My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

AIBU?

To think that a busy life is no excuse for not giving your child breakfast?

237 replies

exBrightonBell · 08/01/2013 18:31

Just watched the BBC news about a school which will be giving all its pupils a free breakfast. Amongst the reasons for children not being given breakfast at home was having a busy life. They interviewed a mum who said that their mornings were too late and busy to reliably give the children breakfast, and that she didn't have time to have an argument about it. She seemed to think that this was completely reasonable. AIBU to think that this isn't a reasonable excuse? Poverty and neglect are both reasons why children don't get breakfast at home, but parents being too busy? Really?

OP posts:
Report
Jinsei · 08/01/2013 18:34

YADNBU! Our life often feels very hectic, but some things are essential, and breakfast is one of them! Being busy is no excuse at all!

Report
InNeedOfBrandy · 08/01/2013 18:35

YANBU I would be late rather then let my dc go out with no food.

Report
BigShinyBaubles · 08/01/2013 18:35

YANBU at all!! There is absolutely no excuse for not giving your children breakfast.

Report
shoppingbagsundereyes · 08/01/2013 18:35

I read this today and was really shocked. I can't believe that it has become accepted that parents don't feed their children. Breakfast is such a cheap meal. No one is honestly too busy or too poor to give their child a basic breakfast. This is neglect, pure and simple and it shocks me that an entire local authority should regard it as an acceptable fact of life.

Report
MumOfTheMoos · 08/01/2013 18:35

YANBU - it's shocking isn't it? I mean shelter and food are the first things a parent should be providing - what else are the spending their morning doing? Why not get up earlier?

Still, I understand the school doing this; teaching hungry kids, even if its only one or two is pretty disruptive for the whole class.

Report
marquesas · 08/01/2013 18:36

I haven't seen the woman on the news but I suppose there will be people who don't get up early enough to get everything done in time and use being too busy as a reason rather than admitting to disorganisation or lazyiness.

Report
exBrightonBell · 08/01/2013 18:37

Thing is, the mum seemed otherwise to be very nice and their home was also nice, but I was surprised at her attitude. I know that people are often busy with shift work and perhaps more than one job, but really your children should be your focus.

OP posts:
Report
Gumby · 08/01/2013 18:38

It's not a new thing sadly
10 years a school I volunteered in that was in a sure start area offered a breakfast club free
They said children weren't getting healthy breakfasts or any at all Sad

Report
lashingsofbingeinghere · 08/01/2013 18:38

I agree. Just get up earlier, or, gasp, set everything out the night before.

Boring but it does work (speaks from experience both as former WOHM and child of WOHM).

Report
Gumby · 08/01/2013 18:39

Come on though

Who hasn't chucked their kid a cereal bar or piece of toast in the back of the car on the way to school

Just not every day though

Report
cory · 08/01/2013 18:39

To be fair, there are some children who really struggle to eat first thing in the morning. Dd simply used to throw up. My mum was the same, always has been. They both feel sick if they have to get up very early or eat before a certain time, regardless of how early they went to bed. Dd's solution is to have a snack at first break. It's not laziness: I used to get up two hours before she had to leave, spend an hour getting her out of bed and then mop her breakfast off the floor.

Report
AThingInYourLife · 08/01/2013 18:40

A while ago on MN there was a whole thread of people saying it was fine to get your children up too late for breakfast.

There were two dissenters, of which I was one.

Report
exBrightonBell · 08/01/2013 18:40

I get that poverty and/or neglect (e.g. parents that can't look after themselves let alone their kids) can be reasons for not giving a child breakfast. But being too busy? It's just too depressing that this is acceptable as a parenting style.

OP posts:
Report
StuffezLaBouche · 08/01/2013 18:41

I saw the piece this morning and thought two things.

  1. I am really glad that the children in that school will now begin school with full bellies.
  2. Yet again, it is money being spent because some parents cannot be arsed to look after their children.
Report
beamme · 08/01/2013 18:41

YANBU, I work in a school and we get this all the time, totally disgusting. Both myself and DH work and leave the house at 7:30am. DC's are up by 6:40am and always have cereal, fruit and toast if they want.

Report
HoratiaWinwood · 08/01/2013 18:42

Busy, no excuse. Genuinely chaotic, poor or ill (esp mental health), more understandable.

My children have certainly had toast or fruit or malt loaf en route to school before!

Report
Amytheflag · 08/01/2013 18:42

YANBU. It would take ten minutes to give them something. What's ten minutes earlier getting up in the grand scheme of things?

Report
shoppingbagsundereyes · 08/01/2013 18:43

Nothing wrong with a cereal bar or bit of toast on the way to school though. My dd isn't hungry til she's been awake for an hour. If she sleeps in she eats on the way to school. I wouldn't dream of not feeding her at all though.
I once worked in an independent school where parents were loaded but too 'busy' and sometimes didn't supervise any of their teenagers' meals. Cue teenagers starving themselves without their parents noticing, teenagers living entirely on microwave meals.
Lazy not busy is more truthful

Report
InNeedOfBrandy · 08/01/2013 18:43

Cereal bar in the back of the car is still breakfast, just not the best one Grin

A few times I have marched dc to school while they've been eating breakfast biscuits a frube and carton of orange juice. Doesn't happen anymore as I actually get up 6am now but I used to Really struggle when I first started the school run. Didn't mean if let them stave till break though!

Report
Figgyroll · 08/01/2013 18:44

YANBU. The breakfast club at our school was set up for children whose parents couldn't be arsed bothered to give them any food and it was initially funded on the basis of the amount of children who had free school meals but it is overrun with children with working parents who spend their lives rushing here, there and everywhere and would appear far too busy to give their children a breakfast.

Report
bedmonster · 08/01/2013 18:44

My mum never gave me breakfast. She worked close to where we lived so my brother and I got ourselves up, dressed and off to school. No breakfast. She didn't even get up to make sure we were on time. This was when we were 5 and 7. It's sheer laziness. She is exactly the same now with my sister, 14. Thankfully I live on her route to school so she stops in at mine and has breakfast with my dds.
I still find it unbelievable that some people can't be arsed to provide something so important yet also very basic.

Report
noisytoys · 08/01/2013 18:45

Last year DD was in the afternoon session at nursery 12-3pm. One I her friends didn't get fed at home at all because the nursery had an unlimited snacks table so the child had to fill up there Hmm it wasn't even due to lack of money. It seemed that cigarettes, alcohol and nail extensions were all more of a priority than feeding the children Sad

Report

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

Lilithmoon · 08/01/2013 18:46

I'm quite surprised by these reactions. I work full time so my DD goes to breakfast club before school starts. The clue is in the name!
Getting her up earlier would mean a very early start for her and me and she would still need to go to breakfast club and then either eat breakfast again or watch everyone else eat breakfast.
I suppose she could skip breakfast club and stay till really late at after school club but for us it works better to go in a bit early and leave a bit later rather then go in very early and finish at 3.20 or go in a 8.40 but finish at 6.00ish.

Report
rubyslippers · 08/01/2013 18:46

One thing really irked me in the report which was that they named checked working mums only as the reason kids may skip breakfast

Surely it's a familial responsibility

I WOH - children are worken if not awake by 7 so we all eat breakfast together

If necessary they do sandwiches on the way but that the exception

Report
akaemmafrost · 08/01/2013 18:46

I have never done that Gumby not being smug just answering your question.

Breakfast is non negotiable here.

However my Mum never gave us breakfast as children but then she also left me in sole charge of my four year old sister when I was aged 9. I still wouldn't call her a neglectful parent though I think it was just what she was used to growing up as a fifties child from an extremely impoverished background. Maybe these parents are just used to no breakfast because of their own upbringings. Not that that makes it ok, just looking for reasons.

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.