Lunch torture
Well that’s a thing I didn’t know was happening.
What is “lunch shaming?” It happens when a child can’t pay a school lunch bill.
In Alabama, a child short on funds was stamped on the arm with “I Need Lunch Money.” In some schools, children are forced to clean cafeteria tables in front of their peers to pay the debt. Other schools require cafeteria workers to take a child’s hot food and throw it in the trash if he doesn’t have the money to pay for it.
New Mexico has passed a bill outlawing that kind of bullying.
In some cases, cafeteria workers have been ordered to throw away the hot lunches of children who owed money, giving them alternatives like sandwiches, milk and fruit.
“People on both sides of the aisle were genuinely horrified that schools were allowed to throw out children’s food or make them work to pay off debt,” said Jennifer Ramo, executive director of New Mexico Appleseed, an anti-poverty group that spearheaded the law. “It sounds like some scene from ‘Little Orphan Annie,’ but it happens every day.”
Well let’s face it, the US fosters a culture that treats poor people as Losers and worse. Of course sadism is the result, and of course the sadism can be directed at children.
Lunch shaming can take a toll on the adults enlisted to carry it out as well as on children. A Pittsburgh-area cafeteria worker made national news when she quit her job rather than deny hot lunches to students.
Some school employees reach into their own pockets to pay for meals. Sharon Schaefer, a former chef at a high school in Omaha, said one cashier asked to be removed from her position because of the school’s “no money, no meal” policy. “She had been secretly paying for students’ meals,” Ms. Schaefer said, “and couldn’t afford to keep it up.”
So that’s heart-breaking.
One day perhaps, one of those kids will get a gun…..
Not a useful comment.
This is so punitive and destructive of the trust and security required for a adequate learning environment it leaves me near speechless. It’s actually horrifying.
“People, don’t you understand,
The child needs a helping hand,
Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day?
[…….]
Well, the world turns.
And a hungry little boy with a runny nose
Plays in the street as the cold wind blows,
In the ghetto,
And his hunger burns.”
(Mac Davis / Elvis Presley)
I remember being unable to afford lunch. No one even thought of giving us a hot lunch in those days if we couldn’t afford it. I would go onto the play ground and play tether ball by myself.
It is my personal opinion that children should not be charged for lunch in school. I would gladly have my tax dollars go to pay for lunch for some rich assholes kids if it meant that other kids would not have to go hungry (and just because the rich asshole is an asshole doesn’t mean his kid necessarily is).
Free lunches for all children would help the learning environment. Kids should not have to worry about such things. They have enough to do just learning.
Ophelia,
What about Acolyte’s comment?
RJW, I have a brother who used to do that whenever he got told off.
Seriously, though, it is true that the kind of public humiliation and unfair treatment these kids are receiving could cause some of them to strike back, and in a country where guns are sofeasy for youngsters to obtain – often just by looking in their parents bedside drawers, for example – the consequences could indeed be tragic. I do wonder if any of the teachers or catering staff have been verbally or physically attacked already over this Dickensian system.
Another potential outcome of shaming people already feeling – or being made to feel worthless is to drive them further into despair but causing them to direct their anger inwards rather than out, albeit with equally tragic consequences.
I agree with iknklast; school meals should be free, at least for those attending public (ie non fee-paying) schools. Without looking for any studies, I would hazard a guess that doing so would actually be cost-effective in as much as it would result in healthier and better educated kids meaning lower healthcare costs and better prospects for employment, less strain on the welfare system and higher tax revenues for starters. Then again, even if there were no financial benefits to be had, ensuring that the poorest in society at least get a meal shouldn’t even be up for debate, and anybody supporting this callous policy should be thouroughly ashamed of themselves – but I’ll wager they’re not.
Acolyte,
I was hoping that you would reply. Leaving your brother out of the conversation, anyone who makes that remark might have a point if he was protesting against double standards or unfair treatment.
You appear to agree with me.
RJW, I do agree that treating the poorest in society with such casual cruelty can reap unfortunate consequences, and that doing so in a country so steeped in gun culture and so flooded with firearms is a potential recipe for disaster.
I personally think your brevity and lack of context in your first comment left the meaning of it ambiguous, but I’m not going to second-guess Ophelia as to the cause of her own objection.
I was wondering what would have happened at my school had someone not been able to pay. Then I remembered that kids from low-income families got free meals. I have no idea what the threshold is but I just checked and it’s still a thing in the UK.
Myrhinne, I don’t think there’s a threshold as such, it depends on individual family circumstances such as income, number of dependent children, etc.. As a rule of thumb, any family receiving benefits (aside from family allowance, which every family with dependent children get automatically regardless of income), including working parents in receipt of family tax credits, qualify for free school meals.