To think that packed lunch containing a cold happy meal could be due to poverty?

[blubberball]

I saw on the news the other day, a story about school packed lunches. At one school, they looked in a child's lunchbox, and found a cold happy meal. People have obviously been angered by that, and are accusing the parents of being lazy. The first thought that came to my mind was that they couldn't afford to waste the food from the day before. I know that the particular primary school they looked at is in a very poor area. I just felt sorry for them.

oh come on. Millions round the world cook with minimal fuel and without being able to read at all. Very few in this country are totally without electricity - and a child in such poverty would be on free school meals. With the exception of those in b&bs or likewise with no cooking facilities, there is no excuse.

I know it's amazing isn't it? Squashy can just come on here and click her fingers and WHOOSH! all the problems are gone. I literally can't believe no-one ever thought of that before.

So washing can wait Muttrat...it can if you have lots of clothes. But if there are only say 3-5 changes of clothes and they've all been used, what would you do then? Send your child to school in dirty clothes? Many people would judge you for that too.

Who says the child is in poverty? More assumption!

I think I might need to print her wise words to be honest gracie. A whole host of problems solved just like that.

You've also got to be careful of minimising child neglect and abuse, when you're on the defence.

Millions in this country are in fuel poverty and cannot afford energy bills, so cooking from scratch is a big deal. Loads of people struggle with literacy. Loads more cannot cook to save their lives. Probably many posting on here who count heating things up as cooking yet see fit to pass judgement on others.

One packed lunch does not equal neglect.

Since when did people need literacy skills in order to cook

No sorry- no excuse for it. Ready made egg sarnies cost £1 at most supermarkets. Some people are just rubbish parents.

Could this be some kind of "you'll get this every meal til you eat i" thing.

Very old school of it is.

I've said this on here before a few years ago. I was working full time but homeless, bank fraud meant I had no money to access and what I did have before that wasn't much. I couldn't even get to a branch because it was miles away.

We live in a deprived area with a hugely expensive co op and no big supermarket that was possible to get without a £4 bus ticket.

I stood in th Co Op with £1 to spend on food for 48 hours for me and two children, one with ASD who has sensory processing difficulties with food. We had no light fitting where we lived, no hot water or cooked. Whatever shit it was they survived on that was a pound meant they didn't starve.

I'm a well educated person and actually work in education.

Shit happens to people and we deal with it the best we can at the time.

Some of the sanctimonious comments on here are depressing. No amount of bulk buying cheap nutritious food such as cheap bread and fucking peanut butter was solving our massive difficulty at the time.

I need literacy skills for most things I cook. Even things I cook often, I might check the recipe or packet for details/quantities/timings. Reading recipes would be more crucial if I wasn't lucky enough to have spare food in the cupboard that I could eat if my planned meal went wrong. If I hadn't been taught to cook as a child, my ability to cook would rely on literacy skills even more, because I'd need to read to learn the basics.

Such patronising bullshit aimed at poor people

Kat Farmer of "does my bum look 40 in this" fame admitted on her Instagram not weeks ago that her kid had cold McDonald's for breakfast. Nobody accused her of being poor or ignorant or a bad parent. Lots of lols and "oh we've all been there"

Toysaurus but you wouldnt have bought fast food with the last of your money. You would try and get as many meals as you possibly could.

I don't believe it's a lack of money. You can bet your lucky stars the parents have got the latest mobile phones, TV, broadband, new clothes etc. If it came down to my son having to eat cold McDonald's I'd happily go without all of those things. Hell I'd be happy to go without decent food and buy anything I needed from charity shops or Gumtree just so my son could eat healthy lunches. I wonder how many people in "poverty" actually eal6ly sacrifice for their children.

Although I appreciate there will be people that already do this hats off to them! But cold McDonald's in a child's lunch box? That can be avoided!

My first thought was learning difficulties to be honest.

Kids love McDonald's, we'll give them one for a treat! Yay!

I don't like the way it's been dealt with. None of the HTs business.

Haven't RTFT but I believe the head teacher was right to highlight the issue of packed lunches. With all the healthy eating messages people are still feeding their children crap. I don't think he would have done this if these cold MDs or the other examples were out of the ordinary for the child in question. I have a family member who often talks about the random things people send for their kids lunch. Packets of biscuits or leftover oven chips and nuggets are examples.

If money is an issue then what about free school meals. If money is an issue then MDs is an expensive way to provide lunches for the week. I think lack of education in how to shop, cook and budget plays a part but more often it is simple laziness.

There is no good reason to give your child a cold happy meal. I used to teach abroad in a private school and we would see children bring in cold happy meals and takeaway pizza. The parents were all educated and well off. The local staff said they reckoned the parents were showing off that they could afford Western junk food as it was relatively expensive on local salaries. The school didn't have its own kitchen so eventually they started having Pizza Hut deliver at lunchtime!

Why do people keep speculating?

What the hell are you cooking BorpBorpBorp ? How the fuck did our ancestors manage then, none of whom could read

I sent DD2 with packed lunches because the KS1 free school meals were truly terrible, and worst still they used to run out of almost everything. If you were at the end of the queue on second sitting you might be left with a plain potato and peas. Suddenly a cold Happy Meal doesn't look so bad. Generally the school dinners were made of the cheapest crappiest factory produced crap available, and were as far removed from a home cooked meal as you can imagine. Plus served on a composite plastic tray with plastic cutlery, like prison food. Except the prison food budget would be higher.

Oh, I'm cooking incredibly fancy things, like pasta - I might check the packet to see how long to cook it for. Or pancakes - I read a note I've written to remind myself of the quantities of flour and milk. Sometimes I guess the quantities and fuck it up. I couldn't afford to do that if I didn't have spare flour and milk.

Before literacy was widespread, people communicated knowledge by non-written means. Now that literacy is widespread, some things (like recipes and tips for budget cookery) are communicated primarily by written means. Not sure what's difficult to understand about that.

How the fuck did our ancestors manage then, none of whom could read

They taught one another to cook. Many people aren't taught to cook. I wasn't and come from a comparitively comfortable and stable LMC background. Because I wasn't shown but had an interest I taught myself. But I have no literacy issues and can read. A little bit harder if you can't.

Poverty???? Surely if you're on a low income you get topped up with child tax credits and child benefit.