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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel a little bit resentful in paying for school dinners

211 replies

sississy · 22/02/2012 13:59

While other parents have it for free?
Or should I be just grateful I can afford to pay it?

Maybe I am answrin it myself aren't I?

OP posts:
yellowraincoat · 22/02/2012 15:16

Was about to post the same voidka. Truly depressing.

TalkinPeace2 · 22/02/2012 15:16

Lying
sadly they do not.
I see kids sent out to buy sweets for breakfast before they get on the school bus
and a portion of chips for supper
while Mum is in the newsagent buying 3 packs of fags
and then two single nappies from the chemist for £1 each 'cos she's too disorganised to go to the supermarket and buy a bulk pack

I also see kids sent into the newsagent to get a pastie for breakfast as their parents work full time and eat their main meal at lunch - money is NOT the problem there

AThingInYourLife · 22/02/2012 15:17

Good point, well made, IUse.

I'm not sure I agree, but you definitely have a point.

undercoverPrincess · 22/02/2012 15:20

Our school dinners and £2 each, lovely and they only use meat from our lovely local butcher. I don't resent paying for them at all but only do one or two days a week for my children (who love the dinners) because I like us the have proper family meals the other days.
YABU

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 22/02/2012 15:21

TalkingPeace... I know, that's why I'd like to see free school meals across the board. It's not bashing benefit claimaints to say that a child entitled to a free school meal is better off than some children whose parents don't prioritise their child's feeding. ALL children deserve that, not just those who are taken care of via benefits.

AThingInYourLife · 22/02/2012 15:25

Did he really, Voidka? Shock

Good point, Lying. Is it only families on benefits that can be entitled to FSM?

None for working poor?

zukiecat · 22/02/2012 15:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TalkinPeace2 · 22/02/2012 15:28

Lyingwitch
But where will the money come from?
Which other bit of the education / social services budget would you cut?
The meals cost the schools around £1.2 per day per child
240 days a year in school
10 million children
£2,880,000,000.00 per year would have to be found from somewhere ....

Voidka · 22/02/2012 15:29

Oh yes he did

SlightlyJaded · 22/02/2012 15:30

MY DC have excellent school dinners - freshly prepared, varied, nutritious, healthy and tasty. Always fall back of jacket potato with choice of toppings if you don't like the 3 main course options and a full salad bar.

Fruit and pudding

What isn't fair is the discrepancy in quality from school to school

I love that my DC get school dinners because then I don't feel so worried if they don't always have a full on 5 course gourmet supper

For some kids this is the only hot and nutritious meal they will get and possibly their only chance of fresh fruit and veg, so yes OP, YABU

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 22/02/2012 15:33

AThingInYourLife... I don't know but I really do feel for the 'working poor', they get the worst end of the stick really; the only benefit seems to be marginally greater income but for that they trade uncertainty, stress about bills and wondering if they'll make ends meet. It's wrong.

TalkingPeace... I don't know that either but I think that the budget for that needs to be given a higher priority than it currently has. 'No child left behind' indeed - great soundbite but it should be translated into proper welfare for the child.

SecretSquirrels · 22/02/2012 15:39

It's not the child's fault.
Free school meals mean that the child whose parents are too poor or too feckless to provide meals at home at least get a hot meal. If only 5 days a week in term time.
Would you really choose to make the child's life even harder by withdrawing FSM?
My children went to a lovely little village primary and I know the staff sometimes used to provide breakfast for a couple of children who were always sent to school hungry.

Evilclown · 22/02/2012 15:41

sississy

Not only are you being unreasonable, you also seem to suffer from too much time on your hands and petty jealousy, if your posting history is anything to go by.

OhDoAdmitMrsDeVere · 22/02/2012 15:46

We are working 'poor'
We cant get free school dinners.

I still dont wish I qualified for them. Plenty of time for that when the WRB screws us over.
Until then I will bask in the status that having to pay for school dinners brings me.

We have to pay for prescriptions too. Good.

The day I have to go back to ticking that little box that says I get them for free will be the day I think I finally give in and have a breakdown.

Life is better when you dont have to rely on the state for all of your support. Whatever people think. I am never jealous of benefit claiments and think that those who are A Bit Mad.

TotemPole · 22/02/2012 15:51

Good point, Lying. Is it only families on benefits that can be entitled to FSM?

None for working poor?

AThingInYourLife, part of the welfare reform is to do away with passport benefits.

madhairday · 22/02/2012 15:55

"Actually an even better idea would be to make them work for their free lunch. They could sweep the playground or maybe clean the shoes of the children like yours that can afford their lunch. "

Yes! Get 'em started on Workfare early! That'll teach 'em!

Grin
Pandemoniaa · 22/02/2012 15:56

YABU. For pretty much everything you have said - and that goes from "answrin" (wtf?) to every benefit bashing comment that follows. Plus the mysterious way you don't seem to have a "v" on your keyboard.

Clearly you have far too little to occupy your currently uncluttered brain.

IUseTooMuchKitchenRoll · 22/02/2012 15:57

TalkinPeace, the money should come from the same place that FSM money already comes from. If I am expected to pay for my dc to eat then so should everyone else. We all get child benefit after all.

If the tax payer can afford to pay for some children to have it then it must be important. So they should find the money to provide it for all children. Poor children are not more important than those just over the threshold.

Cherriesarelovely · 22/02/2012 16:01

To be fair I think most kids come home from school starving I always did as does my DD who has a packed lunch but doesn't eat it all because she doesn't have time/has better things to do at lunchtime. I think it is really VU to resent other people's kids having free school dinners because their families are hard up.

IUseTooMuchKitchenRoll · 22/02/2012 16:05

TalkinPeace, you asked if the childless should subsidise me. I don't think the childless should subsidiseme at all. But by the same token, I don't see why I should subsidise other people's choice to have children when my childrens full bellies aren't give the same importance as someone else's.

Why is it ok for me to subsidise other people's children when I pay my income tax, and then still pay full whack for my own?

You also ask what I would cut and if I would be prepared to pay more tax.

No, I wouldn't be prepared to pay more tax. I can't afford it, and it wouldn't be my family that got the benefit of it. It would be someone else that got the benefit of it, as they already do when they get FSMs and we don't. I would cut foreign aid to pay for it if I had to.

TalkinPeace2 · 22/02/2012 16:15

Child benefit is being stopped for high earners
OK, cut the foreign aid budget

what people forget on all the stuff that the "Government provides"
there is no "THEM" only "US"
if the "government" provides something it has to tax us to get the money

sadly in the last 15 years that was deemed too hard an option so "the government" borrowed from our children to provide us with things
that maybe it would be more efficient if we did ourselves

the MOD has wasted £420,000,000.00 in the last three years on consultants to tell it which equipment it should probably buy.
I'd rather have lower taxes (or rather higher tax thresholds) and decide myself where to spend my money up to a point - food being one of those things

mrsscoob · 22/02/2012 16:16

I'm intrigued.... OP, Kitchen Roll and anyone else. Althought it would be wonderful if free school meals were available to every child. I cannot see a situation in the near future where it is likely that will happen. Not with all the cuts etc happening at the moment. So would you rather it stayed the same as it is now or would you prefer that no one had free school meals, just because your kids aren't entitled?

McHappyPants2012 · 22/02/2012 16:17

Ds get free milk in school every day.

School meals are good value for money, and only cost me £1.90 a day ( wishes I could pay monthly but it has to be daily gggrrrr).

Op yabu I would prefer a child getting at least 1 decent meal a day

x2boys · 22/02/2012 16:20

i feel really lucky here i pay for my son to have school dinners but we had a menu home and they look really lovely also apparently its the cheapest lea in the country 1.25 pounds a day so six pounds 25 pence aweek it was a pound a day last year.

McHappyPants2012 · 22/02/2012 16:20

But I would love it if there was an option that I would get less child benefit/ tax credits in recept for school dinners