Time for Lunch

“Gemma’s mom, can you open this?” 

I smile and accept the proffered lunchable. I peel back the film and return it to the gap-tooth smiling girl across the table from me. She immediately starts making tiny cracker sandwiches as the other kids start to fill in the benches around us.

Today was the second time I have had lunch with my daughter, Gemma, this year. She is in kindergarten at a nearby elementary and, thank God, is happy and thriving there.

But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have anxieties at the beginning of the year, like every other parent who has sent their child to school, especially public school, for the first time. And many of my fears centered around the cafeteria.

In my mind’s eye, I pictured Gemma, just over 3 feet tall and tiny, struggling to carry this enormous thick, molded plastic cafeteria tray like the ones we had when we were kids (which, for the record, they don’t use anymore). Not knowing where to go or how to pay for her food. Not being able to open her milk, not liking her food... this was more than enough to give me palpitations. 

Of course, most of these things have not come to pass, partly because we have opted to pack her lunch every day. This is more due to her extreme pickiness than my paranoia. But sitting here today, despite the Happy Meal I brought for her that she is happily devouring, I start to see things that are making my heart pick up its pace nonetheless. 

The majority of Gemma’s class is purchasing their lunch from the cafeteria line. By the time they get to the table with their little styrofoam trays, they have maybe 15 minutes to eat. The lunch period is 30 minutes, but that 30-minute clock starts when they leave their classroom, and ends when they walk out of the cafeteria. To save time (I assume), they are given their ice cream on their lunch tray so, naturally, that is their first course. 

When I was in elementary, there was a different ice cream system in place: toward the end of the lunch period (which, my husband assures me, was longer; he says his was 45 minutes), the lunch monitors would go table by table, allowing the kids to take turns trekking to the Blue Bell ice cream chest against the wall where we would hand over our $0.25 (or, later, $0.50...inflation) and select our favorite ice cream. AFTER we had eaten our lunch. 

Now, I watch a tiny boy across the table from me (I’ll call him “David”) spend the first few minutes of what’s left of his lunch time painstakingly peeling slivers of slippery paper from an already half-melted ice cream sandwich. I resist offering help.... at first. After all, kindergarten is as much about learning independence as it is learning to read and write. But after 2 minutes or so I can’t stop myself. 

“Here, honey, let me help.” He readily hands me the dripping sandwich and I deftly unwrap it. My hope is that if he can eat this quickly, he will have at least a few minutes to eat his actual lunch. 

Another boy (“Caleb”) sits beside him, also eating his ice cream sandwich first. But while little David has finished his ice cream quickly (and accepted a few baby wipes from me), Caleb is taking longer. His unopened milk, cheese sandwich, and smiley fries are patiently waiting their turn. With maybe 5 minutes to spare before clean up, he finishes and attempts to open his milk. I watch, teeth clenched in worry over his agonizing slowness. I don’t wait 2 minutes to offer help this time. 

“Can I help you open your milk?” 

A shy shake of the head as he continues his struggle, never looking up. What can I do? He’s not my kid. 

At this point, David has, at least, eaten half his cheese sandwich. He had let me open his chocolate milk earlier. I breathe a little easier. But then Gemma suddenly lets out a little groan beside me and puts her hands on her head. Then I look at my watch and make sense of what’s going on.

“Hands on top-” says one of the lunch monitors. “That means stop!” Drone the kids. They begin cleaning up. Lunch is over. Caleb is still fighting to open his milk, stuffing a smiley fry in his mouth as he does. He has refused my continued overtures to help him. His cheese sandwich remains untouched. 

Not because he doesn’t want it. I can tell he’s hungry. But because he has had less than 15 minutes to sit down, decide what to eat first (and because he is only 5, he chose the ice cream) open it, eat it, attempt to open his milk and eat his food. That’s just not enough time. 

Are you upset yet? Do you have tears in your eyes? Then you can understand my distress sitting on that tiny bench, witnessing babies, who still sometimes wet their pants, being asked to make nutritional decisions with practically no time to make them. Caleb, and probably several others whom I wasn’t sitting near, will go back to class and be asked to learn and practice math for the next hour+ with nothing but melting ice cream in their bellies. They will be wired and distracted at first, then hungry and drained later as the sugar high wears off. 

I wish I could wipe my angry, sad tears away and say that I am overreacting. That David and Caleb and the others ate big, hearty breakfasts and so weren’t interested in their real food. That they would eat a good snack that their parents packed later after math time, and a healthy dinner tonight. Or that today was an anomaly for these two. But I can’t say any of those things. Because they might not be true. 

After Gemma’s class has marched out of the cafeteria (Caleb attempted to take his unwrapped sandwich with him, but was told that he couldn’t eat it in class; into the trash), I asked one of the kind lunch monitors how she could stand it, watching all the littles that didn’t get to eat. Her face said it all. She felt as I did, but she can’t turn back the clocks and give them more time or force them to eat.

So maybe the lunch monitors should be helicoptering the kinder tables, opening everything (note: they DO open anything that the kids ask them to, but, as mentioned above, the kids often don’t ask, or refuse help), encouraging them to eat their “brain food” first, and let their ice cream melt in the tray (yeah, right). But this is not their job.

Perhaps a revised job description for the lunch monitors, mandating that they “parent” our kindergarteners through lunch? Maybe. I want my own daughter to grow into an independent kid... but I want her belly full more.

More money for the school district? Always always always. This might allow them to hire more monitors to help, among many other unmet needs.

More parent involvement on the local and district levels to push for longer lunch periods? Absolutely. Even 5 more minutes would be a few more bites in hungry stomachs. I would also vote for a less rigorous academic regimen in elementary, and more focus on social development and learning life skills. Like making good nutritional choices, and opening containers. While many kindergartners learn these things in preschool, Gemma whispered to me during lunch that Caleb didn’t go to preschool. Many families cannot afford preschool, or are forced to put their 4-year-olds in all-day daycare instead because of their work schedules.

They need a longer lunch and longer recesses. In Gemma’s 7-hour school day, they get a 20-minute recess in the morning, and the kindergarten teachers were thrilled that they were able to steal another 10 minutes in the afternoon. So if you take out their “30-minute” lunch period and 50-minute special class, they are doing academics for about 5 hours a day. 5-year-olds. 

I know that for many reading this, I am preaching to the choir. Many of you have lived or worked within this less-than-perfect system for many years, and I’m late to the party. You’ve eaten in school cafeterias with your kids and seen what I saw and worse. David or Caleb may even be your child. 

Or maybe I’m a big softy. Maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion. But even so, my feelings of helplessness are real. The mother in me quakes to think of hungry children. 

And I know I cannot be the only one.