There Ain't No Free Lunch

It's summer, and it is therefore the season of free lunch and breakfast. The school district provides free meals to children under the age of 18 at various parks and schools. Adults can buy a lunch for $3. Adults are not permitted to eat off the kids' plates, and until this year, you were not supposed to remove food from the premises. This year, the kids may take one thing, such as their fruit or cookies.

I have tried this a couple of times in the past. I would go to the park, and it would frustrate me to no end to watch my children waste tax money by ignoring their food. I ceased and decided it was not worth it. Besides, I either had to feed myself first, pay $3, or wait till I came home to eat. With only 2 or even 3 kids, it wasn't worth it. This year, though, I have 4 eating kids of my own plus my wonderful neighbor. Going to the school saves me some money.

I totally agree with the motive behind the rules. The food is for the children. I believe in being honest and following the rules. BUT I also believe in being thrifty and not wasting food. Every time I go to the park, I have this major internal battle. I can justify disobeying the rules by arguing that the children will eat it later or that it would just end up in the trash anyway. Why is it worse to feed me than the garbage can? If they're not going to eat it, why shouldn't I? If I buy my own lunch, does that make me less guilty if I snitch unwanted food from my kids' bags? So this is my moral dilemma: Follow the rules or not waste food?

I'm glad that most days we can go to the school where food is served on a tray, and it would be hard to take the food with me even if I wanted. At the park, though, everything is prepackaged in a paper bag. Anything not eaten would be so easy to take home. And if I bring home Sunny's carrots, you can bet she won't eat them any better at home than she did at the park. So in the mean time, I think we'll keep eating at the school, and on Fridays, we will just eat at home to save me the dilemma!

By the way, I'm not sure how I feel about the whole program, but I'd be crazy not to take advantage of it since it's there!

How about you other mothers? Do you take your kids to free lunch? Do you ever snitch or keep stuff? What do you think about all this?