Color me shocked: According to a recent survey, 55 percent of American moms say they're "stressed out by the idea of shopping for and packing school lunches." Well, obviously! Because shopping for and packing school lunches IS stressful. (The only surprising thing about these survey results, in my opinion, is that 45 percent of American moms bothered to pretend they don't stress out about the deeply torturous task.)
Oh sure, every September I make the same vow: THIS year will be different. THIS year I will be more organized and send my kids off to school each day with a lunch so nutritionally high-powered they'll grow a billion new brain cells by the time recess is over. A lunch so incredibly delicious they'll beg for more when they get home. A lunch so colorful and cool-looking their friends will drool and the teacher will give ME a gold star.
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
By the end of the first week I'm back to secretly hoping my kids will beg me to let them buy that horrible slop they sell in the cafeteria. Pink slime? Go for it! Just don't make me pack your lunch!
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What, exactly, do I hate about packing school lunch? It's one of those parenting games you just can't win. No matter what you pack in that lunch box. For example:
1. No matter what you pack for lunch, your kids will claim to hate it. Even if they loved it yesterday (and the day before that and the day before that). Consequently they will come home hungry and cranky and their foul state will be deemed "all your fault."
2. No matter what you pack for lunch, it will be prepared/presented in the "wrong" way. The sandwich was supposed to be cut into triangles, not squares. The apple slices turned brown (and no they do NOT taste the same, Mom!). Whatever was supposed to stay warm got cold and whatever was supposed to stay cool got hot.
3. No matter what you pack for lunch, most of it will come back home. Common excuses for untouched lunches include: "I didn't have enough time to finish," "So-and-so had a birthday and I was full cause I had two cupcakes," and "My friend had an extra bag of nacho cheez chips so I ate those instead of what you gave me."
4. No matter what you pack for lunch, your kid's lunchbox will end up smelling vaguely like a tuna sandwich. Even if your kid hates tuna and you've literally never packed her a single tuna sandwich in her entire life. Strange but true.
5. No matter what you pack for lunch, it will pale in comparison to what some other mom packed some other kid for lunch. And make no mistake: Your child will take this as a deliberate attempt by you to make his life miserable. Don't bother trying to explain why he should be happy that you packed carrots and the other mom packed neon green sour gummy frogs. He knows the truth. You're just a meanie.
Is it really almost time for school to start?! Here we go again ...
What do YOU hate about packing lunch for your kids?
Image via Robert Nelson/Flickr
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Comments 22
I'm just very domestic and I like cooking, cleaning, and going out of my way for others.
I guess I'm lucky, because I don't mind packing their lunches, and they love what I pack and they eat it. They both have bento-style lunch boxes, and every day I pack them something different, so they get excited to open the little containers to find out what's inside. Their friends are all supposedly jealous, so I'm probably the mom you mentioned in number 5. Sorry 'bout that.
I pack Dh's lunch for work everyday and he is probably worse then any kid ive ever met! i always have to make sure to switch things up he gets so bored with the same lunch all the time... he has to have variety... i imagine our son will act the same when it comes time for me to pack his lunches.
So make them pack their own lunches. Quite sure the complaining will stop when it's them who has to spend the time making it. I packed my own lunch from 3rd/4th grade on because my parents decided I wasn't a baby anymore. They bought variety packs of things (since my siblings and I all had different tastes), and we picked and chose what bag of chips/pretzels, what fruit, and made whatever sandwich we wanted. And why not? I knew how to use a knife and make my own sandwiches and if I was old enough to complain about what my parents were packing, I was old enough to pack my own darn lunch. I was also responsible for making sure my lunchbox was emptied and cleaned each night.
The only one of my 4 kids that gets to take his lunch on a daily basis is my 9 year old. He has autism, so his lunch is exactly the same, every single day. 1 peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on wheat bread with peanut butter on both sides, so the jelly doesn't sog through the bread, 1 baggie of goldfish crackers, 1 frozen (the night before, but thawed by lunch) yogurt pop (the Go-gurt thingies), 1 container of cinnamon applesauce, and 1 package of cheese peanut butter crackers, which are eaten on the bus, half in the morning, and half on the way home. The only things we can generally change are the goldfish (for 2 days out of the month, he will take cheetos), and the apple sauce (once in a while he wants a chocolate pudding.) He gets milk at school, and everything except the sandwich and the yogurt pop gets packed the night before, after dinner.