Our mothers knew that when they had kids they would have to take care of them. They would have to clothe, shelter and feed them. They learned, if they didn’t already know it from what they saw their mother doing, what it took to get those basic human needs taken care of. When money or time was tight they figured out a way to take care of their kids because they knew it was their responsibility.
Today the President signed into law a measure that takes mothers far down a very different road. The Child Nutrition Act has at its core the assumption that today’s mothers are not capable of providing for their children as our mothers did. They don’t know what foods to provide or how to buy them economically. The law makes the statement that it is not even their responsibility to do so. The reason their children have not eaten well so far is because the entity whose responsibility it is, the government, has fallen down on the job and failed to provide for her children. The bill already has provisions in it that allow additional meals to be provided beyond lunch. Breakfast is currently served in many schools to children from low income homes. And since they are taking money from the food stamp program to fund this law, it is a no brainer that the school system (as a distribution center for government programs) will soon also provide dinner, taking all responsibility from mothers for feeding their children.
This may be seen as a blessing for some mothers struggling to fill this parental role now. They will no doubt be grateful that someone else can do what they don’t think they can. But consider the future parenting of such a mother’s children. They will not even consider that it will be their responsibility to provide sustenance for the children they bring into the world. What is special help in times of adversity will become the norm for these children. They will consider it the government’s responsibility to feed their children and scream if anyone threatens to stop that necessary service. To them and their children it will be necessary because they will have had no example of how it was done and therefore no skills in doing it. They will not know what and how to buy in bulk. The concept of stocking up on sale items with decent shelf life will seem completely foreign. Coupons? Who needs coupons?
Food service providers will be elevated because basic food preparation will no longer be done at home. Preparing food will seem like magic requiring special skills not attainable by the average person. We already have women who say, “I can’t cook.” These are women who can go into any grocery store and buy meals that simply require water and a little heating to prepare. Some cook books provide little guidance into the makings of a meal. Rachel Ray’s cookbooks are loaded with recipes whose ingredients are themselves prepared foods. Instead of giving the measurements for the amounts of cumin, red pepper, garlic, paprika and oregano one needs, she simply calls for a package of taco flavoring. Simple? Yes, but at least one step away from knowing what goes into the food you prepare. I have seen a woman with a full (relatively unused) spice rack give up on a recipe because she did not have chili powder to make chili.
I am a true libertarian and lament the basic survival skills we all have lost. The art of growing and canning our own fruits and vegetables is quickly dying. The closest some people get to growing things is Farmville. Our parents embraced the new conveniences as time savers. Mothers didn’t have to spend as much time thinking about or preparing meals because they could defrost the meat in the microwave if they forgot to take it out of the freezer in the morning. Add a bottle of Thai Peanut sauce and some instant rice and you are feeding the family an exotic meal in 20 minutes. They didn't think about the skill set being lost to the convenience. I have seen people with gas stoves fretting about how they will prepare a meal during a blackout with no microwave or electronic ignition. Figuring out how to cook a meal on a girl scout camp-out seemed a lesson in the impossible with no timer or temperature setting devices available. The girls were completely at a loss to figure out how to make a simple cobbler. The program has sunk so far they are not even taught what my generation knew, that each charcoal briquette adds 30 degrees to the temperature. And even that bit of knowledge is one step removed from trying to cook over a wood fire.
This lack of knowledge is typically not an issue with all the conveniences we currently have. Most information is but a click away on any number of electronic devices. But it leaves us precariously perched. We are only one major blackout, ice storm or trucking strike away from panic. And this is nothing to compared to the breakdown of society from the very real threat of an electro magnetic pulse (EMP) being detonated over the middle of the country. (Read William R. Forstchen’s One Second After for a very realistic look at what the country looks like after an EMP.)
If we were dependent on our elders or our neighbors in such times of crisis I would not be as worried. They had the knowledge from experience or the knowledge of our needs and capabilities. But most of us will be dependent on our government in a crisis and, as far as I can see, they don’t have a very good track record. So, though the school lunch program seems small and almost insignificant, it is a sign of the times and a predictor of what life in the future will be like in this country if we accept these conveniences without also providing the knowledge of the basic skills as well. The exceptions of one generation become the norms of the next.
No comments:
Post a Comment