My mother made 10 brown-bag lunches every school day for me and my siblings, even when we went to Catholic school. My dad would have never have allowed us to eat “free” lunches, and I thank him for instilling that value in us all.
I did not come from a “poor” family, although dad’s business had good years and bad years. We could tell because we were either eating steak or hot dogs for dinner. But that was in the 60s and 70s, there wasn’t any free or reduced lunches I recall. And if so we didn’t do that.
Mrs. henkster & I had our own two boys, now aged 21 and 25. We had some pretty lean years for a while when the boys were in elementary school. Mrs. henkster chose to stay home with the kids, a decision I supported 100%. I didn’t make that much money, but I also chose to not kill myself in my career to spend time coaching their little league teams and spending time with them. We never, ever considered the free or reduced lunch program, although it was there and we could have qualified.
And I don’t regret any of those decisions, as the boys are now fine young men and we are proud of them.
My mother-in-law, who is in her 80’s was dirt poor growing up in Mississippi.
She said her lunch every day was a homemade biscuit with country ham or some other meat. They were too poor to buy soft white bread from the store.
She said she didn’t mind much because there was always somebody with a white bread sandwich that wanted to trade for her biscuit.
Mom made lunch for the 4 of us until we got older and we did it ourselves. Yeah, baloney or PB sandwich and an apple and some pretzels.
Remember that most of the ones getting the free food are on food stamps so they are double dipping. The rest are just freeloading.
I took my lunch. I think we were poor since my father was frequently unemployed (alcoholic) but I never went hungry.
Always had breakfast @ home. Eggs/toast, oatmeal/grapefruit, etc. Don’t recall breakfast being offered @ school. Took lunch, usually salami sandwiches, maybe cookie or graham cracker ‘w icing. Bought my own on Friday, as I was hooked on the fish sandwiches, an extra one was a 25¢, malts were a dime, but no soda offered for sale. Had change from paper route, nbd.
Today, lunch costs about $3.00 per day. There is skim milk in a yucky plastic bag, and other junk like salads and a hoagie roll with very little meat in it. Not much protein at all. So, I fix lunch for my children.
Nope. And there were a few years where Mom and Dad didn't have two nickels to rub together.
I ate a lot of Peanut Butter sandwiches those years. Which was OK, because I liked, and still like PB. Had that, and an apple (good! nice and crisp) for lunch today as a matter of fact.
But I never went hungry. Mom would have been ashamed to have something like that happen.