My kids go back to school this week. Yay! The only thing I'm hating about it is facing making 4 lunches each day again, which do not include any trace of peanuts.
Many schools, including ours, have banned peanuts/products that have any peanuts due to the number of kids who have allergies related to them.
So that means no peanut butter or Nutella - okay. But also no muesli bars that might have peanuts, nothing that might have been produced on the same line as something that might have had peanuts (this tends to be on the packets), and forget those multi-pack snacks which might have peanuts as an ingredient.
I have two kids who will only eat Nutella or peanut butter on a sandwich. No sandwiches otherwise. I am therefore forced to make up lunch boxes with individually cut up fruits, cheese cubes, crackers and a yoghurt. My kids are the best fed in the whole freaking school! Sure this does them good anyway, but blinking heck. I work full-time myself, and have four children. Once in a while I'd just like to be able to send them to school with a sandwich and therefore be able to make all of them on the weekend and throw them in the freezer, saving me time every single day.
Especially seeing as none of my kids have allergies.
I know for some kids with these allergies, it's a life-threatening condition. And for years now I've gone this extra mile to accommodate them. But you know what? I'm sick of it. I'm wondering how the allergy kids will ever learn what they can and can't eat when they go out in the real world. I'm wondering how they'll cope when they find out that not everyone in the world is going to do whatever they want.
I have a diabetic in my family, but heck, we still have sugar on the table. He just knows not to eat it. Two of my kids have had dental work and have never been allowed sticky foods because of the possibility of removing their dental crowns - they have always, since they started going to birthday parties at the age of 3 or so, handed me their lolly bags to take out possible offending lollies (jelly frogs, etc) before they indulged. They've also told their teachers themselves.
Surely it's time to hand some responsibility back to those who are affected by these issues rather than making society succumb to their every wish.
Weekly Wrap 786: Cleaning the pipes before the mind
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My week of Monday 16 to Sunday 22 June 2025 began with a continuation of
the gastro that began late last week, but somehow I still managed to stay
relative...
1 week ago