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.

No its not their job. However if there is some kind of emergency crisis going on it would surely he nice thing to do for a day or two. Not as if half the food doesn't end up in the bin anyway. And it could he a temporary but all consuming crisis like someone dying or severely ill and a ending up in the papers? Not helpful

Yes I absolutely agree that a kid who gets sent in with a happy meal is a kid where something needs checking on.

However the school have just made bloody sure that they are unable to he trusted with anything so where does that leave the family?

Massive amount of judgmental comments again.

Apart from the lazy feckless obese mother you've all created in your minds eye - what about the one who is 2 days before payday/waiting for her benefit day/had the unexpected bill that wiped her out and she has nothing at all in the house apart from the odd bit of tinned food - but the NRP father took the kidlettes out for the day, one fell asleep in the car and didn't eat their meal. He handed the kids back and the meal in case he or she wakes up later and is hungry.

But I know! She should have said to him, "The Head is going to go and mock up some lunch boxes (look at the photos in the original article, new lunchboxes still with the plastic on the straps), do you think you can nip down the petrol station and get me a couple of artisan rolls, some vegan cheese and little pot of cous cous so I'm not the subject of MN thread'.

I can't personally see that scenario.

BTW 'Middle England' - those who don't get benefits and top ups are the squeezed ones with very little cash - they don't qualify for free school meals.

Incidentally, I saw the article, which didn't mention 'happy meals' at all, It just showed a burger 89p, and small fries 89p, (thank you google) in a nice new lunch box for illustration purposes.

I think we should stop assuming that free school meals are available to everyone that needs them.
They are passported from state benefits, that means you need to have made a claim, had it process and then made a claim to the school, producing a copy of the entitlement letter. That takes some time to put in place. And for some people it might never happen: they might not have the correct immigration status to make a claim for example.
I think a lot of people don't realise what a privilege it is to have British Citizenship/Indefinable Leave to remain and be able to subsist at benefits level, meagre as that is.
I know of whole families in this situation living far below benefits level for months and years at a time, while their solicitors attempt to regularise their status. Their kids are not entitled to fsm.
30% of the working population of Govanhill, Glasgow is estimated to earn les than minimum wage.
Indefinable could go on.....

Giles read my post on the previous page - it's not solely the school's 'job' but they have a duty of care over said child.

Actually - we don't eat many dirty Maccyds, but have one occasionally if we've all had after school activities, it's getting late & we are all too ravenous to cook - my youngest quite often saves a couple of chicken nuggets for her lunch next day. A) she is bored with them before she finishes eating, b) she prefers them cold & c) I'm not going to throw them in the bin if they can be eaten. (I do bin the chips at least! ).

This in the context of a lunch also containing a sandwich with non junk protein, salad or veg sticks, fruit, yoghurt etc.

Also not sharing the hot dog outrage. We're in a country where everything is halal & a beef frankfurter is a popular addition to a lunchbox.

I think buying junk food specifically for a lunchbox is indeed pretty grim. Leftovers in a pot as a minor component of the lunch, fine.

I also give mine leftovers from home cooked meals where appropriate - pasta & pesto, cold cooked chicken etc etc.

I'm not making a case for processed meat products not being an occasional unhealthy ! Just not any more rank in the context of a lunchbox...

unlimited couldn't have said it better myself. There's also the literacy issue. I've worked with kids who couldn't receive free school meals because their parents couldn't fill out the necessary paperwork.

Indefinable Leave to remain??! Indefinate leave to remain, I meant.

And: I could go on

Stupid autocorrect

"parents in poverty get free school meals for their children"

Nearly two thirds of children in poverty are in households with a working parent. If you're entitled to claim Working Tax Credit, then there's no FSM.

www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7880

www.gov.uk/apply-free-school-meals

I've put left over bbq food in lunchboxes including cutting up the sausages into buns

Tbh my first thought when I saw it was I wondered if the child had autism and that's all they would eat. I think some of your toes would curl if you saw how limited some of the diets of the children at special school are. We've been very lucky with our daughter as we received very specific intervention wrt food/diet very early on. This is very unusual. Or it may just have been luck :)

ok fine

have it your way

its perfectly fine to give your kids a leftover hamburger and chips for lunch

not only is it fine it is somehow morally wrong to think that it isn't fine

Autism BINGO

No.

It's disgusting.

Supermarket value bread and some kind of sandwich filling costs less than a happy meal.

A cold bag of 24 hour old chips and burger/nuggets/whatever it was is vile and neglectful. Nothing to do with poverty.

Not the child's fault, feel very sorry for them being given that for lunch and being dragged into this whole news story, but the parents need to get their act together.

muttrat The point I, and several others, are trying to make is that it's not OK but it is not acceptable to brush off the parents as 'just being lazy'. There may be underlying causes as to why this has happened. Besides - surely a cold happy meal is better than fuck all?

Bloody hell, of course it could be down to poverty! There are families living in hotel rooms across Ireland because there is no housing. Just imagine that for a second, no where to prepare or even store food. All the cheap food from Aldi wont help when you cant actually do anything with it. My SIL was left in a hotel room with 2 small children in one double bed. No desk for homework, no food storage area and not allowed to use the room in the day and had to check in at 8pm at night and be there until the morning or they lost their room. This was on a busy city centre mainstreet so the only place for food was a choice of fast food restaurants. I wouldn't be surprise at all if my dn ended up in school with a mcdonalds because they had vouchers to eat there and they had to get a bus to another town for school, so literally out of hotel room, into mcdonalds to eat and on the bus to school. I can't imagine how hard that was for them. So yes the happy meal could have been sent into school easily!

If you had no money in your pocket but had a voucher for a fast food chain at 8am in the morning what would you do? What would you do for your child if it meant them eating or not? Happy meal or starve your child? I'd pick a happy meal thanks

Owllady

Exactly!!!!

Saying bingo is really dismissive of people's actual experiences. I explained in the post why I thought that. But maybe you are professor autism of poverty stricken university in lazy parentdom on the edge of drunksville.

Lots of people living in poverty don't have access to a kitchen (homeless accommodation) or can't afford a fridge/ freezer/ cooker. Many of the grants for low income families have disappeared and council/ social doesn't come with appliance. Having nowhere to cook or store food is about poverty. Sometimes there are no stores nearby & people can't afford bus fare. Or, the local store charges £2 for a loaf because it knows people have no choice (just look at price difference between Tescos & Tesco Metro). Everyone jumping in on the batch cooking and freezing bandwagon aren't helpful if you can't actually do it.

For the people saying it's not poverty, you've never known it or seen it. It's not about these ingredients vs a happy meal, but both cost the same amount.... it's about chaotic lifestyles, often single parent families with a lot of children not coping with the demands of every day life and lack of education and thus not understanding societal expectations. Jesus, me and my husband are educated professionals and we struggle with a lot of the demands of family life, thank god we have the education to know how to deal with that.... a lot of people don't and that's what needs addressing!

Christ there are some sheltered people on this thread.

Maybe the head has tried to educate the parents on what constitutes a healthy lunch, and thought maybe shaming them into providing adequate food might work?

I grew up poor, my mum made sure we had breakfast, lunch and dinner before she bought treats. But as we were poor we didnt often have them.

FellOutOfBed very well said!

Is it about poverty or could it be a lack of interest in eating?
Reading this, it could have been me but there's no McDonalds within 40 miles. There is no school meals service where we live either and my DS (7) won't eat lunch so I shove an apple and a carrot stick, plus half a 3 day old sandwich into his lunchbox plus a few broken breadsticks to make it look presentable-ish. I guarantee that at most, a couple of breadsticks will be eaten and he won't want to eat anything else until teatime, about 5pm.
He doesn't snack (still has plenty of chocolate left over from Xmas in his bedroom) but he has no real appetite. I was the same at his age and his dad isn't interested in food either. He is quite tall for his ago so I guess he gets energy from fresh air?

Maybe the head has tried to educate the parents on what constitutes a healthy lunch, and thought maybe shaming them into providing adequate food might work?

Families who don't give a shit will carry on not giving a shit.

This just ensures that no one in that school feels they can approach the head for help. Anything cab happen to anyone at any time and a redundancy or illness could see people struggling with the basics and now they can't ask fir help

I live in one of the poorest boroughs in London, where child poverty is rife.

And no I don't think popping a half eaten Happy Meal into a child's lunchbox is anything to do with poverty.

In fact it's an insult to the many poorer parents, who continue to see their kids have either a decent free school meal, or a decent low cost packed lunch every day, despite living on the bones of their arses.

Isn't there an Aldi or Lidl advert on at the moment comparing a £2.50 block of cheese from Asda to a block of cheese, loaf of wholemeal bread, pack of yogurts all for under that £2.50? School lunches for a week costing under what a happy meal costs. I don't think it's due to poverty.

Bollocks it's lazy neglectful parenting.

We grew up poor too and we are healthily as mum brought cheap and cooked.

When my older 2 were little dh lost his job and we were skint, really skint and we couldn't afford MC Donald's.

A loaf, tuna, onions, eggs, fruit, toms, lettuce, vegs all cheap and healthy.