‘Lunch shaming’ to end as New Mexico signs law banning the humiliation of poor students

New Mexico has become the first state in the US to ban “lunch shaming” – the practice of making children whose parents cannot afford school meals mop the floors or wear wristbands.

The law was brought by a group of campaigners and politicians including Michael Padilla, a state senator who grew up in a series of foster homes and was humiliated by his inability to pay for lunch.

“I made Mrs Ortiz and Mrs Jackson, our school lunch ladies, my best friends,” he said.

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  • dance…dancetotheradio

    So, life is tough when you’re a kid.
    Made me better than I would have been.

    • Yea but being singled out is not necessary, I was there too.

      • dance…dancetotheradio

        You never knew what was going on in anybody’s house.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2thIM5LcqQ

      • I agree. There’s no defending bullying children. And the school itself doing it – as if the little swine weren’t vicious enough to each other. No wonder high schools are such feral sh*tholes. Frankly it blows my mind that this was going on. It’s downright Dickensian.

        • FactsWillOut

          In the Dickensian novels, the orphans would have starved otherwise.
          Starvation or humiliation or labour? What would you pick?

          If you think the state should be there to stop those choices from being made, then you are part of the problem.

          • dance…dancetotheradio

            I got to pick being a fourteen year old dishwasher.
            By the way, I am just over fifty and I can’t stand my parents.

          • But it’s not an either/or. I’m for parents feeding their own children. I’m just not for humiliating said children if their parents happen to be useless.

          • FactsWillOut

            Having them work for their lunch isn’t humiliation.

          • When was the last time you interacted with high school or middle school kids? Think Carrie.

          • FactsWillOut

            Carrie showed ’em real good like, now didn’t she?

            Life is supposed to be hard, toots, and those who think it isn’t are the very ones breeding all the snowflakes who are scared of words.

          • You miss my point. Stephen King has his faults as an author but, like greater writers from Twain to, here he is again, Dickens, he maps the emotional terrain of childhood and adolescence. And IMHO he does it quite well.

            “If you think the state should be there to stop those choices from being made, then you are part of the problem.”

            Yes, I’m always part of the problem, ain’t I, Facts? Gosh I’m problematic. But I’m not a fan of school lunch programs. I’m a fan of not singling out and humiliating kids.

            If “life is supposed to be hard”, may I come over and burn down your house? I feel like it would be character forming for you.

          • FactsWillOut

            Feel free to try.
            I believe in freedom. 😉

            Again, having kids work for their food is not humiliation, just like insulting Islam isn’t wrong. Do not be swayed by the reaction, be swayed by the act itself. The act of making a kid work for their food is indeed character-forming.

            And yes, you being a western woman, there is no doubt in my mind that you are part of the problem.

          • It’s not the working, it’s the singling out, the ritual humiliation. That is wrong in a school. Once again, you can’t possibly be too dense to get the point I’m making, so you clearly just like conflict. You know, you can hire “western women” to indulge that particular fetish. Have you considered it?

          • FactsWillOut

            Again, I don’t care about the other kids. Working for food is how society works.

            How much for an hour, Mistress Mamba? Will you also feed me like an infant, as seems to be your wont?

          • Oh isn’t that just so clever. Prentending I’m saying I’m a prostitute!!! When exactly I was saying that that was exactly not what I was saying!!!

            Oh, Mercy!

            And disagreement is infantalizing? Do you find that notion a bit weird, on reflection? Because I find that notion a bit weird. But never reflect. That’s for pussies. And women, and such.

            Feh. You was clearly raised in the canebrake by an ol’ mama lion. I can’t argue with a badass like you. What’s the point?

          • FactsWillOut

            “sparing” children the “humiliation” of having to work for food is indeed infantalizing.

          • I take it you’re not a John Hughes fan?

          • FactsWillOut

            Never heard of him.

          • You could always google.

          • FactsWillOut

            Fine.
            No, I’m not really a fan.
            I did find Ferris Bueller’s Day Off amusing though.

          • No. Good. Torture the children. It’s not bad enough that you emprison them for 18 years and don’t even teach them to count or read! Encourage also the bullying!

            Fantastic. Good stuff. I just love this shit.

          • FactsWillOut

            Yep.
            “Bullying” is another of those post-modern pieces of PC BS.

          • No it Isn’t. I realize you’re just in fighting mode, playing Mr Tough Guy, but this is simply not accurate. “Bullying” is as old as human society, I suppose… but there are degrees of things. I asked you if you’d read David Copperfield. Okay. Have you read Vanity Fair? The idea that no one paid attention to schoolyard dynamics before – whenever, 2005, it’s all made up, I don’t give a shit – is completely insane. Stop being a clown. It never pays.

          • FactsWillOut

            Bullying is a natural part of schoolyard politics.
            Trying to eradicate it is a huge mistake.

          • El Martyachi

            Is there, like, a website for that?

          • Oh by the way, when you were reading those “Dickensian novels”, did you happen to come across David Copperfield? I’d love to discuss it with you. Do get back to me, I’m easy to reach.

          • FactsWillOut

            Sure, after you read “Child of All Ages”

          • Sorry, mate. The classics come first. Especially if you’re sounding off about them.

          • FactsWillOut

            Ahh, an authoritarian type nanny.
            Hooda thunk it?

          • Etobicoke_Gladiator

            It was the best of times, the shittiest of times… More gruel, sir! More gruel! 😉

          • Facts, Scrooge asking if the prisons and workhouses were still in operation was not meant as a call to action.

          • FactsWillOut

            It should have been.
            Now look where we are.

            It was the natural end result of the combination ignorance and wont. A better end result than a society being lead by the combination of ignorance and wont.

        • Kathy Prendergast

          The article seems grossly exaggerated. Like it’s “Dickensian” to give a child a free sandwich when they can’t pay for a hot meal. Frankly I don’t understand why all school children don’t just get sandwiches for lunch; that’s what I grew up on. Vast amounts of food probably get wasted because of this obsession with providing picky children with “hot lunches” which many or them do not want or like or can’t or won’t finish. But then, I grew up in countries where elementary schools usually didn’t have lunch programs; kids either brought their own lunches to school or went home for lunch. Feeding children was considered to be a responsibility of the parents, not the school.

    • FactsWillOut

      Yep.
      Those kids who work for their lunches are much less likely to wind up as snowflakes, despite all the bleeding-hearts and their virtue-signaling.
      These same bleeding hearts are the ones molly-coddling children and creating all the snowflakes.

      As you can see, our society is doomed.

      • dance…dancetotheradio

        I try my best to do right by my kids.

        • FactsWillOut

          Well, if you at least feed them, it seems you’ve got many beat in the parenting role.
          Still, you should work them, too. Me and my siblings did housework from the moment we were able to, starting at about age 6.
          Result: We grew up to be men and women, not snowflakes.

          • dance…dancetotheradio

            My wife rides herd over them.
            The job I have is to work up north and send them money.
            And it’s fine because my wife and I had a magical week during spring break.
            Hard to make up three months of intimacy in seven days but we managed.

          • FactsWillOut

            Absence makes the…heart…grow fonder.
            Are any of the kids old enough to bring up north with ya?
            But then again, the way most companies are organized and regulated these days, that may be impossible.

          • dance…dancetotheradio

            They are too old to come up.

          • dance…dancetotheradio

            I don’t want to do that to them for the third time in eight years.

          • FactsWillOut

            LOL.
            Yer way ahead of me, it seems.
            Good job, man.

          • dance…dancetotheradio

            Thank you, Sir.
            I love my wife.
            I love our kids.
            Looking forward to Victoria Day when they come to visit.,
            You are a fantastic friend.

          • FactsWillOut

            As are you.

  • The Deplorable Rosenmops

    When I was in school we had to bring our lunch from home.

    • As many people did.

    • Dana Garcia

      Me too.

      Why are taxpayers now responsible for feeding other people’s kids at school? The parents can get food stamps if they are poor, but apparently that’s not enough.

      • simus1

        More unionized staff is always a good idea when taxpayers are picking up the tab.

    • If you can’t afford or be bothered to make a sandwich for your kids, this is not good.

      • Clausewitz

        We were working poor. To this day I still love a good bologna and cheese sandwich.

    • BillyHW

      Amen. Why can’t people feed their own children. Why does the government have to do it? What the government will feed them is crap.

  • If people cannot afford food, perhaps it is better to not take money and then give it back to them in the form of a handout.

    The greater indignity is not eating. Welfarists add to the indignity by singling out the unfortunate kids instead of empowering their parents (or arresting them in the cases of abuse or neglect).

  • FactsWillOut

    Here’s a thought:
    The school provides an education to the child.
    The parents feed the child.
    If the child suffers from malnutrition, then charge the parents with criminal neglect, give the kid to a couple who will feed the kid, and get rid of all taxpayer-provided school lunches.

    This is just intrusive government failing and being used as a pretext for even more intrusive government.

    • Shebel

      Why not just deport the whole works of them.

      • FactsWillOut

        Deport the entire government and all the parents who starve their kids?
        Now why didn’t I think of that?

        • Shebel

          I was being sarcastic—but–it not much better than what we are doing.

  • FactsWillOut

    Not only should children be lunch shamed, they should be fat-shamed, 4-eye shamed, chrome-dome shamed, freckle-shamed, red hair-shamed, pencil-neck shamed, etc.

    I mean keerist! no wonder the whole education system is full of snowflakes now.

  • Shebel

    If some little boy goes to school and says he is a girl—-
    then just beat the child gently like a Muslim beats his wife.
    Go to the Parents and give them the full force of Sharia |Law—
    It always works.

  • Shebel

    A coupla years ago,my sister was babysitting her grandkids—- they were like 10 and 12— she packed a lunch for them—-
    and got called up by school—– It was peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
    She actually got a lecture from some twit– she felt so bad-
    It has been a joke ever since.
    Times have changed.

    • FactsWillOut

      Peanut butter is MURDER!