Tell me what you really think.
At my 85% free and reduced lunch carrying a lunch box is a status symbol - that means you aren't on free & reduced and your parents have means (and tell the truth to the IRS)!
For their first year of school, I paid for my kids to eat the school lunch. They would come home starving, and when asked what they ate, they said, "Nothing. I didn't like anything on the tray." Then I started packing a lunch so at least they would eat something. The first grader took a sausage bicuit every day of the year. He would take one bite, then eat the chips and fruit roll-up. The fourth grader likes odd stinky things like egg salad sandwiches, oberle sausage, pepperoni pizza, baked chicken and stuffing. I teach at the high school, and see the free lunch kids skipping the tray and buying soda and chips. I don't think their parents know they do that. They will eat the free breakfast, though, and drink the milk.
Lunches didn't do it for me because my kids weren't sufficiently appreciative. But I have fond memories of sifting through the lost and found table in the hall outside the library. And I always found a missing mitten or glove or even sweat pants.
Lunch boxes now are nothing like they were then. Then they were metal and if someone messed with you on the way home you have a weapon in your hand, ready to fight. Now, they're all soft and squishy and can't even kill the pesky fly that lands on your twinkie.
-G
Something about your post reminded me of the sack lunch that Frances lovingly describes in "Bread and Jam for Frances" by Russell Hoban. Do you know it?
It's funny which memories come back to warm our hearts!
Oh man, I totally don't miss packing lunches. My kid was such a picky eater that I eventually gave up and just bought him Lunchables--yeah, he would eat the crappy 60000 grams of fat prepacked pseudo-food. His teachers must have thought I was a horrible, horrible person...
I like your blog! Here via Michele's M&G.
I don't miss lunch packing AT all. Now they are 11 and 13, they pack them themselves Yayyyy!!!
Just stopping by (via blog explosion's blog rocket thingee this time) to say hello. I used to loooooove my Sean Cassidy lunchbox. It was da bomb.
The special trip for backpacks, supplies, and the lunch boxes at the beginning of each school year was such a fun time with my sons.
I found myself strolling through the lunch box isles last year just touching them. Then when I realized I was getting a few funny looks I just laughed and walked on. I'm with you in missing this particular little thing.
BTW, the Haloscan is working out lovely. Thank you, again, for sending me their way.
Aw... that made me kind of misty...
By the way, my 12yr old son calls it "olive cart" and I can't convince him that it's a la cart... even though there aren't any olives in sight...
This was such a sweet post to read. I'm 23 and I remember those lunches my mom packed for me. She still gets to worry about my lunches since I'm "home" right now, but soon, she'll be worrying while I'm away being an adult in Boston.
I don't miss that at all! I was alays trying to do packed lunches at the last min - they got awful stuff poor kids - last nights left overs re-made over as sandwiches mostly 
have a great weekend
Oh it is!!! I still pack my kids lunch now and then, even though I know they toss it and buy french fries and ranch dip... It makes me FEEL good to do it!! I'm with you on the better quality on the whole government cheese thing... I loved that stuff. Glad I don't need it anymore, but omg, it made the best grilled cheese sandwiches EVER.
Good afternoon... lunch boxes are no more what they used to... shame really!
Hope you're having a great weekend! Michele sent me! ;-D
I'm still packing lunches every morning. Only now they are my own and not nearly as fun as all that. Any time you're feeling nostalgic for the job again, you come right on over...I'm not a picky eater, I swear.
I don't pack them for school, but I do pack them for summer camp. It's not easy. I always try to sneak something healthy into the bag, like an apple or carrot sticks, and the healthy stuff usually is the only thing that comes back home at the end of the day!
I had a Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox
What a sad comment when a teacher qualifies for free lunch.
Ahhh, that post made me miss my Strawberry Shortcake metal lunchbox. Actually, I still have it, maybe I should pack it and take it to school next year, since I am a teacher also, I'm sure the other teachers would be jealous, lol!
I have always tucked a little love note in my girl's lunchboxes along with a tiny surprise...a chocolate kiss, a sticker, a fun eraser, etc. The teachers have commented to me that they get just as excited as the kids to see what the goody of the day is.
"As long as we could manage at all, I felt better NOT asking for that kind of help."
That's me.
I do love packing my kids' lunch. I pack my son's every day (I have to make his food special due to his allergies & inability to chew solids)
and my daughter's new love is Honey Roasted Peanut Butter sandwiches.
She'll eat 'em every day, twice if she can. But it is fun to put in a little note of encouragement and love, and sometimes a special surprise. *sigh*
We're trying to get my mom to give up the Howdy Doody lunchbox for my daughter...but I'm afraid she's going to make me listen to Gene Pitney records in trade. *shudder*
Yup, my mom was a lunchbox note-leaver, too, and I always enjoyed that. Even when I rolled my eyes for the benefits of friends sitting nearby, I always appreciated the notes. And I'm now remembering my (ahem) Dream Date lunchbox and Snoopy lunchbox. Remember the smell of (even clean) metal lunchboxes?
Oh Mamacita...you take the most innocent memory and weave a snapshot with your words that allows me, if only for a moment, to see and feel what you felt.
For a brief moment...
I seen your pride in not wanting a handout.
I seen your love for two of the luckiest children (now adults) that I can imagine.
I seen your happiness in writing a small note to slip into that brown bag
AND....
I seen a much younger me offering YOU my Partridge Family lunchbox and saying...will you please pack me one too?
Thank you for all of those beautiful sights. Now, can I come over if I bring Twinkies?
I carry a lunchbox to work most days. It's hard to stress over TPS reports with cartoon sumo wrestlers staring up at me. And by noon, I've forgotten which treat I packed myself, so it's still fun.
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