it was to lecture her on sending in healthy snacks. I was appalled. This is a single mother with two kids. Her kids get free breakfast and free lunch. She is currently on food stamps while in college trying to rebuild her life. Is this really what the nurse had to say? My sister in law’s friend told the nurse to feel free to buy her kids a healthy snack. She explained that they were on food stamps and that she has a limited amount of money to feed them a month. She expressed that junk cost a whole lot less and if she were to spend more money on the healthy snacks she may not be able to feed them dinner for the whole month.
I am not sure what the nurse had to say after this point. There are a few things that I was thinking about though!
- The first is that this mother who is trying to make a better life then had to explain it all to the school nurse because she sent her kids into school with a baggie of chips?
- The second thing that came to my mind is that she is 100% right. It is very expensive to eat healthy. While eating healthy should not be based on income it so is.
- The third thing that I was thinking about is why does the school sell bags of chips if they are not a healthy enough snack option?
- The fourth thing that I was thinking is why doesn’t the school nurse have anything better to do with her time? Is her job really so lame that she has to call and harass a mother who is struggling to make it?
I am glad that I have not gotten a call. I pack a healthy snack everyday anyway. I just think that we are free Americans and if we want our kids to eat chips for snack we should be aloud! How would you handle it if you received a call like this?
Becca
Related articles by Zemanta
- 10 Tips for Parents With Regard to Obesity in Childhood (articlesbase.com)
- Tough choices for America’s hungry (cnn.com)
- Struggling for food, looking for work (cnn.com)
- Blog: Living on Food Stamps (cnn.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9ff42fe6-7231-42a9-b5e5-f6e394d50ea3)
Honestly…
This sort of thing gets under my skin. I agree with the whole concept in theory. I think families should be encouraged to do the best they can whether it be nutrition, homework, communication… but if I want to send my kid to school with a Big Mac and an extra large order of fries and a super sized Coke then I will. My family. My kid. My business.
I assume she was sending in snacks for just her own child? Then, she should be able to send whatever she wants.
And if she has to send them for the whole class, they need to stop that practice. I am with you!
KathyB. I could not agree more. When is enough enough. Here is a woman STRUGGLING to feed her kids. Does she really need this extra harassment? I think we should be aloud to send what we want for our kids to eat for lunch!
Becca
Debbie the annoying part is that it is just what she is sending in for her own child. I can see if it were for the class but it is not. Oh and that reminds me… cupcakes are still fine! What is the difference?
Becca
That’s terrible that the nurse called this mom, especially since the mom is struggling with money. The nurse should mind her own business. My mom was in the same situation when I was a child. She robbed Peter to pay Paul to support my sister and I. We never did have very much growing up. Though she did seem to send healthy snacks to school for us. We weren’t’ aloud to have junk food or pop. That’s probably why I have such a huge sweet tooth as an adult. I’m making up for lost time. LOL!! Hope things get better for your sister in-law.
I would have gone mental had I gotten a call like that. I’m in the same boat as your sister-in-law and junk is just about all I can give the kids (although I try to get in some fresh and healthy stuff if I have a little extra) and if it had been me, I would have asked the stupid bint if she was willing to finance said healthy eating and if not, told her to get her huge nose out of my business.
I’m glad you haven’t gotten the call but give your sister-in-law a hello and a hug from me, sounds like she needs it!
Seph
xx
Wowzee … As smug as I sometimes feel about the healthy snacks I hunt down for my child and all the things I don’t feed him, I can not believe anyone — much less a school nurse — would judge another mother for what she gives her child to eat. I am stunned.
The saddest part of all this to me is the very fact that it costs so much more to eat healthily in this country. Thanks, Congress, for all the soy and corn subsidies. Thanks, capitalism and big chain stores for putting “food” on the shelves that is processed and easy to transport and hard to turn into healthy energy. And thanks whoever decided that it is a sign of what a great country this is that Americans spend substantially less on food than Europeans.
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to spend way too much money shopping at the local grocery store that doesn’t carry any foods with ingredients like high fructose corn syrup. But every time I fork over that money I shudder and hope that the time won’t come when I am forced to troll the aisles of a regular grocery store reading labels as I examine price tags.
If she wants to send them a bag of candy, it’s her business. Nobody else’s. She’s doing the best she can and I applaud her for sticking to her guns.
Hey it is not my sister-in-law but her friend! I think that you are all right that it is not the schools business and a 28 year old woman with two children in school to be a nurse did not need a lecture from the school nurse about what her kids should be having for snack!
Becca
It is sad that it costs more to eat healthy than to not eat healthy. And while I hope the nurse had good intentions, I don’t think you need to be calling people to harangue them about what they give their child for snack! I mean, for all she knows, the snack at school is the one time a day they get a “treat” or something.
On the surface- hurray for the school nurse to be involved with the children of her school. Obesity is probably the number one health concern for the school nurse and it is her job to monitor and educate. However, isn’t this just another way that “big-brother” is watching?
Seems to me that the issue here is “tact and professionalism.” If approached in regards to how can I help instead of beating Moms over the head with the ways they should be parenting (based on someone elses judgement) is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Empathy- a lost character trait?
Peggie you are right that it is a matter of how this was handled. It was more of a lecture to this mom then an offering to help. I just think that if big brother feels he has to watch so much perhaps he should start helping as well!
Becca