As I mentioned in the last post, I have been obsessing a bit about the topic of M’s school lunches. When I was a kid, I always bought the hot lunch. I thought M would do the same, but when I saw M’s school’s menu it looked terrible and unhealthy (Hot dogs and corn dogs in the same week?!?). So now, I think we are going to try to pack lunch most days.
When Mr. A was little and brought lunch from home, kids teased him about it. He brought rice and noodles, which the other kids found strange. Mr. A had mentioned this, so I got a little nervous about lunch packing. It turns out there as more to Mr. A’s story, but I may have to write a separate post about that.
M’s favorite food is rice. She will eat sandwiches from time to time, but she far prefers rice. That means I won’t send her with lunch meat/PB&J and a bag of chips every day. Some days, maybe. But not every day. I want to pack lunches that are healthy and also things she will eat.
So when I ran across the bento idea, it seemed like a good solution. I showed it to M and she thought it looked fun and yummy. She liked the little dishes of different things. She liked the cute shapes.
M is a kid who gets along well with other kids. By that, I mean she usually isn’t socially awkward. She isn’t the ringleader of big groups, but most kids seem to really like her and want to be her friend.
Why does M’s social ability matter for lunch?
If M were a kid who struggled with fitting in or who was often targeted by other kids, I would pack the absolute standard lunch that all the other kids at her school bring. I would even let her have things I wouldn’t normally buy (gogurt, lunchables, etc.) if it would help her not be a target of other kids’ ridicule.
But so far, M hasn’t been a kid who gets picked on. I think this gives M the latitude to get away with a slightly more unconventional lunch option, than she would if she was a different kid. If kindergarten is like most of M’s previous experiences, other kids will think M (and by association her lunch) is acceptable and interesting (maybe even cool).
I know that the peer dynamic in school is important. That is why I was even bothering to think about her lunch at all.
Kindergarten is the beginning of a slow sifting of kids into their slots on the social hierarchy. M goes into school with a bit of an advantage because has parents who appreciate the impact that the social game has on a kid’s school life. And because we understand it, we will send M to school with good personal hygiene (hair brushed, bathed, clean face, etc) and wearing socially-acceptable clothes. She may not have Hannah Montana t-shirts (yet), but she has twirly skirts and other things that kindergartners like.
And because Mr. A and I get the importance of these things, if M starts catching any flack about her lunch (or clothes or whatever), we will make adjustments so she doesn’t stick out in a negative way. Of course we would talk to M about what is going on with other kids and give her choices about how to reduce the problem. I could care less if M becomes popular, but we will certainly not make her life miserable by placing a target of weirdness on her back.
It is the ugly Queen Bee truth, but the impressions that M makes on other kids, their parents and her first teachers will impact the next 13 years of her life. I could rant about how this is all unfair and how we should fight the system, but what good would it do? Little kids are animals fighting for their rank in the pack. If you throw 20 kids together every day, eventually they (especially the girls) will establish a pecking order.
I know it sounds crazy to be thinking about these things in kindergarten. But kindergarten is where it begins.
So we will test the waters of the bento box lunch, but we are flexible and will adapt if necessary.
I bet some of the other kids have the bento boxes too, though. They are getting pretty popular. I want to get them for everybody in our family even though no one is going to school any time soon. I mean, I know I’m a weirdo, so that’s no example, but I know a lot of people who are getting them. So maybe M will set the cool trend with Kindergarten lunch!
Have you seen this site? She has tons of great lunch ideas – very inspiring.
http://veganlunchbox.blogspot.com/
I think Bento Boxes are way cool, I wish they’d been popular when I was in school. As it was my Mom rarely packed sandwiches or lunchables for me, it was always soups, leftovers, pasta in a thermos and such and I don’t ever recall being picked on over something as silly as lunch. If anything I bet M becomes the talk of her new friends (in a good way) with her interesting shaped food and tasty dishes. But that’s just my guess.
I think you might be surprised by the diversity of lunches kids take these days, especially among kids with parents in your/our demographic. In my son’s (high priced Montessori) preschool a sandwich and chips would have definitely been seen as kind of a slacker, fall back option. “Good” parents came up with all kinds of creative and interesting lunches and bento lunches (Americanized versions anyway) were hugely popular. Maybe the shit hits the fan in kindergarten, I don’t know, but we are preparing for that adventure ourselves so we shall see.
Personality does play a big role…mine just started school (fifth grade…sniff) and just the other day she took homemade beef jerky (my father makes the best) and homemade granola bars….the kids gathered around her because the beef jerky looked “weird” and she said “don’t knock it until you try it” and broke off pieces of it to pass around. Yesterday she asked to take more because her friends loved it.
As for the homemade bars (mine) she said “they weren’t a hit mom but I like them so put them in.
If she weren’t able to brush off comments I’d worry but so far she’s been able to handle it (not to say I don’t fall back on PB & J on other days!!) and it seems like yours is suited for “different” lunches too.
But Molly Ringwald’s character had a bento and she was popular, right? So it must be okay.
You know you are a good mom if the lunch looks like Hello Kitty. You know you are a bad mom if it is spaghetti, carrot sticks, and orange slices every day.
Just joking.
Mine are still in daycare so I don’t have any input on grade school lunches but I usually pack a bento for myself consisting of leftovers and some other cute things. I try to pack my daughter something similar except not as a bento, just separate tupperware containers in her lunch box. Once she is a little older, I may get her a bento too.
Have you seen this site?
http://lunchinabox.net/
She makes her preschooler a bento every day and documents tips for speedy bentos.
How funny – you and I are sharing the same obsessions right now. My daughter’s starting kindergarten in a couple of weeks and it’s bringing up so many memories of school (she’s my first). Such as how even what you bring for lunch can have social ramifications. I lived in Japan for a few years some time ago and recently remembered about the bento concept, so I ordered one for each of us, along with the various accoutrements. She loves it! There are whole Flickr groups devoted to bentos right now.
I’ve been sending my kiddo to 2 preschools w/ a bento box for the past year and the other kids loved it – I’ve had many requests from parents for help finding their own animal-shaped onigiri molds…It might just work out for M, too
I started packing bentos for my kids last year (kindergarten & 2nd grade) My kids love them! Their friends have been more curious than anything and my daughters friends, especially, are always ooohing and aaaahing over her lunches.
Love the bento box. So true – Molly Ringwald had one didn’t she? I’m betting that M will have many kids fascinated by her lunch & hoping to trade for a taste. This could be your new part-time career adventure – Am Fam’s Bento cart. I found the most fabulous cookbook – Beyond the Great Wall – recipes and travel. It’s hard to find Chinese ethnic minority recipes in English print. This book is lovely & so useful. Xia Xia likes rice better than anything as well. We get more use out of the rice cooker than any other kitchen item. I expect this will be a staple for her for some time to come. She hates bread, maybe that will change though.
We will also be doing Bento in a few weeks as our girl begins pre-school.
Amfam, you are so smart to recognize how important it is to start on the right foot. I have to say I was always the kid picked on in school and in my neighborhood (I was the only kid my age without an older sibling, I was a chubby kid, slower and not interested in playing outside) so I was a target and ignored for many years. It hurt and I will do everything in my power to not afflict my girl with that pain.
Someone beat me to vegan lunch box…
“A” barely brought food to high school ’cause his parents didn’t have it together enough have a lunch for him.
I was NEVER allowed to buy lunch and brought Greek food. Sometimes I lit my cheese on fire at the lunch table if people made fun of me.
http://www.AnUrbanStory.com
heh, my Daddy backed my lunch believe it or not. and he did sort of a Bento box deal for us (My sister and me). Only with American and Greek food. He stopped packing my lunch when I got to middle school(My sister was already in college). Know I just bring lean cuisine to school and microwave it there.
oop I mean packed
Oh, Mr. A’s experience reminds me of my own. My mom would pack rice with Chinese food for me and the kids would always tease me
And sometimes I would try to “forget” my lunch so I wouldn’t be made fun of.
After we moved to an area with more Asian kids then it got better.
But this was back in the 80s so I’m not sure how kids are these days…
I have to say I am kind of surprised to hear you say how much you are willing to play into the social thing. I wasn’t expecting that from you. Personally I want my kids to be eclectic, unique and a little offbeat. Their lunch boxes this week were filled with dried seaweed, rice crackers, yam-yam cups, won-tons, zucchini cupcakes, homemade salsa and quesadillas. C is one of the more popular girls in her class (M will always be a little off but every kid seems to know him). I think things are different now. The kid that dresses nice but is a little funky is popular, the kid that is a little different is definitely more exotic. Though we do live in a diverse, well educated, higher income, alternative kind of area.
I am definitely reading this book next bringing up geeks. I don’t know about you but all the popular kids at my 10 year reunion really didn’t fare well…. divorced, drunk, obese, working at hardware stores…. all the geeks were happy and well employed engineers.
The latest issue of Parents (Sept 2008) has an article on school lunch ideas using bento boxes as their displays. I think bento boxes are becoming much more commonplace in middle America cafeterias. Lots of kids use cloth napkins, regular silverware, etc. in their lunch, too.
My daughter starts first grade next week. Last year, I let her choose a school lunch about twice a month (normally she chose when they had bkfst fo lunch). I went to eat with her once a week or so, after I volunteered there. (I’m doing it while I can!) The lunches at school were generally terrible and a lot of the kids didn’t eat what was served anyway. And a kid taking part in a free lunch program not eating their lunch isn’t productive for anyone. It’s such a waste on so many levels.
The kids who brought their lunches ate their lunches – and they were quite varied. Pita and hummus, soup, sandwiches, bagels, wraps…Just one suggestion – make sure that your daughter can open and close the containers by herself. When I went to eat lunches at school, I opened lots of containers that were closed too tightly. I practiced with my daughter on her containers.
Here’s the link for Parents magazine
http://www.parents.com/recipes/cooking/kid-friendly-food/healthy-school-lunches-snacks/
Also check out Laptop Lunches, which has bento box lunch recipes for kids.
http://www.laptoplunches.com/ideas.html
I have to say that it is good that you think about this. When my niece went to school, she was teased about what she had in her lunches and now there are things that she won’t even eat at home that she use to love.
Oh crap, you mean I’m going to have to relive grade-school popularity contests AND pack lunches?
I don’t know, this parenting thing is tough.
Baby Chalal just moved up to the “big-kids” room at daycare (2-4 year olds) and he looks like such a baby compared to the others… hard to think I’ll have to start dealing with anything more difficult than a one-more-cookie tantrum someday.
My little one will start 1st grade in a couple of weeks. And you are right – Kindergarten is a whole new ballgame from daycare/preschool!
H did so well socially until she started Kindergarten. She had the misfortune to be in the same class as the “A list” girls (and yes, it does exist). The other girls somehow knew which two girls were the “it girls” and would do anything to be accepted by them. I thought Kindergarten would be OK since we live in a diverse, well educated, higher income, univerisity area. And my older daughter never really had this problem at this school.
While grocery shopping, I saw the bento boxes and thought they were cute and showed them to my girls. “No one has anything like that, Mom” was the answer I got!
“You could be the first” I told them. They weren’t going for it.
Probably why the last post hit a nerve
I’ve been really into bento boxes lately, I like this site, http://adventuresinbentomaking.com/.
But I’ve always been into visual food. When I saw your first bento post, I was very excited. Anyway. I finally caved and made a blog of my own. http://bizzzcuit.blogspot.com/
I am 100 percent with Jenney. As a kid who spent her elementary years overseas, I was not very “in” once I landed back in the States for middle and high school. But my parents ensured that I was a confident, strong little girl. Now that I am all grown up, I travel the world for a living (not really, but it is pretty cool). And all of the people who snubbed me are bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. Seriously.
Like Jenney, I was suprised reading this on your blog, too. After we moved to the US after living for many years in Spain, I experienced lots of lunch-time teasing, too. But, although it troubled me at the time, now I can see it helped make me stronger and more independently-minded. And yeah, like Rebecca wrote, the most popular people, the ones who teased me, are now also literally bagging groceries or working as cashiers somewhere, or unemployed and still living with their parents and frequenting the same dive bars that they did when they were underage. (Just like my mother told me they would be way back then.) I think I might have gotten the message that it’s NOT okay to be different had my mother sent me off with Kid Cuisines (what the others all had) instead of the healthier, more ethnic food she packed me instead.
Wow, well I guess I would say I have a completely different reading of this post than the last few posters. AmFam even says she couldn’t give a hoot if her daughter is popular. I am getting from this not that you will raise your daughters to fit in and be popular, but rather that you will raise your daughters to be who they are.. and if for some reason they become targets of ridicule to the point where it’s making their life miserable you’ll do something about it (sorry if I am reading you wrong). Personally, I didn’t exactly fit in, but I was also not the target of ridicule, and I turned into an independent, successful, happy adult. I guess there’s an in between — not just picked on children who become great adults and popular kids who don’t do much with their life.
I totally agree with AmFam that you do NOT want to handicap your child further, if your child is low on the social ladder. What’s the point? If your child is low on the social ladder, they already have enough teasing and problems to deal with. YES, everyone needs to learn to handle being teased, and being teased can make you stronger, etc… But NO, it is not good when it is to the point that it is beating your child down, and then to make things worse the parents do things (that the child cannot control) that make the child an even easier target.
My parents never really made things worse for me, but I was so socially inept that I was at the bottom for years. There are some good sides to this, for example it has made me kinder, and sympathetic to social underdogs, but years of being uninvited, unwanted, etc., leave deep scars, too. There are many times, as an adult, that I have ended up sabotaging myself socially because of scars left from my childhood.
For example, if I am not quite sure whether I was invited to a party or not, then I often feel it’s safer to just assume that I wasn’t actually invited, because there is a strong feeling conditioned in my mind that “I am not the sort of person people want at parties”. So then I don’t go to the party. Also, although I am happy and have an interesting(?) life in another country, I often feel very nervous around people who I perceive as being above me socially. This probably sounds stupid to many people, but it can take years and a huge effort to undo the damage of a socially inept childhood.
Oops – posted that comment in the wrong place. I will repost it with the correct post.
Well, I can see that you’re taking some flak from people here, but personally (and professionally, btw) I think it’s a very good thing that you’re in-tune with what M is going to be experiencing on a social level. Your preference is to provide the types of healthy lunches that she’s used to, but you’re not going to force her to do that if it causes misery for her at school. That’s excellent parenting, IMO. Truly, I have to question parents’ motivations sometimes when they’re all “Rah rah, I want my kid to be unique and different.” Great. But maybe that’s not what your kid wants. A kid needs to be SAFELY unique and different. You can teach independence and individual preferences to a child without, as you said, attaching a target of weirdness to her back. Some parents have their own agenda and don’t think enough about what the child wants…
I recently picked up the children’s book Yoko by Rosemary Wells. It’s about a little girl who brings sushi for lunch and is not accepted by the other children. I remember you saying M is an advanced reader but you may want to check it out anyway!
http://www.amazon.com/Yoko-Rosemary-Wells/dp/0786803959/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219502820&sr=1-1
I’m more interested in the bento box option simply because it’s a way to make more healthful foods enticing. As for the social thing…hmm. Having been at the bottom of the social heap because I was a “brain”, I have no great ideas on how the “what you bring for lunch” comes into the social calculus.
I have no time to read the other comments, and I betcha anything I’m missing debate because of that, but I wanted to say: neither clothes nor lunches made any impact on anyone at our school in either kindergarten or first grade. I don’t think the other kids would have noticed if any of my children had come to school with blue hair and been eating live squid. (Now the other mothers….)
And okay, yeah, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. I have one worrier in the bunch and if she’d been hearing anything like you anticipate (teasing for clothes or food), whether directed at her or anyone else, I DEFINITELY would have known about it.
The local rumor mill has it that the viciousness to which you allude starts to emerge, amongst some groups of kids, in around third grade. And even then, there are groups of kids who care, and groups of kids who decide they would rather keep doing what they have always done, and still like.
Of course, all this depends ENORMOUSLY on the school and the district. Maybe yours is a kindergarten in which a lot of teasing is tolerated and goes on. But someday, maybe soon, I’m going to write about how very much my kids’ school experiences have NOT, so far, been anything like mine. [For example: all the kindergarten teachers read that YOKO book by Rosemary Wells, both during Wells author week and during the first two months of school, during which "celebrating each other's differences" was a major part of the curriculum.]
I haven’t read the other comments but wanted to say that I think the stigma about bringing “weird” food for lunch has lifted since we were kids. My mom always packed weird stuff in my lunch…I wasn’t teased for it but I was stuck eating the crap when all I really wanted was the PB&J and pringles that the next kid had. Now, I think that cool things and different things is much more okay with kids. And from what I read around the net, bento boxes are actually pretty trendy for school lunches and should have other kids thinking she is cool rather than a dork.
Amfam – I have had one first grade student be teased over lunch – he was bringing soup every day. Luckily the mom told me and we were able to sort it out as a class. If M has a good teacher, she will definitely be an ally to help the kids understand that people eat and enjoy all sorts of things. FWIW the boy getting teased was completely normal socially and will most likely fall into the “popular” category on down the line. He was able to continue bringing soup and no one had any more to say about it.
If you can find it, I’d recommend buying “Char Siu Bao Boy” by Sandra Yamate. It’s about a boy who loved Chinese barbecued pork buns, but the kids made fun of him. So he tried sandwiches and other food, but didn’t enjoy them. Then he brought enough for everyone to share and educate the other kids. And they became fans too.
A simple lesson on food and diversity.
Hi,
New person checking out your site here!
I agree with a few others here that the bento boxes will probably make her more popular, because they sound trendy.
I was surprised recently when my daughter was teased for having sliced mushrooms among the other “normal” things in her lunch. In my childhood experience, I didn’t remember such things being an issue. And while I would never wish to purposefully make her a target of ridicule, I hate the idea of bending over backwards to please a few kids who hate mushrooms. (Ironically, I myself loathe mushrooms, but that’s not the point!)
Hi, another new person checking out your site!!!
I have a 5 year old starting Kindergarten. She’s a picky eater, and I asked if she would like to buy the school’s hot food (we discussed the menu), or bring her own. She quickly decided to bring her own.
I then told her that she would have to help me prepare her lunch the night before. Choose items that she knows that she likes, choose a variety of items which (somehow) fit into the food pyramid, and pack a quantity of combined items that she know she will eat and finish!
She knows that it’s not good to waste food, and she knows that everyone is, and likes something different. As for myself, I’ve been a vegan for over 25 years. My hubbie, only eats meat and potatoes. So…. daugher is a slight mix of us both, but tends to like dairy products more than anything.
I’m convinced that her lunch will consist of the following:
Ham and chesse sandwich on whole wheat with lettuce and tomatoe,
Kid’s size yougurt,
Pint of Milk,
Unsalted Pretzles,
Sugar Free Jello,
Bottle of Water,
Choice of Fruit.
Why make things complicated? Simple is better, and surely faster. These are the things that she likes, and I know (we both know) that she can eat without creating a mess.
As for teasing others that like to eat something different – well we play this game at home. While I am always eating a strange mix of veggies, and hubbie eating steak, hot dogs, burgers and some form of potatoe, and daughter eating (trying to, at least) a healthy combination… we often do tease each other.
With this, she’s been taught that everyone has a preference. As you grow and try new things, you may find out that you like them – so don’t tease.
Sure, it’s a different world today than it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Be assured, it’s up to the parent(s) to decide how to raise their child and explain to them right from wrong.
Kudos to those who have brought them along to partially understand sex, politics, race and religion (and taught them about the differences). Teaching them about school lunch – that really should be an easy task!
Best of luck to you all. I hope that everyone has a great FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL – as it is approaching quick!
Take care,