My oldest daughter is in first grade. The school she goes to provides free breakfast. Milk & juice, fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal, etc. served up buffet-style. The kids come in, put what they want to eat in a little cardboard tray, grab a seat at one of the tables, and eat. (Oh, and socialize and shout and spill and lose one of their gloves and…in short, all the other things kids do in such a setting.) When the first bell rings it’s a warning that you have ten more minutes to finish up, when the second bell rings you need to be in your classroom. The first couple of weeks of kindergarten were a little rough last year - tears and “I don’t want you to leave me here” - but after we settled in it was the same routine, five days a week, every week of the school year. Oh, I should also mention that there’s a Lunch Lady - The Breakfast Police - whose role I assumed was to ensure that some 5th grader wasn’t stuffing 40 cheese sticks into his backpack. …that is, until this year.
This year everything changed.
The first month or so of the school year went by pretty much as expected, and with way fewer tears (thank God). Then one day Breakfast Cop stopped us as we were walking away from the buffet toward the seating area. He informed us that the school district had a focus on health and wellness, and to that end had instituted a new three-item breakfast policy. Eleanor had eaten breakfast at home so she’d opted for something light at school - milk and an apple. That was only two items, and because two items is fewer than three she was in clear violation of the policy. To be clear: she didn’t have to actually eat anyt hing that she brought to the table, but she had to have at least three things on her tray. Hilarity ensued…a solid 3-5 minutes of “I know you don’t want anything else, sweetie, but just put one more thing on your tray and then you can put it back on your way to your classroom…” Anyhow, we got it sorted, the new rule “stuck” after about a week under the watchful eye of Breakfast Cop, and life moved on.
…and then everything changed again.
Perhaps a month later we’re back to routine. Eleanor knows what to do, she grabs her three items. Breakfast Cop stops us again. The three-item policy was still in effect, but had been modified. To whit: You must have at least three items, iff one of the items is either a hot food item (e.g., pancakes, cinnamon rolls) or a cereal. If none of the three items are a hot food item or a cereal then the policy states that you must have at least four items on your tray. Man, breakfast was starting to get complicated AF. At this point I wanted to ask Breakfast Cop if there was a breakfast training program available… perhaps a decision tree diagram or a flow chart I could refer to. I did no such thing - I’m not That Parent - my wife and I just re-jiggered what was on the tray so as to be within the acceptable bounds of compliance, had a bit of a laugh about it on the walk home, and once again life moved on.
I’m poking fun at the policy (and poor Breakfast Cop, who actually seems like a pretty good dude), but it got me thinking about policies in general. Whence (and from whom) do they come? What was the original intent and thought process? “We want to promote health and wellness at an early age” sounds great on its face, but did the creators of the policy think about having to explain the policy to a 6-year-old? Did they consider the potential reality of the kid who I just watched dump two pints of chocolate milk on two individually-packaged cartons of Cocoa Puffs (because 2+2=4)? I’m not nearly rock-n-roll enough to consider myself anti-establishment, but man…I really hope there was at least one person with the wherewithal to stand up to a committee of School Board Suits and say “Guys, this is kinda silly…”
Bonus material: A kid who probably is rock-n-roll enough. Happy inDay, folks.