Food For Thought
My dad was a teacher. Before school, he would routinely pack an extra lunch for himself. Later, I discovered the tragic reason why. He told me that he kept having this kid come to class and sleep during the first period. He thought it meant the kid was bored, until one day, he made pancakes for the class as a treat. That day, the kid didn’t sleep. They ended up staying up and ate six pancakes. Later, the kid told my dad they often don’t eat breakfast because their parents simply don’t buy food. When they have extra money, it goes directly to buying drinks for themselves.
After hearing that, my dad started regularly buying breakfast foods for my class and leaving them out for anyone to take. The kid didn’t sleep in class anymore after that. It was really an unbelievable situation and it made my dad very sad, but he said he was glad he could help in a small way. To clarify, the parents didn’t qualify for food stamps or any kind of government help, because they made too much money.
At least it looked like they did on paper, but really they didn’t. We lived in the Bay Area at the time and, even though they made a lot, most of the money went towards rent and other basic living expenses. My dad also said that these people generally seemed to make bad choices. He tried not to judge them, since he can’t possibly know their full story, but it seemed like their kids came last in their decision-making process very often.