Aibu to not know why you wouldn't be able to feed your DC's breakfast?

[Bearlover16]

Daughters school has recently extended the 'paid' breakfast club to 'free' breakfast club due to an increase in the number of children going to school not having had any breakfast.

Are people really that much on the bread line that they cannot buy a loaf of bread or some cheap porridge oats for less than a quid?

I'm not well off by any means and I do donate to food banks when I can. I also ensure my dcs have had breakfast before leaving the house as I was always led to believe it's the most important meal of the day.

[Ifearthecold]

Some people can't, some people don't. There will be DC who don't like eating first thing, mine aren't keen but I really push them to eat something (this is hypocrisy on my part as I only want coffee up to 9:30). The most important thing is that all DC get a meal without having any sense of shame.

[picknmiss]

I never had breakfast before school, my mum has been a single mum since I was 4 and my brother was 2. She left for work very early and came home very late. We were with childminders a lot so there just wasn't time, we had precious little money but I'm sure she would have paid for a breakfast club if they existed then and she could possibly have managed it.
I quite often had to sit watching childminders kids eating breakfast whilst my tummy rumbled, not sure if childminders do breakfast for mindees nowadays? Anyway, please don't judge, we were ashamed enough as it was

[Ploppie4]

I’m lucky if I can get a spoonful or three into my child. She has zero interest in breakfast but eats well the rest of the day.

[Valentine2]

DCs' school is collecting harvest parcels.
There ARE parents who write to them and this feeds them. This is England and a well off area than many. I would love to see my taxes going towards feeding hungry children. YABU

[Valentine2]

picknmiss
I am so sorry for your childhood memories of hunger and shame.

[BlueSapp]

You know if everyone says it’s not my job where do we end up? Sometimes people need to step up job or not

[BlueSapp]

picknmiss your story has made me very sad and a little angry too, to have a child in your home while others are eating and not offer anything is a complete disgrace

[honeyroar]

At my SIL's school it often is down to lazy parenting. A lot of (primary) pupils come to school alone, before their parents have even got up. She regularly sees 10 yr olds that get their younger siblings ready for school. The school created a reward system for children that turned up on time for a month, and a breakfast club because half the kids hadn't eaten. Greggs donate all their unused bread to the breakfast club, which I thought was impressive.

[Bbbbbbbb2017]

I fled dv in January with a then just turned 2 year old and a 3 month old. I'm acutely aware that even now I'm still only one emergency spend away from financial disaster. When you are unemployed and have no family support one minute you can be happily plodding along with not much spare by essentials covered and the next unable to fees your kids. My fear of not being able to feed them means every week I buy a couple of spare long life items for my emergency cupboard so even if it is not particularly healthy there is food there

[DJBaggySmalls]

Its not just that some people have no money for food, they dont have any money for fuel either. If the cooker or fridge breaks they cant afford to replace it.

More and more kids are being taken into care as parents are made homeless and destitute. Its caused by austerity measures, not poor parenting.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/social-care-crisis-uk-children-figures-per-day-a7995101.html

[JonSnowsWife]

I don't think 'chaotic lives' is a sufficient excuse though. I have 2 Dcs one who is severely disabled and I still manage to get myself, and them out of bed, dressed and fed for school every morning.

Good for you. Feel free to get my DS or my DM to eat breakfast before 9am. (Mother's never had it - DS has ASD&ADHD). Better men and women have tried, and failed. He eats like a bloody pig the rest of the day though so his consultant isn't concerned.

This thread actually makes me quite sad in a way. I know of a wonderful mum whose child has an Ng tube fitted because they refused to eat a morsel of food. I get the impression you'd think that said Childs parents just needed to try a little harder too.

[happyinthehaze]

There was a post a long way back about the huge value of free breakfast for all vs. free school lunches for all KS1. I totally agree. FSL for all is a huge waste of resources. I am tight for money but by no means skint and of course I've taken advantage of the free lunches. I'd rather see that money diverted to creating a non means tested breakfast for all children - far cheaper and far less difficult for those kids whose parents can't or for don't provide breakfast.

I think much more sympathy and empathy is needed here. Imagine being that 5 year old child :-(

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

When I was little, in the 60s and early 70s we got free milk at morning break in little glass bottles. It was left in a crate outside the classroom door, come rain or shine. In winter in was mostly ice, in summer it was more like cottage cheese.

I was a well fed and rather picky child, so I always turned my nose up and only pretended to drink it. Some teachers enforced the milk drinking more than others, but there were always a few skinny, scruffy kids who would drink anybody's left over milk if you passed it to them discreetly.

As a kid myself, I was rather disgusted at the kids who happily drank this horrid milk. As an adult I think, "poor little mites; they were probably hungry".

And it was Thatcher who stopped the free milk.

[Fanciedachange17]

One of the latest statistics that is giving many healthcare professionals real cause for concern is that British children under 10 years of age are currently consuming more than 50% of the recommended daily allowance of sugar at breakfast (c. 11 g) in the form of sugary cereals, drinks, and spreads (see Taylor, 2017).6 Such patterns of consumption obviously fall a long way from the notion of a healthy, well-balanced breakfast that we often hear about. And perhaps most worrying of all, a recent survey conducted for Public Health England׳s Change4Life campaign found that many parents were unsure as to what makes up a healthy breakfast for their children. Specifically, 84% of parents whose children were found to be consuming more than 50% of their daily recommended dose of sugar before school started, actually considered that their child׳s breakfast was healthy (see Public Health England, 2017)!.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878450X17300045

[MrsOverTheRoad]

OP you keep DENYING all the sensible explanations which people are giving you and relating it to YOURSELF!

The fact that YOU can get out of bed and organise you and your children has FUCK ALL to do with anything!

You're you! Your history is totally different to other people's!

Why don't you go away and gloat alone.

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

Two of my kids go to breakfast clubs, it’s because I have 5 currently at different schools so I use the breakfast club to make sure they can all get where they are meant to be on time as well as me getting to work, it’s also incredibly handy for one whose a food refuser he’s slightly more inclined to eat when sat at a table with a large group of his friends.

I pay something like 200 a month for the privilege, half of the kids at the club get it for free and I hope to fuck nobody knows which ones are, given some of the attitudes and assumptions made about their parents and families by others.

Food poverty is not a new thing and doesn’t always mean you have crap parents. And given that we are switching over to a benefit that will be hugely impacting on working households even to the point of only paying for two kids regardless of their date of birth and doing the same withdrawal rate that the tax credit protestors got stopped at the same time as not increasing the upper limit paid out for childcare with a significant amount of ‘mistakes’ being made resulting in late payments,under payments,imaginary overpayment clawback,odd sanctions and demands for people to keep taking breaks from paid employment in order to satisfy the frankly odd requirements of the dwp (forcing childcare receipts to be handed in in person with a specified appointment before they can be paid rather than uploaded on line or posted to name one)
Then it’s safe to say it’s going to get worse and it’s going to hit more people and things are not going to be great

[YellowMakesMeSmile]

Food poverty is not a new thing and doesn’t always mean you have crap parents

I suspect it does. We have good employment in this country and a wide range of benefits so no excuse to not feed their children. You'd think the would do everything to ensure there was food.

It's now got to the stage that rather than shame parents for not providing we just make it someone else's job to provide. That doesn't solve anything and certainly doesn't correct the crap parenting. The more free stuff the less they have to provide so many simply won't step up or will have more children.

Free food now may help the child but long term it solves nothing and sends the wrong message.

[cheminotte]

That was me happy . I don't understand why provision of before and after school care is not mandatory anyway in this day and age. (And funded by the government before anyone mentions school budgets!)

[cheminotte]

Have you not been reading the news yellow ? How are parents supposed to feed their kids when they are on zero hours contracts and have to wait 2+ months for benefits. You can't build up savings if you are already living hand to mouth.

[Papafran]

I suspect it does. We have good employment in this country and a wide range of benefits so no excuse to not feed their children. You'd think the would do everything to ensure there was food

Oh really? Wide range of benefits you say? And good employment that always easily fits around caring opportunities? So if anyone is in poverty it's their fault?
I presume you are Theresa May posting under another name but what you are saying is such unbelievable bullshit that I don't know where to start. But it's pretty much a lie from beginning until end- maybe wake up and do some research about poverty.

[Papafran]

Sorry meant caring obligations, not opportunities

[sashh]

Own brand ones cost pennies and I can always find milk in the reduced section...often buy it myself.

And if you don't have power to cook you don't have power to run a fridge (if you have one).

We have good employment in this country and a wide range of benefits

Which are being replaced by universal credit.

[Undercoverbanana]

Yellow - stop reading the Daily Mail and get out in the real world.

[Bubblebubblepop]

Kilty excellent post

Jonsnowswife it isn't all about you. Nothing you've posted has added anything to the conversation.

At our primary school the worst situation doesn't sit with the poorest parents but with the JAMS- a group far less likely to ask for, or be entitled to, help, who live on the breadline- popping under and over it- for many years. That's a more chronic situation than someone whose benefits stop for 6 weeks.

[Undercoverbanana]

This thread had made me remember something rather wonderful.

When I started secondary school in 1980 I called for a friend whose family ran a corner shop. She was always running late and I was always early. I used to chat to her Dad behind the counter while I waited for her. He was a lovely man.

I was skinny and probably looked scruffy as my uniform was second hand, Mum cut my hair etc. It was probably "known" that I was a FSM child and that my Mum was really struggling.

The Dad was always eating his breakfast while he was working and always used to offer me some. I didn't know what the food was because it was traditional Asian food so I politely declined. I think he thought I might be underfed.

The truth is that although my Mum was really struggling, she did a superb job of managing to keep us fed, clothed and warm. Also, Iave always eaten like a horse despite being slim.

After a while, this Dad started to have a plate of toast alongside his Asian breakfast and used to offer me that. I never saw him eat any of it himself. Because I am a pig I used to politely eat with him despite having had a good breakfast at home.

This lovely, kind man was obviously looking after me.

I never realised what he was doing until I read this thread and it has all come back to me. What a wonderful man. I feel so humbled and a bit weepy.

Sorry for the high jack.

Thank God for wonderful, generous people who look after their communities.