Look at These Lunches/The Equity Gap

The Equity Gap

      Bento boxes, each little compartment filled with all the food groups, containing the “Growing Foods,” lovingly cut to avoid choking, stared at me as I reflected on my sweet students of yore. Their lunches were school lunches, mostly free. The stark contrast between the nutritional density contained in the Bento Boxes versus the contents of the cardboard trays of the school lunch was glaring, and the ramifications in terms of optimum brain/body growth, almost made me cry.

     The language, the conversation, the background knowledge, the topics, so distinctly different again, brought me to internal tears. People, we have a HUGE problem in this country and our children are suffering. The socioeconomic divide between living below the poverty level and not, needs fixing NOW!

     I knew that, I really did, and that is not to say that people living below the poverty level don’t love their children, because they do. They are in many cases, truly doing the best they can and life is a moment to moment struggle for survival. The food deserts in communities contribute directly to the inability for families to provide nutritious food and regular meals as opposed to the 7 Eleven being the only store within walking distance.

     When higher ups look down and say, “Well, we’ve provided bus service, why aren’t ‘they’ accessing it to go to a food store?” Have you ever tried to ride a bus with three young children in tow, let alone one? Have you ever tried it the rain, in the snow, when they are sick? NO! I’m sure you have not.

     The Word Gap is also real. The three and four-year old’s I am working with now, are very familiar with both listening to stories, holding books and turning the pages one at a time with care.

       My previous families, all of whom loved their children, did not have money to buy books and again, even though there was “bus service” to the libraries, try waiting at a bus stop with children. I’m not talking about at the school bus stop. I’m talking about a city bus. Children are going to get hungry, they are going to have to pee, and the wait for the bus goes on.

     Book Mobiles are a must for these communities, complete with a Story Time, so that the children, from the earliest age (and their parents) learn to both listen and read with expression and fluency.

      Equity, Equity, and Opportunity. We are all humans. We all have the same basic needs. When those basic needs aren’t met on a regular and predictable schedule, we go into fight, flight or freeze. Remember the last time you were stuck on the tarmac, your plane on “standby,” no access to: food, water, or even the bathroom? This is just a little, bitty taste of what many families in our country face in their homes every day and night.

     Some scream, “Go out and get a job! Stop taking my tax money. I work for a living.” Well, try being a single parent, working a job with no sick days allotted and your child gets sick. You will lose your job when to go and take care of them. Oh, first, you have to wait for the bus to take you to the school, then wait for another bus to take you home, or to the ER because you don’t have a regular pediatrician.

This is reality for so, so many families.

     We are all humans. The part so many of us neglect, forget about, don’t think about, is that part of our responsibility in being a human, is being humane. Not just at tax time for a tax write off to a charity, but each and every day.

     My mother, the kindest person in the world, taught me early on, never to pass judgement on others-to imagine myself in their shoes, in their life, and to share my kindness, my smile, my money, my hope, and to always, always view them through the lens of humanity. May it be so for you.

     Thank you for reading, and thank you for listening. Please let me know your thoughts on the subject below. We can disagree as long as the conversation is civil. Converse means I hear your thoughts and you hear mine. We both think deeply about what the other has said. We both take the time, to hear the stories/experiences of each other. And that, is a beautiful thing.