“It doesn’t look like you ate any of your breakfast.” The student gave me a look as if to say, “Please don’t hassle me to eat any of that other food on my tray.” He then informed me that he ate the donut, and drank most of his chocolate milk. By this time I had given the “You’re going to be hungry in a half hour.” speech so many times I said, “Fine, but are you sure you don’t want to save the apple for later?” He shook his head, and ran off to class.
During my student teaching I had cafeteria duty for two weeks, and I saw enough food thrown away to feed hundreds of truly needy, hungry children. The students I observed tossing the majority of their breakfast in the trash were on the Free/Reduced Breakfast and Lunch Program offered to families with low incomes. 90 percent of the families at the school were eligible for the program. When I went to my supervising teacher to ask if there was anything I could do to get the students to eat the food and not throw it away, she said that it was useless to say anything. The boys and girls could not be made to eat if they didn’t want to. Not wanting to sound prejudice, or uncaring I said nothing. But, I was thinking ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? REALLY!
You see ... I was raised in a family of nine. My six brothers and sisters along with my parents lived in a small three bedroom, one bath home. My dad worked two or three jobs as needed to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. My mom stressed that wasting food was a sin. She didn’t have to worry about her children tossing their breakfast or lunch in the trash. At dinner we seldom had leftovers. I remember eating crackers with milk for breakfast. A peanut butter sandwich on bread heels, raisins, and a glass of milk was all I had to pack in my brown paper bag for lunch most days. Trust me, not one crumb was wasted.
I told my parents about the waste at the school, and asked them if there was public assistance when we were struggling many years ago. They said that there was assistance, but they didn’t want to use it. They made ends meet just fine. Plus, my mom worked in the welfare office for awhile, and she said she didn’t want to ”use” the system the way most of the recipients (ab)used it. She chose to have seven children so why expect others to pay for them.
When our government leaders claim no one has the right to limit the number of children a person can have, I want to say, “Fine, let that twenty-year-old drop out, that can’t seem to find a job, have her third child, but don’t raise my taxes to pay for her choice especially when I work forty hours a week to provide for my children’s well being, and they still come up on the short end of the deal because so much is expected of them.” The expectations of my children are that since they have parents that work they don’t qualify for ANY assistance for college, or special training, tutoring, or basically anything that would put them on a level playing field with some rich child.
