Empty belly
The national news gave me a message that I hardly expected. We have children coming to school hungry in Canada. You may believe that we are rich compared to other parts of the world but there are still some corners of our life that are shaded. Here’s the thing. The government has just promised maybe a billion dollars to feed children in the morning before classes. Not all children. Those in need. Our failure is much larger than I expected. Or as politicians would say what’s a billion dollars form a good cause. I was unaware of student hunger when I was growing up. If you came to school without having breakfast that was your fault. Fussy or finicky as my mother would say. End it all would even out by the next day when you would have eaten enough food to fill that hollow in your stomach. We did not consider student hunger as an issue. So what happened along the way? I am unsure. I will make a guess that schedules for parents have become too tight. Get the kids out the doors before you go to work. And if they are fussy that is their problem. You’re not going to follow them down the sidewalk with a jelly sandwich. From the news report I learned that going to school hungry is a true issue. You do not learn well on an empty stomach. I have no idea how I made it through university because going for breakfast was just too much effort. Maybe I would have been a better student. That the government is willing to put their money where our mouths are is promising. And if the school is going to set aside the time before classes for people to actually sit down and eat that shows that we have some idea of how this whole thing works. Did I have breakfast this morning? Yes actually but I’m old, I know that with breakfast I can go all the way to supper. And I have no classes to worry about. My own children? I do not know because I would be always out the door to catch my bus before they left to catch their bus. Tightening schedules. In the old days there was porridge and if it didn’t stick to your belly it stuck to the pot. Or you had cereal in boxes. In fact some years most of the available space in the cupboard was taken up by half full cereal boxes. Lots of choice. I should ask my kids if they remember going to school hungry because maybe they do but they’ve never mentioned it in the decades since. Things even out by supper time. And I noticed that most of the news broadcast mentioned the city we’re all bad things seem to happen. World hunger is a big issue hunger before lunchtime less so. But what do I know. We did not do life that way.
