Packing a Simple Lunch
Why my kid's lunch isn't fancy
Stop it, please, just stop it with the creative lunches already.
Every time I turn around, someone else is waxing eloquently about the beautiful, complex lunches that you can make to ensure your children get their recommended daily allowance of whimsy. Pinwheel sandwiches. Flower-shaped sandwiches. Sandwiches with cartoon faces made out of olives and raisins, with sprouts for hair.
The ideas are endless. They’re everywhere. They’re cute and interesting and look lovely in photographs. They’re almost guaranteed to win you a Mother of the Year award. They’ll make your child break out into song at the lunch table.
These same people assure me that children get bored with sandwiches. I’m told it’s awful to open up that Pottery Barn Kids lunchbox and find a plain old boring turkey sandwich and a banana. The horror! Where’s the fun in that? Where is the excitement? No, no, it’s better that I tap into my inner artist and make something that will be the envy of all my son’s classmates, who will be left in a terrible funk with their PB&Js and pretzels.
But I’m telling you this: plain old boring turkey sandwiches were fine when I was a kid in 1981, and they’re fine for my son nearly 30 years later.
Raise your hand if you’re up at dawn, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with nothing else on earth to do but concoct an elaborate little lunch sculpture for your offspring. Anyone? Hello?
That’s what I thought. You’re up at dawn because the baby was crying and wouldn’t go back to sleep, or the four-year-old burst into your room screaming that his nose is bleeding, and his sheets are all bloody, or the six-year-old had a bad dream and can she pleeeease get in bed with you and Daddy? And once you’re up, you might as well throw another load of laundry in, or no one is going to have clean socks to wear the rest of the week. (And you just can’t wear sandals in December. Well:at least not without a little tiny bit of guilt.) And – oh God, is there something wrong with the toilet? Why is it making that horrible squealing sound? And aren’t you supposed to send something with one of the kids to school today? What on earth was it? Here, kid, have a turkey sandwich.
Or maybe you’re one of those athletic types who gets up in the dark to squeeze in a run before the kids get up. In that case, your biggest priority is probably rushing around, dripping sweat, trying to get into the shower without a bunch of small people all waking up and popping in on you, so you can run over your thoughts for that presentation you have to give at work in a few hours. An audience-free shower. Ah. Bliss.
Either way, are you really standing at your kitchen counter at 6:30 a.m. wielding a dinosaur-shaped cookie cutter?
Of course, you could always be a little better organized and prepare your child’s lunch at night. After all, experts are always telling us to get a head start on our day by starting to get things ready the night before.
And I’m totally on board with that. In fact, I often do make my son’s lunch at night before I go to bed. I make a turkey-and-cheese sandwich on wheat bread, add a side of applesauce and some carrot sticks, and I put it all in his Spider-Man lunchbox, which then goes into the fridge. Done. Nothing fancy, but a nice healthy lunch that I know my son will like. Off to bed with me.
See, at 10 p.m., I don’t feel much like wielding a dinosaur-shaped cookie cutter, either. At that point, I’m exhausted from surviving a full day and getting both kids bathed and in bed. I’m trying to slap together something reasonably healthy and tasty that won’t come back home in the lunchbox tomorrow afternoon, smushed and uneaten.
Because let’s face it. Children like simple food. They like predictability. They like plain turkey sandwiches. They like apples. They like grapes. They like yogurt. They like having food that’s just like the food that their friends are eating. And simple doesn’t necessarily equal unhealthy. Actually, it’s quite the opposite: sometimes simple food is healthier, without a bunch of sauces or unnecessary extra flavorings.
My elder son is a great eater for a little kid. He loves broccoli, tomatoes, and all sorts of other foods that lots of others his age won’t even touch. But he’s still a kid. He’s not expecting a gourmet meal where the perfectly sliced food is stacked, layer upon layer, in a feat of culinary and architectural skill that might win someone a Michelin star. I don’t know any kids who are. They’re not poring over the Zagat guide or reading Bon Appetit. They just want to eat something that tastes good and fills them up so they can make it through the rest of the day without their stomachs growling.
Undoubtedly, there are kids out there who want nothing more than an organic wheat tortilla roll-up filled with low-fat cream cheese, shredded carrot, golden raisins, and freshly grated nutmeg – preferably with a face on it. But I’d hazard a guess that most of our kids don’t fall into that category.
And that’s okay. They have years to develop and expand their palates. If you’re worried that your child isn’t getting enough variety in their diet, work on that at home when you can personally coax them along into trying roasted asparagus with pine nuts. Encourage them to try one new thing each week at dinner. Visit the farmer’s market on the weekend and ask them to pick something out.
And if your kid adores her fancy lunch with the dips and sauces and special containers and shapes and garnishes and what-have-you, and you don’t mind indulging her, hey, that’s fine. Just don’t try to convince me to forsake the tried-and-true when it comes to my son’s lunchbox. He likes turkey sandwiches – plain old turkey sandwiches that are shaped : like a piece of bread.
With the crusts on.
OMG – thank you very much. Best thing I’ve read on the web in a while.
My youngest wants a ham sandwich (don’t even think of adding a slice of cheese to that baby.) The middle would like turkey and cheese, please. The oldest will only tolerate PB&J. I don’t even cut crusts off.
I add a yogurt stick to each, a bag of sunchips/goldfish crackers/pretzels (potato chips for the 12 year old – sue me.) And an apple if they are in season. That is it.
Oh – we do pop popcorn each morning for their snack, with butter and salt (but not the youngest – he does.not.like.salt.) Is popcorn fancy?
I’m even worse–once you hit second grade, lunch packing is your own responsibility. I will help cut carrots, etc, but you do the packing and the picking. (family ground rule is that you also need a fruit, vegetable, protein, and grain).
Frankly, the more simple the lunch – the easier for my 5 year old to eat it within the 20 minutes alloted for eating it each day. Sandwich, snack, and juicebox. DONE!
‘And oh God, is there something wrong with the toilet? Why is it making that horrible squealing sound? And arent you supposed to send something with one of the kids to school today? What on earth was it? Here, kid, have a turkey sandwich.’ Haha! That’s going to have me smiling for the rest of the day.
I am all for the kids packing their own lunches to take to school. So long as they fulfill the “requirements” and follow the packing rule (you MUST eat what you pack)
I do get “fancy” at home with the littler ones…but they help make their lunches too. My 2 year old helps use cookie cutters to cut his sammies (he eats the whole thing(including the crust bits))
my 15 month old uses his hands to help put black beans and cheese on a tortilla…it might look icky, but he is proud and will gobble it down.
I don’t intentionally make a fancy lunch at home, or for school lunches, its just what my monkeys prefer to do for themselves…and so long as they eat what they pack I will gladly get creative with it, or help them be creative and fun with their lunches!!!!
THANK YOU!!!! I cannot stand those ridiculous “crafty” sandwiches. Makes me want to vomit. Who even does that????? Perfectly written!
I would love it if my daughters would eat turkey and cheese sandwiches! We haven’t moved beyond peanut butter and our school is nut free, so I’m stuck. I struggle with trying to figure out what to pack for them and since this is going to be their first time eating lunch at school, I want to focus on giving them things I know they will eat, rather than trying to get creative!
This was a great follow up to the Bento box story yesterday. Thank you for the reality check!
I dont do it all the time, but it is fun for my son to have a surprise in his lunch box. Im not the sprouts for hair etc. kind of person but occasionally I do wield the cookie cutter and cut a heart or something into the middle of his sandwich (plain ham and cheese on cracked wheat), I leave the peices together and he will eat the whole thing, but its fun and he likes it and, lets be honest, it takes a whole extra 30 seconds. Is that really so bad?
brilliant – loved it all
and its ok to want to have a normal life and not spend hours fiddling – I use birthdays for a surprise lunch like that for fun … but not to intricate. but bless the poor moms who do spend hours doing those lunches… they have time!!!
anyways have a great day
loved the post
Im off to normal lunch land to make a … sandwhich
Amen to that!!
I totally agree! Why does everything have to be so complicated? Turkey and cheese sandwiches and quesadillas are our go to lunches around here.
I agree completely…although I must confess we have a dinosaur sandwich cutter that gives us 2 equal dinosaur shapes- but Sam can do that part himself. The fanciest we get is thermoses (sp?) when it is cold outside for mac&cheese or tomato soup. Other than that, yogurt, applesauce or pears, and if they are lucky one small cookie.
Amen to that! I had peanut butter and jelly my whole school life and loved it – looked forward to it – there is certainly something to be said for a consistency in life – a packed lunch is consistent! A sandwich, a piece of fruit, and a treat – you’re good – great writing, Ms. Larson!
LOL! Great article!
Jennifer, you hit the nail on the head:)!! I’m all about mommies being creative and all that, but 4 kids later, and I’m just lucky to have enough groceries in the house to come up with a decent lunch:) Sometimes, it’s rolled up lunch meat w/cheese…who needs the bread? Lunchboxes are not where my creativity comes out.
I am all about variety. I don’t want my kids to have the same exact lunch everyday. I try to only do a sandwich once a week and do something else all the other days – pizza, bagel, chicken strips etc. I have worked in preschools for years and always have thought it sad that parents pack THE EXACT SAME THING everyday. Put a little thought into it people!
I’m definitely not one to put in the extra effort, since effort is something that most of us moms are feeling pretty drained of at the end of the day anyhow, on something as silly as a kid’s packed lunch. However if your kid is the type to send home lunch after lunch uneaten after school, I have an awesome alternative to all that effort. I was a really picky eater in a sense as a kid. It wasn’t that I liked a predictable diet, I was all about chowing down on squid at dim sum on weekends, I’ve just always been very, very naturally thin and never felt all that hungry. It was tricky for my dad (the designated lunch maker) to make something interesting enough for me to force myself to eat it all. What he started doing when I was very young was to give me all my lunches in brown paper bags. Sounds simple, right? Stick with me. He would doodle a little cartoon (he’s an animation professor, so they were always awesome) on the front. Something comical to do with the lunch, like a series of carrot sticks holding picket signs demanding better wages for their demeaning work. I also always hated meat from an early age, I ended up becoming a vegan at 13 and remaining so until my pregnancy. One day on the cover of my lunch bag there was a cartoon of a sandwich filled with worms wiggling around with speech bubbles reading things like ‘Oh the injustice’ or ‘help me!’. When I opened it up I found he had cut up the ham in my sandwich into long, thin strips and messed them up into a large pile to make it look like a real life worm sandwich. Ever the tomboy, I thought that was the coolest thing in the entire world and it became a staple of my school lunches for a long time. In fact, on one of those days I was called to the principle’s office during lunch. I thought I was in trouble but it turned out a large group of teachers just wanted to witness my ‘worm sandwich’ up close and personal. I know I loved that stuff growing up, and that’s probably the approach I’ll take if my now 19 month old becomes a picky eater. Although it’s doubtful, she just happily gobbled up a truck-load of spicy indian food and soy milk for dinner tonight. Still, just a tip for picky eaters with moms and dads who think the whole bento lunch craze is incredibly impractical.
Thanks for taking the pressure off to “Keep up with the Joneses”! I’ve been packing my daughter’s lunch for years & she has never once companied about the (previously frozen by the loaf) PB&J’s I’ve sent. In the morning, I add a fruit, a veggie, and organic milk & she’s on her way! By the time lunch rolls around, the PB&J on whole grain has thawed and she is a happy and healthy kid!
Wait wait wait, you lost me at “audience free shower”… it sounds familiar but I’m not sure what it is.
Great article. I agree. We do own some sandwich cutters (that I never use) but that is the extent of fancy for us. Variety can still be simple – turkey sandwich one day, ham or PBJ one day…. But the truth is , a lot of us adults eat the same things for lunch everyday – why do we feel our kids can’t do that?
Thanks for writing this! I can’t stand happy kitty faces on sandwiches. they are totally un-attainable to the average parent!! 4 kids later, I need all the help I can get packing lunches; unlike yours, my kids are not plain turkey and cheese every day kids. they like all sorts of stuff for lunch. I signed up for http://www.MOMables.com ‘s school lunch menu plan two weeks ago and so far they have been winners in my house! luckily, i found a solution that doesn’t include cute faces but variety!!
I loved reading this article. As a Mom of two grown sons, I certainly remember days when getting anything in the lunch box was a great accomplishment and a shower without interruption was as good as a day at the spa! LOL!
This year my 4 year old is helping me make his lunch the night before. If he wants food on a toothpick skewer or cut out sandwiches he does it himself. I’ve found that he loves helping make his sandwiches and snacks and he eats more of his lunch if he helps make it than when I make it.
We use a bento box but I’ve found that it actually shortens the amount of time it take for me to make his lunch since I don’t have to get the ziplocs out and I know exactly what fits in each compartment. I can whip together lunch in 10 minutes with the Bento box now.
I used a heart shape cookie cutter on my daughter’s lunch one day and she came home and told me to not do it anymore because “it’s weird.” LOL. Bottom line, every one of us is just trying to do what works for us and our kids.
I am the same way: sandwich,chips,fruit,fruit snack or other snacky item and a drink. If I add anything different it always comes back home uneaten so I stick what works. One thing I am trying this year is re-useable baggies. Saves the environment and saves me $. So far the one I like is re-pac bags. They come in cool colors, zipper closed and so easy to clean in dishwasher, by hand or washing machine!
Amen on simple sandwiches! My hubby thought it was cute to use one of those heart sandwich cutters when our first daughter was three. I put a stop to that, though, after she started DEMANDING that her sandwhiches always be cut into cute shapes with no crusts. That’s one headache this mama doesn’t need. She now gets plain peanut butter (which is all she ever wants), and if she doesn’t eat the crusts, she brings them home in the little sandwich box and her 2-year-old sister eats them. Zero waste, and at least ONE of our kids will grow up eating crusts and all.
Yes! We only do simple foods too, healthy but simple and then it gets eaten.
Yay! I like simple too. I usually pack away a little bit for each after dinner. If we don’t have leftovers, hard-boiled eggs shaped like hard-boiled eggs do the trick trick!
I’d rather spend my time on other things! Thanks for the great article!!!
growing up my mom wouldnt switch it up unless we asked. i must have had peanut butter on saltines, granola bars, some sort of fruit and occasionally a bologna and cheese nearly every day. it was perfect for me. brown bag and all.
My mom just wrote a short note on the napkins to create a smile. The sandwich and other foods were usually the same day to day, but I always looked forward to the note. My classmates found out that my mom wrote me notes and they used to pass it around the lunch table. I think they were pretending that their mom wrote it to them. It always made me feel loved and special, and probably only took her a minute. It was usually the same, but conveyed love just the same.
My daughter would eat the same sandwich every day if she could but I do try to mix it up. After subsisting on a ham sandwich, apple and drink myself for years and years, I seriously cannot look at a ham sandwich myself, ever again!! That said, I agree with you – simple is good. I don’t want to spend more than 5 minutes packing lunch.
Great article! I’m kind of in the middle myself. My 3-year-old son gets sick of the same foods all the time so I’m always trying to vary his school lunches and get him to eat more of what I pack. The PBJ or Nutella “sushi” rolls recipe I found on here has worked out great! My sandwich bites don’t look as pretty as the ones in the picture but they’re definitely edible and my son gobbles them right up. Throw in a vanilla milk and a fruit cup and he’s very happy. Also he’ll eat cold cuts & cheese from a Lunchable but not on a regular sandwich. So we buy Lunchables when they’re on sale and alternate them with the sandwiche bites. Haven’t ruled out investing in some fun-shaped cookie cutters, maybe he’ll eat cold cuts and cheese as finger food if they’re shaped like stars or something. That said, some of these lunch “designs” go a little overboard and reinforce the whole keeping-up-with-the-Joneses-parents mentality. Saw some on another mommy site recently that were adorable, but they clearly have to be held together with toothpicks. I don’t feel safe putting toothpicks in a 3-year-old’s lunch, and by the time he’s old enough to deal with those he’ll probably find the cutesy lunches embarrassing. The way I see it, there will always be another mom who does things more “perfectly” than I do and she can create all the sandwich art she wants. I’m more interested in keeping my kid happy, healthy and fed.
What really turned me off from those picture-perfect, elaborate themes in packed lunches was the actual length a certain mom had to go to to make sure the theme du jour didn’t fall apart during transport. She had to break toothpicks, pin down everything that could slide, pack it all down with napkins, and she had to lay the box flat on top of a backpack and place the lunch in her son’s cubby herself.
Good for her that this was her hobby. But ridiculous to working parents who need to get the whole family ready and out the door by 7-7:30.
Haha, the point in case, here, is that some parents are just natural budding artists and they go crazy if they can’t get all picasso on their kids’ meals. But that’s no reason to feel bad if you can’t! Children are creatures of habit, anyhoos, so as long as they aren’t complaining (BALOGNE, AGAIN!?), simple AND healthy is better than Pretty and Unhealthy/time-consuming/sanity-straining.
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So funny. It’s like moms can never do enough. And wait, is that tortilla HANDMADE? Shouldn’t it be? Are you sure your lunch container is lead free? Is it cute enough? I get into the healthy and the reusable containers and that is quite enough for me.
Oh and a lot of it is nuts with the bento, too. I like bento as reusable containers and that it enables you to pack, say, dinner leftovers, if your four year-old is so inclined. But some of those bento website ideas are….for high energy people.
Did kindy lunch supervision today…. my kindy twins (and my 12 year old) had bentos (hard boiled eggs, slices of last nights pork, cucumber, tomato & red peppers, mozzerella/cheddar cheese & crackers), there was 1 mac n cheese, one rice n sausage, and 18 sandwiches incl one of those “crustables” (and 18 ziploc bags). Most of the kindy kids ate all their lunch – totally shell shocked by the new environment. I have no problem finding a few extra minutes to pack 3 interesting lunches 3 times a week and GASP sometimes I’ll put a face on something or use a cookie cutter… the other two days a week they will have the school lunch. It’s about balance. Sorry to make you vomit Amy, but I do THAT because making the lunch bento style has a different philosophy behind it, … it’s not complicated at all, not the way I do it anyway.
A bit surprised it seems to simple and yet uusefl.
To quote: “They like having food thats just like the food that their friends are eating.” In that case, they must be getting Fruit Roll-ups, Oreo snack packs and Lunchables. No kid at the table with mine is getting carrot sticks and applesauce! It’s whatever mom can throw in the cart at the store, and then into the lunchbox. Whatever is easy. Makes MY job a whole lot harder, because mine is not one of those. You pack your child vegees/fruits for school, that’s GREAT. But that’s not what all their friends are getting in theirs. I know, because I’ve seen it. We need to get back to feeding our kids healthy…not what comes in a box.
how boring to eat that everyday. I’m for the lady that said ‘balance’…she does well rounded bentos 3 x week and school lunches 2 x week. Why not a sandwich, a real piece of fruit, and a veggie you cut yourself…maybe a cheese stick or yogurt once a week, couple of bentos, a school lunch and leftover pizza, fruit & real live organic carrots you grew in your garden another day?
Why do it? Because it makes them happy. My Step daughters enjoy a sandwich shaped like princess crown or flowers, so dammit I’m going to make them one. I’m not building a science project, I’m just shoving a cookie cutter into a sandwich. It doesn’t take THAT MUCH TIME. It’s the little things.
Ha! We hate making lunch so much, we make our kid get school hot lunch. Except on Fridays, when my husband packs a very simple lunch like the one described in the article. My 6 year old thinks “home lunch” is the best thing ever and wants it every day. I told him he will have to make it himself before bedtime every night and then he can stop getting hot lunch. He hasn’t put forth the effort for that yet, but it won’t be any extra work for us when he does. Works out great for us!
Ha! Great article- I feel exactly the same way. I even did a post on real kids lunches that I pack for my sons- no cutesy faces, just real food that I can make quickly while getting them ready, me ready, and the baby ready- all in 30 minutes!Here is the link:
http://talesofaretromodernhousewife.blogspot.com/2011/08/real-kids-lunch-ideas.html
Thanks doll,
The Glamorous Housewife
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