What are those schools doing to us?

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Her own mother used to throw two boxes of rockets into the classroom and that was it. But now that all treats have to be healthy and creative and preferably also tasty, Joan is often driven to despair.

Son Callum (10) recently came home sick and miserable. No, not a coronavirus, but an overly creative birthday treat. Classmate Roos had had a birthday and had handed out homemade smoothies. According to Callum, the whole class had spit after that and everyone thought it was ‘super gross’.

I immediately felt sorry. Not so much with the group, but with that poor mother who must have thought she had been very conscious by presenting a green broccoli-spinach-banana slurry and poor Rose with ‘the dirtiest treat ever’.

Regulations

I understood Rose’s mother so well. I too am not high on the Montessori ladder when it comes to artful and original treats. No matter how hard I try, it drops, sticks, fails or gets stuck at kindergarten level. I am therefore already looking forward to my son’s eleventh birthday and the obligatory treat.

A task, especially if I don’t want to bump my head with all the regulations. Our school has a strict sweets and cookies policy. Actually means that we as parents are not expected to arrive with contributions that are stiff from the dyes and sugars. Plastic purchases from discount chains or Chinese price blasters are also strongly discouraged with a view to the environment.

“Go and come up with something healthy and delicious for 33 children, with all different allergies and no-gos”

Of course I understand, but secretly I find a bag with erasers, sharpeners, mini football and plastic medal so easy. You just have to come up with something healthy and delicious for 33 children, with all different allergies and no-go’s in terms of religion or way of life. In Callum’s class there is a boy with a cow’s milk allergy, a girl who can’t stand peanuts and two are raised completely vegan. That requires a lot of inventiveness.

Popsicles and oliebollen

In my youth it was wonderfully simple. I’m a kid of the 70’s and 80’s, when tinkering meant making garlands from strips of folding paper and handing out all kinds of sugar confectionery. You were given candy chains, which you enjoyed in class. Or lollipops or key drops or marches, just from the pocket. If you were really crazy, you threaded a frankfurter, grape and hunk of cheese on a skewer. No one had ever heard of Pinterest and its millions of DIY ideas, nor of E numbers or of cow’s milk, gluten, or lactose allergies.

“Life was not much more difficult for my mother than rocket ice cream or oliebollen”

I, born on July 2nd and blessed with always bright sunny birthdays, handed out summer treats. My mom bought two boxes of rocket ice cream that I took into class. You can see me in all the primary school photos with the same brown wicker basket and identically colored popsicles. Only my brightly decorated hat has a different number. For my brother, who is from December 12, there were oliebollen in the basket. Life was not much more difficult for my mother then.

So boring

Now water ice is not alone not done, but also very dull. For his upcoming birthday, my son would like me to create something fun, something ‘glueous’, that he can unwrap and show off. ah. He should have known better by now. In recent years I have not shown my best side.

“My son wants me to create something nice, something ‘glueous’ that he can show off”

When I started kindergarten, I thought I could get away with mandarins effortlessly in the first junior year. Healthy and safer than say a bunch of grapes, with an eye on the choking and swallowing danger of the little ones. I borrowed an almost identical wicker basket from my childhood and pimped it up with bows, balloons, and streamers. Nice idea, bad execution.

Callum returned with 26 mandarins. Except for the teacher and two brave boys, no one had liked the fruit. Including my own son. So boring, he sighed. Okay, that wouldn’t happen to me a second time.

Minion bananas

The following year I had seen Minions made from bananas on someone’s Facebook page. How much fun was that? Callum was a fan of the yellow creatures, so I could surprise him with this. It took some creativity on my part, but if it worked out well, he could still have a healthy treat without it being boring.

I googled ‘Minions bananas’ and within seconds I found a worksheet in which all the patterns for the eyes and pantsuits and hairs were already drawn. That evening I sat until half past one, with welding eyes from pinching, cutting, coloring and pasting. I was devastated, but very proud of myself.

Until I took a good look at the end result in the morning. It was actually exactly what I had when I watch a movie in which Wendy van Dijk acts: beautifully handsome, but I don’t believe the character. It remains for me Wendy-van-Dijk-with-a-wig. Now all I saw was a basket full of bananas-with-a-paper-and-applied-eye. But okay, Callum thought it was like real Minions and luckily we didn’t have to drink fruit smoothies all week. There were only seven bananas left.

Also read – Treat bad luck: ‘A huge ant colony had taken possession of the pink cakes’ >

Guardian angel

In group 3 I could no longer get away with dressed fruit. It had to take a different tack. Fortunately, my sister-in-law turned out to be the savior. She is super handy and artistic.

My nephew is a few weeks older than Callum and I was able to nicely adopt her ideas or even the treat itself. For example, the pirate castle, made of colored pencils with flags, treasure maps and boxes, was still almost intact. I only had to fill the contents with vegan cakes, made with coconut butter.

“For years I made the flash with her food ideas”

In the years that followed, I made a splash with her food ideas. From football rice cakes to wigwam tents made of salty sticks filled with home-fried banana chips. But two years ago, they moved and settled eighty kilometers away. We didn’t run into each other and I also thought it was such a weakness to get all the way into the car just to pick up a treat for 6th grade. I should have been able to do that myself.

Fanatic fröbelaars

Months in advance, I’d been checking Pinterest and making calls on social media asking friends with small children how they were doing, treat-wise. Strangely enough, almost only mothers responded. Apparently no father dares to take on this school job or does not openly admit it.

With the exception of one fanatic, who managed to pry a lifelike cucumber crocodile (I was despairing at the sight of the enormous mouth with jigsaw teeth), my contacts were no more fröbelaars. I listened with envy to that colleague who was allowed to hand out pink sugared cupcakes or chocolate wafers. But also hated stories about such huge bags of chips that nobody ate their bread anymore, so that 27 lunch boxes were emptied into the trash.

And I laughed at the story of Chantal who thought she was smart with a Dummie the mummy treat consisting of a frankfurter wrapped with puff pastry handles. After her creations came out of the oven, they looked like stiff cocks. Fun during a bachelor party, not immediately suitable for eight-year-olds. She drove to the supermarket the same day to get some sticky eyes that you can use to spice up baked goods and made some slits in the sausages so that they looked more like males.

“‘Hey, that’s funny, peepers’, he said when he saw the sausage creation”

Unfortunately without success, son Guus looked at the refreshments and exulted: “Hey, how funny, peepers!” School was already used to her. With Sinterklaas she once made a microphone surprise for her oldest son’s ticket, for the girl who could sing so well and would later participate in a talent show. It’s just a shame that it looked like the girl got her first vibrator as a gift.

Also read – ‘Halfway through the schoolyard, the treats clattered to the ground’ >

brewing

Friend Maxime recently unintentionally caused a real riot at school with her brewing work, which was played up to the school council. For example, for the birthday of her son Max, she had bought 25 plastic beer glasses at the liquor store, three-quarters filled with cheese flips (‘pilsner’) and filled with popcorn (‘foam’). Green label printed, not showing the name of the beer brand, but of her son’s birthday. Max proudly handed out his beers, the eighth graders feasted on this cool 0.0. Mission accomplished, you might think.

“To illustrate, there was a photo of Max’s chip glass”

Until a week later an extra newsletter from school appeared in the mail, addressed to all parents. In it, the teacher and ‘a number of concerned parents of group 8’ expressed their concerns about the declining norms and values ​​of ‘some students’ in the class. A meeting would soon be called to tighten up the rules: At a time when NIX18 is the standard, parents are not supposed to preach differently, it said. To illustrate, there was a photo of Max’s chip glass, with his name still blurred for privacy reasons.

Maxime didn’t know what she saw. She had in no way meant any harm to her treat, and was certainly not a promoter of underage alcohol. It had been purely a joke. But okay, she got the message. For the birthday of her daughter of 5 this year she would fill a neat baby bottle with popcorn (milk). Although she still doubted whether she might get the breastfeeding mafia after her.

Problem solved

So you don’t get it right quickly. Reason for yet another girlfriend to plead for no more treats at all. She finds the system old-fashioned and unfair.

It is by no means financially feasible for every parent to provide a whole group of students with fruit, vegetables or other (healthy) delicacies. Whether you’re done with two mega bags of candy lollipops for 3 euros, as in the past, or put together thirty fruit skewers with balls of sugar and watermelon, interspersed with strawberries, raspberries and grapes and so you have lost 50 euros at the greengrocer alone. Add to that the decoration and any gifts for the teachers and that often also multiple children in a family. You just have to be able and willing to pay for it.

“It would save us so much annoyance and time”

Her solution: all put 5 euros at the beginning of the year and the teacher holds a general birthday celebration every month, where she takes care of the goodies. Problem solved and children are still put in the spotlight on such a day. I think it’s a great idea. Not primarily because of the money, I only have one child and can afford it, but especially for me and all other fellow mothers without artistic hands. It would save us so much aggravation and time.

This article appears in Kek Mama 10-2022.

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