Free Lunch

So I am not even sure who gets booted off the ark this time, but rest assured I am going to find out! 

This week the school sent home the annual collection of forms that they require we fill out: contingency plans in case of emergency, medical updates, a school newsletter.  In this packet was a form that has caused me much distress, an application for financial assistance with the hot lunch program.  Originally, it was a source of angst because I am not sure whether I should submit it on behalf of my child.  From previous posts you probably know that my husband and I have both been unemployed for over a year.  But we have also budgeted and saved and made good enough investments throughout the 20 years we have been working so that, although we are feeling the strain of our unemployment, we are not in danger of losing our house, or underfeeding our children.  We have had to cut back and make some choices, but no terribly hard choices…yet. 

Cobra is up this month and we need to come up with over $1600 a month to cover our family’s insurance costs (thank you to the new health plan that insists we subsidize other people’s health insurance).  Unemployment ends in a few months as well and then we will have nothing coming in and quite a bit going out.  As for jobs, well they are out there, but not in our fields and not even making half of what we once did.  It is the old catch 22 right now, if we take one of the unskilled jobs out there, we lose all benefits and can’t make the new lower salary stretch far enough, but soon enough it won’t matter because all our benefits will be gone and we’ll need to take whatever we can get.

To that end, I have been wondering whether or not I should apply for the reduced lunch program.  We can afford to send our child to school with a packed lunch, but he really wants to get a hot lunch and it is an expense we don’t need to add in right now.  I had decided to teach him you can’t get everything you want and sometimes you have to stick with what you can afford and was about to throw away the form when I read that you do not need to be an American citizen to receive free or reduced lunch. WHAT?!!

Let me repeat that outrage,...W.H.A.T!  Here I am a citizen of the United States and a taxpayer in a state that is known for its ridiculous taxes.  I live in a town that has a high tax rate and I always pay what is required of me.  I don’t cheat on my taxes and although I grumble (a ton) I pay my taxes like a responsible citizen.  So here I am struggling with whether or not it would be right for me to take advantage of a program I may not need as much as someone else and you are telling me that MY tax dollars are going to feed someone who isn’t even a citizen?  Read doesn’t pay taxes.  Read is already STEALING the education itself, and now will be receiving a free lunch too. 

Really?  Why does this society reward people who break the rules or have no sense of personal responsibility?  For God’s sake if this country wasn’t so busy giving handouts to people who come looking for the proverbial free lunch at every turn, then maybe the rest of us wouldn’t be so overtaxed that we are unable to make our own ends meet.

For us my child’s lunch isn’t really free, our tax dollars are paying for it; unfortunately, so are yours.  My question: if they are going to offer free lunch on the backs of tax-payers, why don’t they just provide free lunch to ALL children?  This is something I have never understood.  Well I understand it; it is called socialism, but they refuse to advertise that because if they did there would be more of an outrage.  But that is what it is people, taking money from one group to subsidize another is indeed socialism.

And again, if they just stopped taxing so much to provide all these free bees then you wouldn’t be subsidizing my kids lunch because I’d have enough to pay for it and none of us would subsidize the lunches of criminals who don’t deserve something for nothing in the first place!

Really, here I am having contributed tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to my community and I am feeling badly about taking something that I PAID FOR but that someone else might need more. Then I learn that this same community is offering MY HARD EARNED MONEY to someone who has contributed NOTHING!  Before you argue against me think of this: maybe if the government hadn’t taken so much of my money over the years and had left it in my bank account instead of taking it to pay for expensive cars for the politicians, the same road to be redone continuously for the past 5 years, or to disperse in the socialist fashion to which they have become so accustomed, I might have enough money in my account to pay for my kids to buy lunch at school.

            So what did I decide?  I don’t think I’ll be taking advantage of the program because we don’t really need it the way I think some people do.  Isn’t it a shame though that my son can’t have something he wants and which I could afford if someone else wasn’t taking my money for his free lunch?

Perplexed

Okay so this isn’t my usual rant.  There is nothing really to be upset about, no stupid people involved, no one being rude.  But as I sat pondering my next post while my kids watched Max and Ruby, I heard myself thinking what I always do when that show is on: where are the parents?

            Seriously, do any of you watch this show with your children?  Well for those of you who haven’t, it is a show about two bunnies, “Max and Ruby, Ruby and her little brother Max.”  In many shows, the children will take a bus or walk over to their Grandmother’s house, but never is their any mention of parent bunnies.  And I have to wonder, where are they?  Why aren’t they ever even mentioned?  There is no indication that they are at work, or away on vacation, or even deceased.  They are never mentioned at all.  Over and over again Ruby, the big sister, (who is only seven) takes care of little brother Max who is so young he only says one word at a time, so he’s what, maybe two?  Max is there when Ruby has a friend over, when she is going to bunny scouts, when she is doing her homework.  And at bedtime, it is Ruby who tucks Max in and handles lost stuffed animals and nightmares.  She feeds him; fixes his boo boos, and generally does everything you would expect his parents to do.

            So again, there is no reason for ranting or raving.  No one to blame (well maybe the writers.)  I am just perplexed.  Why did they write this show so that a young bunny is solely responsible for her toddler brother?  I’m not going to get all social justice on you or pretend that I think there is a message about the independence of children, or the political correctness of working parents, but I do think it is odd.  It is noticeable enough that every time my kids are watching the show I find myself thinking where are the parents?

            Does anyone know?

Hello Are These Your Kids?

I can’t believe it took me this long to say, parents who don’t watch their children are NOT allowed on my ark.  And yes, that means neither are their kids, because I am not going to be responsible for them.

            Really, it is not complicated. If you have a child under the age of 18 you are legally and morally responsible for him or her.  Therefore, you should know what he or she is up to.  If you have a young child, like the 4 year old I got stuck watching all day on Sunday, then you need to be actually physically where they are watching what they are doing.

            I don’t understand why this is so hard for so many parents.  For instance, on Sunday I am at a BBQ with a group of people I have never even met before.  I am there with my husband and three children under 6; therefore, I am running around after small children all day.  I am a mom.  It is my job.  And if I were running around after only my children, that would be fine because they are my responsibility.  But I wasn’t; I was also watching the poorly behaved and obviously attention starved 4 year-old whose mother was the daughter of our hostess. 

            The mother, never seemed to concern herself with him.  Mind you we were outside in a yard that is on the main street in our town and also, since it is on the corner, another fairly well used road.  The mother never so much as came outside to make sure her child was okay and not running into the street.  The party was outside mind you, but apparently the TV and the couch where she sat her fat butt all afternoon, were inside along with a cooler of beer cans. THAT she didn’t let out of her sight.  But the four year old, who was pushing the younger children, hitting, stealing toys away from everyone and generally making a pain of himself, HIM she never bothered to check on. 

            At one point he pushed a smaller boy off the bulkhead for the third time and I felt the need to reprimand him (someone had to).  I sternly told this child he could not push people.  He ran away.  When he came back a minute or two later, I reemphasized my point and said, “ You cannot push anyone else or I am going to have to tell your mother.”  I said it loudly because we were right outside the open window that his mother was planted in front of inside the house.  I assumed she might make an appearance after hearing someone scolding her child for the second time.  But she didn’t. 

            She also didn’t make an appearance when he ran off into a neighbor’s yard, or when he continuously knocked down the one year-old at the party because he thought it was funny. In fact, at one point she left the party for a half an hour and didn’t even tell her son she was going.  By the way, when I left she didn’t so much as thank me for entertaining HER child all afternoon.  In fact, she didn’t even bother herself to say good-bye and nice meeting you so why I would have expected a thank you, I don’t know.  I guess I always expect that there is a limit to a person’s poor manners.  I am learning, there isn’t.

            As you may have noticed by now, I am not the silent suffering type.  I did make a point of speaking loudly enough for her to hear me when I told my husband that I had three kids of my own to watch and that this little boy needed to go find his mother.  I will explain to my children very loudly in front of the offending parent that we can no longer play somewhere because a child is acting badly and his parent is no where to be found to control him.  I have even called out at the playground “Hello, are these your kids?” if children are getting particularly out of hand and need an adult other than a stranger to take over their supervision.  And every single time, my blood boils at the laissez faire attitude of the offending adult.

            What I want to know is this: what makes these parents think the rest of us are their babysitters? I have three children of my own to watch, get off your lazy butt and watch your own.  And it is always the badly behaved children whose parents are oblivious (I know, no surprise there but still).  I don’t need to inherit their problems and for some reason I always seem to.

            Whether it is the three moms chatting at the park not noticing that their boys are having a sand fight, first with each other and then ganging up and throwing it at innocent children they don’t even know.  Or, it is the kid of an acquaintance I see once a year who is running around another person’s house breaking things, spilling things, and generally causing mass destruction everywhere he goes.  I seem to be constantly bombarded by unparented children. 

            I get it, you want to sit and have a leisurely glass of wine and a quiet discussion with another adult, who doesn’t.  But guess what?  You can’t!  Why not?  Because you chose to have children and those children are still young enough to require supervision.  So get off your lazy, entitled bottom, and teach your child some manners by example. Discipline him when he hurts someone.  Tell him no when he wants something that isn’t his.  And generally keep an eye on him or her so you can insure not only the safety of your child, but that of the rest of the children as well.  In other words, grow up!