Again, I haven't written in a while, but I don't want to forget this one. It's a doozy.
I work in an elementary school. I teach 3rd grade. We are coming out of a stupid pandemic. It is Valentine's Day. The parent teacher committee decided to have a "Donuts with Dudes" event this morning. A morning where the students' dudes are invited to come into the school building (something that there has not been much of over the last couple of years), and eat donuts with their kiddos. A very sweet activity.
The cafeteria also was serving donuts for breakfast. That's sweet, too.
One of my students was so happy that he got to have his donut with his dude and then visit the cafeteria to get breakfast there. He told me there were lots of kids partaking in the second round.
2 donuts
Lunch time rolls around. Guess what they were passing out with lunch? Why yes, leftover donuts. A little while later, I looked up to see so many children's hands raised. Why you might wonder. Well, staff was walking around with donut boxes handing them out. Sweet?
More donuts.
Time for our class party. Now, I love that the kiddos get to have class parties. I'm very grateful to have awesome "room parents" who plan the parties and families who love to help send in treats for the kids. we are very fortunate to have so many people willing and able to provide. Friday I had a parent email asking if they could bring donuts for the party. I knew the party was planned. I knew a little of the food plan, but referred her to the main planning mom anyway.
This year's treat plate consisted of: chicken nuggets, fruit, a cupcake, and (drumroll) a donut.
4+ donuts (and then some)
Then the children started opening their Valentines. So many sweets. I will explain through quoting a young lady in my class:
"So much candy! Can you believe all this candy?! So much candy!" over and over and over.
I am pretty sure she wasn't even counting the cupcake and donut.
The problem is that so much sugar does not make the children sweeter. I will spare you the details on what it is like dealing with so many sugared up children. Poor PE teacher, he got to have them directly after we were done. I wonder if they crashed during PE or after school.
As a life long giver of love through food, I can't believe I am going to type the next sentence. We cannot keep giving our kids so much sugar and call it love. We have been deceived. It's not sweet anymore.
