School Lunch

I happened upon that TV show where two families swap mothers for two weeks. One mother was trying to help ready her children for adulthood by making them responsible for setting their own morning alarms, getting themselves ready for school, and making their own breakfasts and lunches.

Hmm, whatever. Then I flipped the channel.

Last weekend, reminiscing with my brother and his wife (really with his wife, because my brother and husband had left to run an errand), we somehow landed on the topic of our mothers making, or not making, our school lunches when we were children. With much indignation, she told me that my brother had to make his own school lunches. I had to stop and think. I am the older sister, two years older. I should know this, but I only have a couple vague memories of school lunch.

I remember that grades one through six, we went to a small Christian school. They only had school lunch available once a month, if we signed up, and paid for it in advance. So we must have brought a lunch every day. I don't remember what it was, but I don't remember being hungry in elementary school. I do remember braking my arm outside during playtime after lunch in either fifth or sixth grade.

I remember not having lunch many days in Junior High, and sometimes bringing a dollar and buying an ice cream sandwich for lunch.

I don't remember much about lunch in high school other than the short amount of time we were allowed to eat, and not wanting to bother with the long lunch line. I remember throwing up seven times one morning at school in 11^th grade, the seventh time being when I decided that maybe I could drink some milk for lunch (that was stupid). My 12^th grade was at a different school. We had moved. My only memory of lunch there is like a photo in my head of me and three girls sitting together at a table in the cafeteria. I don't recall any particular food, or if there was or wasn't any, or if any of us even ate.

The consensus between my sister-in-law and me was that mom must not have cared enough to make our lunches, or to at least make sure that we had lunches.

I have always made my children's school lunches. When I saw that on TV, I just flippantly dismissed it. I know that my children that are still at home, teenagers now, are completely capable of setting an alarm and making sandwiches. But, why should they have to do this? I am a stay-at-home mom. I can do this small thing for them while they live with me for this short time of growing up. It's more efficient if one person makes many sandwiches at one time than if many people make one sandwich each. Everyone gets in the way of everyone else. The refrigerator gets opened and closed multiple times. There is a higher risk of dropping and breaking something which could injure someone and takes up extra un-allowed-for time. They will have many years as adults to “fend for themselves,” and there are so many other, more difficult, grown-up things to teach to them.

Some of the mothers of some of their friends have told me to let them make their own lunches. I reply that I can do it, and I don't mind.

Until now, I have never wondered why I get up, wake them up, and make their breakfasts and lunches. When they grow up and reminisce about their childhood, will the topic of mom making their school lunches be discussed? Will they like that I made their lunches? Will they think I was being controlling, or that I thought they weren't capable of doing it themselves? Will this be a good memory, or a bad memory, or will they even remember it at all? Should I discuss it with them before this next school year starts, or should I keep doing what I've always done?