To feel a little bit resentful in paying for school dinners

[sississy]

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?

My nephews in Sweden do have their school dinners "free": a choice of (I think) two or three dishes, one of which will be suitable for vegetarians/non-pork/beef eaters.

The disadvantage is higher taxes.

One advantage (or disadvantage depending on how you see it) is that there is far less fussiness: everybody eats their school dinner and there are virtually no packed lunches. Which makes it far easier for schools to insist on healthy school dinners: the temptation for parents to pay twice just to supply their little fusspot with junk food is very slight. Particularly as junk food is expensive.

If your dch was at home would you not have to pay to feed him/her? What's the difference, apart from someone else doing the buying & cooking?

Charmingly Your post at 1425 made me cry.

That's bloody awful. You still remember that from your childhood? Are you still in touch with the family?

You'd have to buy a meal for your kids if they weren't at school, op, what's the difference? Jeez. I'd struggle to feed my dc lunch for a couple of quid a day!

Xpost Miranda!

OP if one person annoys you then report them!

But sweet jesus, this is CHILDREN EATING

This is a not very well disguised benefit bashing thread, or a wind up.

Where the hell else can you get five two-course, hot, sit-down meals cooked for you with drinks provided for £11.50 a week? Nowhere I know of. School meals might not always be the best, but they are bloody cheap, even for those who do pay.

YABU - give your DC packed lunches (not necessarily cheaper but definitely can be if you want them to be) if you're finding it too expensive.

YABU but I do feel sorry for those familes slightly over the cutoff who can barely but just afford it. I can see resentment happenning there.

Maybe there should be a sliding scale:
Some get 100% off
Some get 75%
Some get 50%
Some get 25%
Some pay everything

I think a voucher system (no alcohol or tobacco, etc.) would go a very long way to stopping all the complaints about benefits. I hope the government (whichever one) implements that soon.

I don't think this thread has been 'bashing benefit claimants', but it does highlight some real disparity between those who can afford school meals (they pay or government pays) and those who can't. That's not fair at all.

my DD gets hers free as she is at special school ..lucky old us!

same here Fanjo

Yes, lucky indeed. Read Charmingly's post at 1425 to get a bit of perspective.

YABU, of course

My DD gets hers free as she has a disabled Mum.
Lucky her.
She gets to be my main carer when I'm unwell, have the worry of me going into hospital, and gets woken up in the night with my coughing, then getting up and using the nebuliser so I can breathe.

But hey, she gets that free ham sandwich, and a biscuit.

That's what she chose today btw, the lunches are OK in general.

manicinsomniac, part of the welfare reform/universal credit:

Passported benefits - It is intended that the passported benefits system will be reformed so as to gradually withdraw entitlements as earnings rise.

manicinsomniac
the administrative headache of means testing every family in the UK to that level would cost more than the meals
lyingwitch
people HATE shopping with vouchers in supermarkets - I've seen people spat at for using them.

At DCs school they have an electronic payment system based on their fingerprints so NOBODY knows whose accounts have been topped up with taxpayers money and whose with Mummy's
AND
those on full benefits get free breakfasts through the same system
BUT
as somebody up thread said about Sweden - you want it, you pay the taxes for it. Swedish taxes are nearly double those in the UK.
You cannot have it both ways.

my dc dont get free school meals although we earn the same as friends whose dc do recieve them.however...
yabu-why so bitter?should i be bitter?all i care is that my dc are being fed.do those less fortunate than yourself not deserve to be fed?
mine have packed lunches as its the cheaper option for us(3dc at £2.20 a day each for school dinners works out far more expensive than packed lunches)and i know what theyre eating(2 out of the 3 are quite fussy).

My dad had free school meals as a child (and they kept him and his siblings in good health).

Am sure there is a different system now but he said he will never forget the stigma of being the 'poor kid' and having to go up to the front of the class for a token each day, even though he was grateful for the food.

Mrsscoob, obviously I'd leave it as it is. Some children getting FSMs is better than none.

I'm not begrudging it because my children don't get them, I just think that the way it's done at the moment completely misses the point of FSMs.

There are children on FSMs that would get a healthy lunch and a healthy dinner whether or not they got free lunches. There are children whose parents have enough I money to pay for FSMs twice over, yet their children eat very unhealthily.

Not all well off parents do their best for their children and I think it is wrong that this country only sees fit to ensure that poor children get one decent meal a day when there will be other children who need it just as much.

If the point of FSMs is to make sure that all children get at least one hot nutritious meal a day, then it needs to cater for all children, not just the ones that are easy to identify.

TalkinPeace, they already means test every family that applies for tax credits.

I imagine they'll have a FSM/prescription element to the universal credit system.

How does Scotland pay for FSMs? Aren't they free for all children there?

MrsRuffalo - back to your comment on Page 1 - you would be surprised, shocked and possibly horrified by the number of children at some schools, for whom the Free School Meal is the only hot, reasonably well-balanced meal they get each day.

You say were are not living in Victorian Times, but some of these kids live in real poverty. Sometimes, but by no means always, it's down to the appalling lifestyles and choices of their parents, but surely no-one in their right mind begrudges a child from a very low income family, a free meal, whether their parents spend their money on spliffs, or just because they are single or unemployed? Do they?

But the other thing is that at secondary where they have a canteen, there are kids who use their whole FSM money on puddings -
you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink

safmellow
I hated that part of the junior school where the FSM kids were grouped together at the end of the dinner register. It led to bullying.
At least at secondary its invisible

TalkingPeace... spat at, really? Wow! How would anybody see the vouchers anyway though, other than the checkout person and the shopper?

I would have thought that there are so many types of vouchers floating about these days that nobody would take any notice of what somebody else was paying with. I think a idiscreet voucher scheme would be effective, no more cash - the only people that would mind would be the feckless who want cash for themselves and their own use.

I know the fraudulent cases are a 'drop in the ocean' but they're a significant amount of money and they should be sanctioned. The people I feel most sorry for are the 'working poor', they get the worst of all words - not being able to stay at home with their children yet not realising much of a financial incentive. That's really really wrong.

The fingerprint system is great in schools, no child will forget its fingers, no matter how absent-minded they are.