The Loss of Common Sense
Home made treats? Peanuts? Not in our school.
All weekend I debated whether I wanted to share this rant with you, but I finally decided that the underlying issue was worth discussing. It stems from my participation in my daughter’s Halloween parade and party at school on Friday.
As I’ve discussed before, the food police have really cracked down on the joy in kids’ school parties. It began a few years ago when someone in this state decided that the schools should police the sugar that would be admitted into classroom parties and birthday celebrations. I have no issue with the school deciding not to sell candy or soft drinks in the lunch room – too tempting for some kids to go against their parents’ wishes. On the other hand, taking away the sweet treats from parties sends the wrong message, making these contraband sugar treats even more desirous, in my opinion. Not just that, but the current popular substitution is large soft pretzels – a highly refined product that turns into sugar once it hits your system. Does this make sense?
On the heels of the sugar police came the allergy police. Because of the large number of nut allergies in our school (no specific numbers were shared), parents were no longer allowed to send in home made treats and snacks for birthdays and school parties. We could only send in purchased food with ingredient labels. And didn’t you know it, the allergy police came marching in at the beginning of our party to inspect our food. The head nurse and her assistant came in armed with a clipboard and a list and lifted and inspected all of our ingredient labels. All is can say is that it’s a good thing we didn’t break any of the rules, since I’d hate to have been sent to the principal’s office.
I will repeat for the record that I completely appreciate the serious danger that children with food allergies are in. And I’m sure there’s some lawyer out there advising the superintendent and principal of our school on how to manage this situation. But it appears that common sense has lost out.
Once upon a time, like last year, the kids with food allergies were assigned to one teacher so that the problem was contained, and the only police we worried about was the sugar police – oh, the good old days. But now they’re scattered among the classes so that everybody can worry about this problem. Ah yes, makes complete sense. Plus, speaking with my sister, who I consider pretty much to be an allergy expert as she’s spent the past 7 years protecting my seriously allergic niece, I learned something very interesting about those allergy labels on processes food. Apparently the warning statement about “processed in a facility that also processes nuts” is voluntary, not mandatory. Therefore, while the ingredient list may be accurate, you can’t be any more sure that the processing facility is allergy free than someone’s home kitchen. But, I suppose that processed food with a warning label will keep the allergy police and their buddies the lawyers comfortable. Makes complete sense, no?
I heard an anecdote at the party that showed me this insanity isn’t just limited to our school system. The son of one of our room parents attended a day camp last year where peanut butter was banned because one child had peanut allergies. Peanut butter and jelly, the backbone of many children’s lunches was banned for all because of one child. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
Finally, here’s a solution proposed by my very wise sister. Since she would never trust her daughter, at this age, to eat food that she hadn’t checked first, with or without an ingredient label, she proposed that the school keep a small stash of completely allergy safe treats for those children that have any kind of food allergy. There are companies that make delicious chocolates, candies, and baked goods that wouldn’t be a compromise for these poor children that have to deal with allergies. That way the parents of children with allergies don’t have to remember to send in special treats for every classroom birthday party, and all the non-allergy kids don’t have to live with purely processed food to protect those allergic children. However, when she proposed that to her daughter’s pre-school they wouldn’t do it. Makes too much common sense, doesn’t it?
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It seems that there is a whole lot of protecting going on and I don’t think we are protecting the person with the allergy.
Yup, you got it!