(02-26-2009 02:59 AM)RobertN Wrote: The reason many don't is because people on this board would call free and discounted lunches "welfare" and put those people down. THey don't want to have their kids go through the "humiliation" of not being able to afford to buy lunch. It is only going to get worse if the republicans(you know, the ones who think $1.50/hour is way too much to pay a worker-there are a number of them on this board but I won't name names because the list would be way to long) get their way and wages keep dropping while costs go up.
Okay, so let me get this straight.
Here we are, trying to encourage people to pick themselves up by the bootstraps and make a better life for themselves... as opposed to living off of the working public... but we don't want to "embarass" the kids who can't afford lunch... even though clearly, peer pressure causes kids to do just about everything they do... I agree that it would be bad for kids to make fun of others, and they should be punished for it, but by the same token, why is is absolutely wrong to have somebody feel the slightest bit of obligation to solve their own problems. Where is the incentive for them to get OFF of public assistance? Seriously?? No... I don't like making kids pay for the sins of their parents, so as a parent, I'd take the bus rather than drive, or ride a bike rather than take the bus and let my kid buy a $2 lunch... but I wouldn't let him buy the 50 cent cookie. If the parent won't do things to ease their own child's humiliation (like fill out the paperwork) then why should I feel obligated to?? I was a volunteer at a huge school store... and I can't tell you how many times I saw kids on a free lunch card blow $2-3 EVERY DAY on candy after school... and kids who I knew whose parents were struggling financially, but paid for their lunch, and saved the quarter change every day to buy something at the school store. It's called teaching kids responsibility, rather than teaching them how to work the system.
MOST schools have a lunch card system anyway. Elementary school kids generally can't be trusted to hang onto cash. Now, many older kids don't use it because they want the "coolness" of using and carrying cash... and the parents don't want to fuss with "loading" the card... but why should the public pay for a kid to be cool, or a parent who doesn't want the fuss of buying a $10 lunch card every monday, or a $20 lunch card every payday? The kids on free lunch would be just like those other kids using their lunch card. Most private schools I know of use a lunch card and even a school store card because they don't want people to know who gets free lunch or free books and supplies (scholarship)... but things BEYOND the scholarship get billed to the parents... so those kids don't often buy the "extras".
At my daughter's school, which is one of the best private schools in the city... if you forget your lunch card they make you stay after and wipe tables and push in chairs... Kind of embarassing... so they don't forget often... Why should those getting a free education and free lunch be asked to do less??
It's the same thing as the Nike story above and the brand new car in front of the subsidized housing.
The sense of entitlement in this country is unbelievable. Show me one other place you can get a sandwich of ANY kind alone for $2, much less a drink and fruit. I realize that they are forced to go to school... but the choice is to home school, which is legal... or to have tens of millions of unsupervised minors wandering the streets with nothing to do. What is your alternative?
