Lunchtime memories

When I was a kid, in a sleepy Southern town long ago and far away, lunchtime was more than a kidfest of chicken nuggets and ketchup.  It hadn’t yet evolved to the fast food extravaganza that many kids here in D.C. enjoy, but it was significantly better than my grandmother’s sandwich-in-a-pail option.

My school, like yours, participated in the free lunch progam.

Now, I wasn’t a direct participant in free lunch, so this isn’t going to be a heartwarming story of how free lunch was my only hot meal of the day, and the nutrition helped me grow up strong, or grow up, period, but I do want to remind us all that those words are cliche for a reason.

Hot lunch at the school cafeteria — whatever you think of its taste or quality — IS the main meal of the day for thousands of kids, and it HAS saved children’s lives. 

So many kids out there don’t get enough quality, nutritious food to eat at home, for one simple reason — money.

They don’t get fresh vegetables at home.

They can’t pick fresh fruits from their garden.

They need nutritious, healthy food to eat, and they need it every day.

That’s where the school lunch program — which provides breakfast and lunch at free or reduced prices for kids who need it — comes in.  It’s a simple fact of life in today’s world, and it may go unnoticed by many of us not in the schools every day, but it is a vital part of our nation’s safety net for kids.

And today, I want to celebrate the free lunch program.

Because I remember growing up in a sleepy Southern town, lining up for lunch with the rest of my class, and wondering why some kids carried little manila punch cards with them as they stood at the front of the line (always the front of the line!), to be marked loudly when the child went to pay.  I remember the grateful look on their faces as the kids filled their trays with good food and walked to the table.  I remember how we all laughed and talked loudly together over our food until the teachers, smiling, made us hush.

I remember when a kid in my class asked why some kids got those special envelopes on the first day of school, full of punch cards and stigma.  I remember the teacher answering kindly, and then moving on to another topic.  I remember being reassured that somehow, “the government” made sure that my friends and I got enough to eat.

I remember.

And I am still grateful that there is this safety net for kids.

There’s a new web site out there that celebrates school lunch!  Check out School Menu and its parental counterpart Family Everyday, two sites that work together with School Food Services Directors to provide and promote healthy eating and physical fitness for kids and their parents. 

When PBN sent me the above links, I have to admit that I was intrigued.  I spent some time on the sites, and there’s a neat feature that I was particularly impressed with — a hotlink to school menus in districts all over the country!  Since big media like The Washington Post don’t cover such things anymore, this is an excellent way to check out the week’s menu and choose what days your kid will eat the cheese pizza or hot paninis … and avoid the “mystery meat.” 

Do they still call it “Chef’s Choice?”

Perfectly Good

 Review: Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, by Ann Dunnewold

Step away from the laundry.  Put down the dishrag.  Drop the mop.

Oh, and while you’re at it, walk away from the Brainy Baby Einstein DVDs and take the baby out of his Little Gymani.  Peel yourself out of the minivan for a morning, and give yourself a break from testing little Ella for Fancy Preschool. 

Hand out the sippy cups, take the kids outside to play, and settle in for a few minutes with a good book — like the recently released Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, by Ann Dunnewold.  I recently received a copy of this book from Parent Bloggers Network, and, frankly, it was just what I needed.

Too often we get caught up in overachieving in our lives, and it is really hard to step away and get perspective. When I worked in an office, this was certainly true.  I was so determined, and so dedicated to living that dream, that I lost sense of what else was important in my life.  I was so single-minded in the pursuit of success that the rest of my life was falling by the wayside.

Every now and then  I’d step back and realize that I was pouring my whole self into work and stressing myself out trying to achieve the impossible. 

Now that I’m home with the kids and consulting when I can, I should be enjoying myself, delighting in their every coo and cry, and laughing along with my toddler at newly-discovered worms in the garden.  Right?  Right?  Well, most of the time I do.  But sometimes I still get stressed out.  About the house.  About the laundry.  About the lawn that needs to be cut and the hair that needs to be trimmed and the baby that just does. not. stop. nursing.  There’s so much to do, and it’s so hard to do it all perfectly.

That’s where this book comes in.  Dunnewold has written a book that may just be a survival guide to parenthood.  She discusses the recent spate of Perfect Parenting books, as well as the Slacker Mom rebuttals, and reminds the reader that it wasn’t always thus.  Back in June Cleaver’s day, although the house may have been perfectly clean and Wally and the Beav mostly washed and well-fed, were things really as perfect as they seemed?

Did you ever see June Cleaver down on the floor, playing with her kids?

I didn’t.  Although her kids were older when the sitcom was filmed (hello - this should have been a major clue), I just didn’t see her out with the boys much, enjoying them.  She was almost always shown in the kitchen, cooking, or sitting in the den with their father after dinner.  Enjoying herself?  Perhaps.  But she wasn’t perfect.  And we don’t have to be perfect either.

Ann Dunnewold is a practicing therapist who encourages her clients to cut themselves some slack in their relentless pursuit of being a good mom, a good wife, a good worker, and a good person.  Not the perfect mother.  A perfectly good mother. 

I’ve toted this book up and down stairs over the past few weeks, reading the lessons over and over in between playing Little People and washing raspberries for yet another snacktime, trying to convince myself that it’s okay sometimes to let things go.  To take a day off from the laundry, and picking up after the whirlwind that is Widget.  It’s hard.  I want things to be perfect.  I want to feel that I left work for a reason, and that I’ve got everything under control at home.  But perfection is impossible.  And that’s why we need to let it go, and concentrate on the things that make a difference, and just do what we can on the rest of it.  I’m not convinced yet.  But I am intrigued.  And I’m going to keep reading this book and thinking about how I’m “doing motherhood” until I’m at peace about it.

This review has also been posted at Review Planet and highlighted at Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer.