A Memory of Food Shaming Before It Had a Name
I traded my free lunch ticket for a bag lunch — that was a no-no!
Different Color Lunch Tickets
Like all the other poor kids in my elementary school, I qualified for free lunch. Both my parents worked, but they didn’t make much money. Every Monday morning, our teacher would pass around a large manila envelope.
Some of us students had a small manila envelope with our name on it. We kept it in our desks. As the large envelope was passed around, we would put our small envelope inside it. The teacher would then call on a volunteer to run the envelope to the cafeteria.
Later that morning, when the large envelope came back, I would find five orange lunch tickets inside my small envelope. The students whose parents sent cash or a check would get purple tickets. And the students who brought lunch from home but needed milk would receive brown tickets.
By fourth grade, I had learned to become embarrassed about my poverty and getting free lunch. I would fantasize about putting money in my envelope and getting the purple lunch tickets. While waiting in the lunch line, I would hide my ticket in my fist, so the other kids would not see it, as if they did not already know that my lunch tickets were always orange.
A Bag Lunch Seemed Special
At lunchtime, the students who brought a bag lunch would go straight to sit at a table to eat while the rest of us went through the lines for milk or a hot lunch. By the time I joined my friends Jodi, Jennifer, and Lisa, they would usually have the contents of their lunch out on the table.
I felt like I was getting a glimpse into their homes based on the contents of their lunches: a cold cut or peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some apple slices, a bag of chips, carrot sticks, and sometimes a couple of Oreo cookies. Jodie once said her mom squeezed lemon juice onto her apple slices to prevent them from turning brown.
I dreamed of bringing a bag lunch to school like my friends did. But my parents worked the second shift. They were gone when we returned home from school and asleep when we left in the morning.
Plus, we didn’t have much food in our house. The refrigerator of my childhood was clean. You could see the sparkling clean back corners of it. The typical contents were a gallon of milk, a couple cartons of eggs, a small tray of thawed chicken for the evening meal, some vegetables, and several bottles of sauces.
The pantry was just as bare. There would be a box of ramen noodles. If it was a recent payday, there might be a bag of apples or oranges and sometimes a couple loaves of white bread and a large jar of strawberry jam. But none of these items were consistently available for me to pack for lunch.
Packing My Own Bag Lunch
One time there was a school field trip, so I did get the chance to pack a lunch. I wanted to replicate what my friends usually pack, but that was not possible. It would require that I had all those different foods in my home, which I didn’t.
I had told Mom about the upcoming field trip, and she gave me some cash a couple of days before it. I didn’t want to buy anything early because my brothers might eat it.
The afternoon before the field trip, I walked to the nearby drug store. It shared a building with a bar. After a drunk called out to me once from the doorway, I always crossed the street whenever I came near the bar and then crossed back to enter the drug store.
I bought an individual-size bag of dill pickle chips, a Suzy-Q snack cake, and a bottle of Pepsi. When we ate lunch on the field trip the next day, my friends stared at my food in surprise. I was sure they knew I didn’t have anything at home to pack and had to buy everything the night before.
How I wished I could have small plastic bags of corn chips, carrot sticks, and a sandwich, things that looked like they came from a fully stocked refrigerator and pantry at home. Not things that looked like they were bought especially for the field trip.
My friends told me I was lucky that my mom packed me all that yummy food. Maybe, they didn’t know after all.
Trading My Orange Ticket for a Bag Lunch
One day as we were walking to the lunchroom, a boy named Steve asked if he could swap his bag lunch for my ticket. I could not believe my good fortune. I gladly said yes and quickly made the exchange before he could change his mind. When we reached the cafeteria, I left the line and went to the tables while Steve waited in line for hot food.
I sat down next to my friends and pulled out each item that “my mom” had packed for me. From observing the other kids with packed lunches, I knew that I was supposed to let out a heavy sigh of annoyance over a few things, such as carrot or celery sticks.
“Your mother packed you a lunch today?” Jodi asked.
For a moment I thought of telling her that I had given Steve my lunch ticket for his bag lunch but then decided against it. The feeling was too good. “Yeah,” I replied, trying to sound casual about my lunch.
Before I could take a bite of any of the food, Steve suddenly appeared.
“I need my lunch back,” he said. He saw the question in my eyes and explained, “The lunch lady refused to give me lunch because she said the ticket was not mine.” I wondered how she knew.
My face felt hot, and I did not want to look at my friends. I stuffed all the food back inside the brown bag and handed it to Steve.
“Thanks,” he said and was about to walk away but then quickly turned around. “Your ticket is with the lunch lady. She wants you to go get it from her.”
Facing the Consequences
I didn’t want to go reclaim my lunch ticket. I was embarrassed and slightly afraid of authority figures. Jennifer offered me half of her sandwich, but I didn’t accept her food in case she was hungry and needed the entire sandwich.
After a while, I started to wonder if I would get into more trouble by not going to reclaim my lunch ticket. Maybe they might not give me any more tickets in the future. My parents would be angry with me. So, I went to see the lunch lady.
When I got to the lunch line area, the ladies were already putting things away. “I am here for my lunch ticket,” I mumbled.
One of the ladies looked at me and said, “I gave your ticket to my supervisor. She’s in back. Go in that door to see her.”
At the entrance to the kitchen, the supervisor stopped me. She knew exactly why I was there. She reached inside the front pocket of her light blue polyester dress and pulled out my ticket. She leaned forward as she handed it to me.
Being Reprimanded
“You are lucky to get free lunch,” she said. “People have to pay money so that you people can get free lunch. But if you don’t want it, maybe they should not give it to you. Giving away your lunch ticket like that! Don’t ever do it again.” She looked disgusted, and her eyebrows came together.
“I won’t do it again,” I promised.
I can’t remember if I ate lunch that day. By the time I talked to the cafeteria supervisor, the lunch ladies were already cleaning up. And the supervisor was too upset or too busy to offer me food.
But, I don’t remember being hungry after lunch either. If anything, I felt like the entire student body knew of my deceit and discovery. It never occurred to me that they might be sympathetic. I felt like a criminal who got busted. I had tried to pass as a typical American kid whose mom packed her a school lunch.
Reflecting on What Happened
From then on, as I went through the lunch lines, I was always mindful of not doing anything that might single me out for a reprimand. It wasn’t until I became a school teacher that I realized how chaotic their jobs were. I would like to believe that the lunch supervisor was having a bad day and what I did was another minor irritation in her day.
Or maybe, as a young child, my mind had magnified my shame and her reprimand of me.
It was years later when I learned that some students like Steve, who brought lunch from home, wished to eat the hot school lunch, but their parents made just enough for them to not qualify for free or reduced lunch. Their daily lunch of a cold sandwich was a less expensive alternative to paying for hot lunch.
Steve probably wished for hot lunch as badly as I wished to bring a bag lunch to school.
Conclusion
No matter how frustrated we are as adults, we must be mindful of what we say to children. We should try not to make a mountain out of a molehill. Our words are mighty powerful to children.
I also thought a lot of the words reprove and reprimand. Depending on our approach, a child might learn the difference between right and wrong or feel like a criminal.
© May Y. Yang 2022. All Rights Reserved.
I would like to give a shoutout to Heather Paz for her story about helping a woman escape an abusive partner. Heather was pregnant at the time, so she could have put her and her baby in danger. It’s easy and safe to not intervene to help others, but she helped anyway.
Thank you for reading. To read my other stories, click here.