My kids went back to school this morning and it was bittersweet to see my two children, now both taller than I am, heading off to high school. (My son is a entering his freshman year, my daughter is a junior.)
It seems like only yesterday that I was cutting up sandwiches for their brightly colored lunch boxes, tucking them in backpacks that seemed ridiculously large for their tiny frames, and watching at the door as my husband buckled them into car seats and drove them to our nearby elementary school. Today, it was my daughter driving them both to school, leaving me and Mr. TLT to sit in our suddenly-too-quiet kitchen and wonder where all the time has gone.
And speaking of those packed school lunches . . . after making over 3,500 packed lunches since my oldest entered nursery school (good lord, can that math be correct?), I’m officially hanging up my apron: for the first time since 2005, we no longer have a child in Houston ISD and lunch is included in the tuition at my children’s private high school.
Now that my kids are no longer in the public school system, a few people have asked whether I’ll continue to write and advocate about school food reform. But my interest in school food never really involved my own kids, who were fortunate enough to be able to bring in the home-packed lunches they generally preferred.
Instead, I trace my activism to a particular HISD meeting in the spring of 2010, when I learned for the first time that over 80 percent of the children in my district (and, as I would later learn, 21 million kids across the country) eat school meals out of economic need. It’s those kids – the ones critically reliant on school nutrition but with no voice in the process – for whom I try to shed light on these issues. For the same reason, I’ll also continue to serve on HISD’s School Health Advisory Council and on the district’s Parent Advisory Committee to Nutrition Services, making this my seventh year doing so.
One thing will change, though. With some reluctance, I’ve decided to discontinue my annual fall series, “It Takes a Village to Pack a Lunch,” in which I shared a week-long round-up of expert tips and recipes for school lunch packing. The series was always quite popular and I’m indebted to the many talented guest bloggers who made it happen each year, but I think my head is just no longer in the lunch-packing game. (Let me repeat, people: over 3,500 packed lunches!) But soon I’ll share a post which collects all the best advice from the last six years, and I’ll also link that post to my Resources tab for permanent reference.
I hope you had (or continue to have) a wonderful summer, and I look forward to resuming regular blogging as school gets underway!
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Adrienne Markus says
Thank you for all that you have done over the years! You are a true inspiration. I, too, have 2 teenagers (13, 16) but will still need to pack lunches for a while. Recently, it occurred to me that there is a dearth of information about packing a lunch for, or the feeding of, teens. They are at the stage when we *hope* they have learned healthy eating skills but also want to do things on their own and make their own choices – all good things. Have you noticed changes to your teens eating habits now that they are older? Also, the sheer quantity of food that I need to pack often makes me laugh when I look at posts of those for a 7 or 8 year old’s lunch. Not much is said about how to fit all of that food into a lunch bag – AND still use reusable containers! Maybe I’ll need to start my own blog…Thanks again!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Hi Adrienne, and thank you for these kind words! I agree – feeding teenagers poses its own unique challenges. As is appropriate, teens have a lot more freedom to eat what and how they want to, and while I don’t always love what my teens choose (!), I do think (hope) the lessons we’ve instilled by example throughout their childhood will take root in the long run. As for concrete nutritional advice for teens (as well as other ages), I really like Fearless Feeding. And here’s a recent post from Sally Kuzemchak at Real Mom Nutrition, about feeding tweens and teens, which may also be useful.
Aviva Goldfarb says
I can relate–I’m feeling bittersweet about our last year with a child in high school, too, Bettina. I thought you and TLT readers who are feeling a little worn down by packing thousands of lunches might appreciate this advice for delegating I shared recently in the Washington Post. http://www.thescramble.com/family-dinner/year-will-different-8-new-school-year-resolutions-parents-tired/
Hope it’s a successful and healthy school year for your kids and all those kids in our communities!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you for sharing that article, Aviva!