Last week I was honored when Parenting.com’s Mom Congress blog asked me to contribute a couple blog posts about my experience as Mrs. Q. Here’s is the first in a series, which ran on Wednesday last week:
Mrs Q on Becoming an Accidental Activist
Life has a way of surprising you. School lunch was not on my radar during the first few years I worked as a speech-language pathologist for Chicago Public Schools. Even though I passed the cafeteria every day, I didn’t even peek in to see what was happening. I was just focused on my work with students with speech impairments.
For me, becoming a parent changed my view of children. And when my son was making that scary transition at one year of age when he started getting all of his nutritional needs met through real food, I really started thinking about food in a way I never had before. The food I had in my house had to be the best.
During that same period, getting myself, my son and my husband ready for work and childcare in the morning was stressful and crazy. One day I just wasn’t able to find time to pack a lunch, and I ended up running out of time to pack myself something. I figured it was no big deal—there was a cafeteria at work, and I’d just buy school lunch like the kids…
[Read the rest on their blog…]
Amazing!!! I ran a preschool for a while and made sure as much of the food was whole grain, organic fresh produce, fat-free dairy and lean meats. I was often surprised that parents would drop off kids eating a donut or cookie when I had seasonal berries, fresh yogurt and whole-grain muffins waiting for them for breakfast.
My son is 4 1/2 and has always eaten well at home. He LOVES the meals we cook at home, but often barely picks at the food prepared by his preschool. Your blog has given me the incentive to enquire whether I could just send something different for him to eat. I pack lunches for my husband and I each night, I could simply do the same for him.
so what! it doesnt matter how healthy the lunch is the kids do not have time to eat it! I am so sick of hearing about this quit putting more burden on the schools by having to buy all the extra fresh food that gets thrown away and instead give them more time to eat it,and btw I saw sevrel of her so called bad lunch pichures and they was not bad ,looked good to me heck they was better then what I get eat half the time for lunch