Boo!
Last night when I came back, tired and dehydrated (but believe me, Alex looks happily worse), I tried to scan my usual blogs to see what I missed. Sandra posted something that reminded me that I have been wanting to rant about my children's school and Halloween.
Halloween is all about rotting your teeth out and eating so much candy that you become sick. That's the point of it. Yes, yes, yes, I know ALL about the history of Halloween. I can tell you more about Samhain and the veil of the two worlds and the land of the dead than you would ever care to know. I know the folk tales and background to saying trick or treat, and all the religious significance the holiday has to pagans. I can talk about All Saints' Day and why the Christians decided to place that holiday on November first...oh yeah, we can go on for hours on this one.
I don't give a fuck. It's still about CANDY, and LOTS OF IT, eating until you PUKE.
Do we understand?
Now, my daughter and son go to the same school this year. Jared is in a preschool (K-4) program at the school, and Ariana is in second grade. This year we received the word from On High: NO CANDY.
Yes, that's right. No candy. We aren't allowed to bring in candy in any way, shape, or form for Halloween or any other activity the kids have. The kids get a Halloween party, a Christmas party, and an Easter party. They are only allowed to have treats and prizes. No candy. Nothing sweet. No cakes, no cookies, no lollipops, no candy corn, no airheads or pop rocks or sweet tarts or chocolates or or or or anything! Why, you ask? Yes, well, *I* asked. I was told that the school wanted to encourage healthier eating choices in the staff and students, and so therefore candy was to no longer be allowed for school functions during school hours. They DID--bless their noble hearts--allow an exception for the Fall Festival that took place the other week, but only because it took place on a Saturday and outside the school proper.
Now, I DO understand why the school does not have a soda machine for the children. Heck, we're talking K-4 through fifth graders here. I don't want my child to have free access to soda if she or he can scrounge up the change. The school already doesn't allow soda to be brought in the lunchbags of children, too. Ok, well, I think that it's not exactly crack or heroin, so if a parent wants to give his or her child a soda, that's the family's business, but whatever. My kids don't get sodas except when we go out for a special occasion treat (movies or out to eat generally), so that one didn't affect us, even though I DO believe that's a parental decision to make and not a school one.
But candy? You are telling me I can't give my three pound, two ounce daughter candy if I want? That she can't have some candy three times a year at the parties? What the hell? No, my daughter is not really less than four pounds, but shoot, she's not even hit 50 pounds yet and she's like 4 foot 3 inches tall. She's skinny. My child wears slims because regular pants fall off of her. Hell, sometimes the slims fall off of her tiny waist too. She eats good, well-balanced meals and as a reward, she can have....*GASP* I am a CRAP MOM...CANDY!!!! Her pediatrician has told me that although Ari is a picky eater, she eats from every food group in a nice, balanced way, and so the doctor is happy with her health status that way. But I can't, as a parent, choose to give my child candy on HALLOWEEN?
Defiant bitch that I am, my child has received a tiny starburst fruit chew or a smarties pack EVERY SINGLE DAY in her lunch since they told me that I, as parent, can't decide what my child eats. Her teacher looks the other way because her teacher thinks the policy is retarded too.
No candy for Halloween! It was bad enough when I was told that I was a Crap Mom also if I let my children eat cookie dough due to the salmonella threat. HAH! Got you BASTARDS THERE TOO! I BUY DAVIDSON'S PASTEURIZED EGGS! My daughter and son can eat all the godforsaken cookie dough they want without food poisoning in their eggs, so BACK OFF!
Like my kids won't be allowed to enjoy the pleasures of cookie dough *grumbles*
Please, school system. Don't take away any more of my kids' childhood. It's bad enough that we ask them to grow up so fast. Don't make it worse.
Halloween is all about rotting your teeth out and eating so much candy that you become sick. That's the point of it. Yes, yes, yes, I know ALL about the history of Halloween. I can tell you more about Samhain and the veil of the two worlds and the land of the dead than you would ever care to know. I know the folk tales and background to saying trick or treat, and all the religious significance the holiday has to pagans. I can talk about All Saints' Day and why the Christians decided to place that holiday on November first...oh yeah, we can go on for hours on this one.
I don't give a fuck. It's still about CANDY, and LOTS OF IT, eating until you PUKE.
Do we understand?
Now, my daughter and son go to the same school this year. Jared is in a preschool (K-4) program at the school, and Ariana is in second grade. This year we received the word from On High: NO CANDY.
Yes, that's right. No candy. We aren't allowed to bring in candy in any way, shape, or form for Halloween or any other activity the kids have. The kids get a Halloween party, a Christmas party, and an Easter party. They are only allowed to have treats and prizes. No candy. Nothing sweet. No cakes, no cookies, no lollipops, no candy corn, no airheads or pop rocks or sweet tarts or chocolates or or or or anything! Why, you ask? Yes, well, *I* asked. I was told that the school wanted to encourage healthier eating choices in the staff and students, and so therefore candy was to no longer be allowed for school functions during school hours. They DID--bless their noble hearts--allow an exception for the Fall Festival that took place the other week, but only because it took place on a Saturday and outside the school proper.
Now, I DO understand why the school does not have a soda machine for the children. Heck, we're talking K-4 through fifth graders here. I don't want my child to have free access to soda if she or he can scrounge up the change. The school already doesn't allow soda to be brought in the lunchbags of children, too. Ok, well, I think that it's not exactly crack or heroin, so if a parent wants to give his or her child a soda, that's the family's business, but whatever. My kids don't get sodas except when we go out for a special occasion treat (movies or out to eat generally), so that one didn't affect us, even though I DO believe that's a parental decision to make and not a school one.
But candy? You are telling me I can't give my three pound, two ounce daughter candy if I want? That she can't have some candy three times a year at the parties? What the hell? No, my daughter is not really less than four pounds, but shoot, she's not even hit 50 pounds yet and she's like 4 foot 3 inches tall. She's skinny. My child wears slims because regular pants fall off of her. Hell, sometimes the slims fall off of her tiny waist too. She eats good, well-balanced meals and as a reward, she can have....*GASP* I am a CRAP MOM...CANDY!!!! Her pediatrician has told me that although Ari is a picky eater, she eats from every food group in a nice, balanced way, and so the doctor is happy with her health status that way. But I can't, as a parent, choose to give my child candy on HALLOWEEN?
Defiant bitch that I am, my child has received a tiny starburst fruit chew or a smarties pack EVERY SINGLE DAY in her lunch since they told me that I, as parent, can't decide what my child eats. Her teacher looks the other way because her teacher thinks the policy is retarded too.
No candy for Halloween! It was bad enough when I was told that I was a Crap Mom also if I let my children eat cookie dough due to the salmonella threat. HAH! Got you BASTARDS THERE TOO! I BUY DAVIDSON'S PASTEURIZED EGGS! My daughter and son can eat all the godforsaken cookie dough they want without food poisoning in their eggs, so BACK OFF!
Like my kids won't be allowed to enjoy the pleasures of cookie dough *grumbles*
Please, school system. Don't take away any more of my kids' childhood. It's bad enough that we ask them to grow up so fast. Don't make it worse.
posted by Kira | 4:37 AM
12 Comments:
I totally agree. It pisses the hell out of me when the school tries to dictate what I can and can't provide to my child. They're job is to teach academics, perhaps some social skills in a group setting. They're job is not to dictate their diet, their religion, their fashion, etc. Good for you, Kira.
"Politically correct" is slowly morphing into "educationally correct." My friend the Teacher Woman says her district has banned temporary hiring of retired teachers to teach special subjects for which they can't find a regular teacher. Except, of course, for the coach of the athletic team....
No double dipping for teachers, huh? OHS, if that were to happen in my district, they wouldn't have any substitutes EVER.
No candy on Halloween? That's absurd. Kids should get candy.
Childhood is the only time you can eat candy with relative impunity. When I was a kid, we'd get a dollar allowance everyweek. We'd march down to the corner pharmacy and stock up on all the candy a dollar could buy, which, back in the day, was A LOT! We never bought anything with our allowance money BUT candy. It never occurred to us that anything else was WORTH buying...I mean, why save up for a toy when you can have CANDY every week???
Here's the thing about Halloween that a) makes me sad and b) tees me off...we've bred a culture of mistrust so that kids don't trick or treat in our neighborhood anymore. Every family still buys a couple of bags of candy, but the kids don't get to trick or treat house to house. Instead, we dress our kids up and take them to "safe" community events where they get to fill their plastic pumpkins with 100s of dum dums or whatever the cheapest, worst candy in the world happens to be.
Feh.
This calls for serious protest. Begin feeding your children nothing but sugar. Give them a beer for their lunch. Pick them up dressed as Satan or a witch. After a few weeks of extreme behaviour, a little candy on a holiday won't seem like such a big deal.
Side note - as a longtime defender of Halloween, I always stock the best candies available (usually little peanut butter cups or Snickers bars), so stop on by. :-)
I'm all for schools not serving junk food, and not having soda machines and candy machines. Yeah they don't want to encourage healthy eating. But what exactly makes them things they have any say over what the parents want to do? While I think schools deserve a LOT mroe respct than they get, they don't get to rule things outside their walls. Let parents be parents for crying out loud.
And speaking of candy, when ya coming over for Truffles and massages/ ;O) hehe
Those people are idiots. Yes, Halloween is about candy and costumes. So, for Valentines, I'm assuming none of the teachers will be allowed to get boxes of candy?? Riiiight! I've seen the teachers around here, and they know the exact location of the candy store.
Now, if I hadn't given Owen my bag of Snickers, I'd be eating myself into happiness. (Probably a good thing I gave them away, right?)
*ch-chink* *BOOM* Shotgun to the face, that's the way to solve these problems!
Well... OK, so maybe that's a bit extreme, but still, no candy? That's absurd! Durned overprotective school system...
Fuck that shit. What a bunch of dumbasses. I won't rant too much, as I already did:
Hallowe'en
but maybe I should edit it to include this new piece of Hallowe'en stupidity.
Proud to be French and loving it!!
I want my dark chocolates, my cheeses, my wines, my bread, my butter, my super rich sauces, my paté and my mousse de canard. I want my foie gras and I want my raclette.
Schools are important and teachers should set examples. My teachers taught me how to be a good person and how to use my brain and I am very grateful. This on the other hand teaches only stupidity. The idea is to allow a person to choose and to teach him how to make the right choices in life; taking away choices is dumb...Reminds me of "Brave New World"...
That's CRAZY!! Candy on Halloween is an essential. It seems as if they're taking the fun out of the "holiday" for them. Next thing they'll say, no valentines on Valentines Day because it promotes sexual behavior.
My son's school hasn't done that, and I honestly don't see them ever banning candy.
I don't give Ethan soda and he gets candy occasionally. But he has weak teeth and has already had to cavities. I felt like a crap mom even though I make him brush and floss twice a day. The dentist said that cavities are normal for children his age. Oh well, I still felt like a crap mom.
want a sweety little biy? ;) oh dear!
in all seriousness now, thats ridiculous (or however u spell it) banning sweets. they are an essential part of being a kid !
I am so sick of this stuff. I'm all for encouraging healthier behavior in kids, but seriously...
The infamous "they" have completely taken all of the fun out of childhood. Trick or treating is way more fun than going to some lame party with adults around or going to the mall and getting candy from stores. Lame!
Life is risky, fun is risky. I feel very sorry for kids these days (wow, do I feel old right now). I rarely had supervision during daylight hours in the summer and I'm a better person for it. I'm more capable, I'm more confident, I'm more ornery (Oh wait, that's just because of the idiocy of us adults).
How do those of us with common sense take back our world?
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