There\u2019s a new arms race shaping up, America. It\u2019s taking place in our homes. Our very own kitchens. Every morning, it\u2019s being waged to win the hearts and minds of \u2026 school children?<\/p>\n
What am I even talking about?!? <\/p>\n
It was an article in The Wall Street Journal this week headlined, \u201cThe Competitive World of School Lunches.\u201d And it made me realize that I\u2019m a slouch. See, parents are taking it up a notch in the school lunch department. They\u2019re creating mesmerizing displays of fruit and pressed sandwiches that, well, don\u2019t deserve to be wasted on kids who will only discard them because the crust is 2 mm too thick. <\/p>\n
There are themed lunches. Lunches that resemble beautiful banquets. Lunches that parents shoot photos of and then post to Instagram because, why not?!? It\u2019s not whether your kid likes it, but whether all your friends on social media do. <\/p>\n
But I was blown away. Straight-up shock and awed. When I\u2019m in charge of putting together lunch for my daughter, it looks a lot like my poor, lackluster leaf blowing skills. Not focused. Just happy I attempted it in the first place. My porches and sidewalks always look worse after I\u2019m done.
\n<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019m not sure I can buy into any competitive school lunch trend, with carved vegetables and hand-made, personally-designed sandwich wrappers. (Once I wrote \u201cChips\u201d on a Ziploc bag full of cookies, and felt pretty accomplished.)<\/p>\n
Maybe it\u2019s because my childhood memories of school lunch are not exactly of an experience that would tickle the senses in a beautiful and exciting way. \t<\/p>\n
I remember having a Star Wars lunchbox that was rusting around the edges, and probably leaching tetanus into my food through the meek little plastic bags. <\/p>\n
The box would carry leftover London broil sandwiches with chunks of tough beef the size of shipping containers. I would look like a wolverine eating my sandwich, furiously thrashing and growling and tearing at it with my teeth, little bits flying everywhere. <\/p>\n
Or soggy tuna fish sandwiches with coarsely chopped onion thrown in, just to embarrass me. There was no more pungent an assault on the cafeteria than opening a lunchbox with a tuna fish sandwich heavy on the onions. One day it blew out the windows. <\/p>\n
Lunch wasn\u2019t about pretty or creative or making a splash with other parents. It was about survival. Proving your mettle. Whether you were so hungry that you could overcome your fears and actually eat that cold chicken thigh from last night\u2019s yellow rice and chicken with the soggy green peas sticking to the skin. <\/p>\n
Could you withstand the verbal assault from friends who would scream in disgusted delight, \u201cDUDE! There\u2019s green mouse poop all over your \u2026 say \u2026 WHAT IS THAT?!?\u201d<\/p>\n
Could you tap into your inner entrepreneurial spirit and find a way to trade that slimy chicken thigh for the Hostess chocolate cupcake someone was unwrapping across the table?<\/p>\n
Lunch was about finding out who you were. What you were made of. And if you would have to go back to the hospital ER again. Can\u2019t we just leave it at that? Or do I need to start Instagramming my sad concoctions, which look more like I just leaf-blew the front yard? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a new arms race shaping up, America. It\u2019s taking place in our homes. Our very own kitchens. Every morning, it\u2019s being waged to win the hearts and minds of \u2026 school children? What am I even talking about?!? It was an article in The Wall Street Journal this week headlined, \u201cThe Competitive World of School Lunches.\u201d And it made me realize that I\u2019m a slouch. See, parents are taking it up a notch in the school lunch department. They\u2019re creating mesmerizing displays of fruit and pressed sandwiches that, well, don\u2019t deserve to be wasted on kids who will only discard them because the crust is 2 mm too thick. There are themed lunches. Lunches that resemble beautiful banquets. Lunches that parents shoot photos of and then post to Instagram because, why not?!? It\u2019s not whether your kid likes it, but whether all your friends on social media do. But I was blown away. Straight-up shock and awed. When I\u2019m in charge of putting together lunch for my daughter, it looks a lot like my poor, lackluster leaf blowing skills. Not focused. Just happy I attempted it in the first place. My porches and sidewalks always look worse after I\u2019m done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573,562,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-nutshells","category-childhood","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1810,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions\/1810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}