I think I lost my appetite

At Bryce's elementary school, the kids seem to expect their parents to come in and eat lunch with them every once in a while. Bryce begs me to come at least once a week, but I usually put him off and endure the cafeteria only a couple of times a month. Eddie surprised him with a Happy Meal at lunch on Tuesday, so I wasn't expecting him to beg me to come eat with him yesterday (I said no) and again today. But now I think I know why.

Let me give you a little bit of background about Bryce's school. He has an amazing teacher this year, but the school as a whole seems like their primary objective learning manners instead of learning the three Rs. The halls of the school are silent. Parents get daily reports about their children's conduct. They're very well drilled in the whole concept of "ma'am" and "sir." They go to school from 8-3 and get 20 minutes of recess a day, and it seems that the whole day is centered around helping them grow up to be polite and quiet adults.

Up until about a month ago, they had a traffic light in the cafeteria, and if the kids were too loud it would turn red, sending a terrifying buzz through the lunchroom, and the kids would be required to sit in silence for two minutes. They also had a drill sergeant of a lunch lady, who made the kids recite the seven cafeteria rules in unison (things like "keep your hands to yourself, "feet and legs under the table" and "no sharing food"). Anyway, after putting up with years of parental pressure, the principal finally agreed to take down the traffic light a few weeks ago, and all of the kids (and their visiting parents) seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

But when I was walking down the hall toward the cafeteria with Bryce's class today, I could hear the lunchroom drill sergeant well before I could see her. She has always used her forceful voice to talk over the kids, but apparently that wasn't enough anymore. Today she had a loudspeaker on full blast, and was pacing the room like a televangelist, barking out orders. There were two tables smack in the center of the room, and as the kids entered the cafeteria, she drew their attention to the sad faces at these tables, identifying them as kids who had misbehaved and promising the incoming kids that she was saving a seat for anyone who got out of line at these isolation tables (reminding me of the stocks in the town square in colonial New England).

I think we as parents thought we had won the battle of preserving our children's fun and innocence a little bit longer by protesting the lunch light, but it seems that the kids are learning an even more important lesson about growing up-- that adults who are overruled will come up with even more devious and insidious ways of getting their way. I'm just waiting for the lunchroom battle to escalate to a full-on war. But in the meantime, I'll be avoiding the lunchroom. I came home and couldn't eat anything-- all of that stress had made me completely lose my appetite.

--originally published 10/5/06