As has been said before....go to the school board....they made that policy. I volunteered for several years in a program where I ate lunch with elementary grade kids and then spent time reading with them. In this school nearly 90% of the kids were getting free lunch. And the reason why I and the rest of the volunteers were there was not only to boost reading skills but to provide some one on one time and to provide a positive adult role model. The lunches are not horrible...mostly! Things like turkey or ham and cheese sandwich, frozen fruit, or spaghetti green beans a meatball and a cookie, or tacoes or chicken nuggets, corn and mashed potatoes. Apples were always available as was milk both chocolate and plain. There was always white roll or bread of some sort....often a package of teddy grahams. The amount of the food that was tossed was amazing... One little girl ate nothing but bread and chocolate milk....and she was plump. I asked her what her mother fixed for dinner, she said she didn't make dinner so she, the child just got what she wanted to eat. I asked like what....she said pop tarts, lucky charms etc. her mother had no job so all was from wellfare. Another's mother worked at the backery in Wal_Mart so she got all sorts of good stuff. another one time brought his lunch one day because Mom's boy friend had brought Twinkies and Ho ho's or something similar, so her brought that for lunch. I sure am not for banning lunches from home....but as has been said you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. If they are only used to getting garbage at home all the plates of roast turkey mashed potatoes and green beans won't get eaten. Kids who will get a fully subsidized lunch may not eat it and those not eligible may find that $2.25 a day is very expensive. Linda C

Thank you to bnicebekind, outinthecld, and amberjul for your response and insights. I want to say that first of all, I am protective of my son. I also worry sometimes that my son takes advantage of things and can be a bit manipulative. The day that I wrote my original post, my husband had gotten into one of his moods and there were a bad scene. This past weekend, however, while my husband was gone, I asked my son to do something (move some wood behind the garage) and he refused to do so. I should tell you that my son was in the store with me shopping one evening and he went to look at the baseball cards while I was in the grocery dept. When I went to look for him, I was paged. Going to find him, thinking he paged me, I found that he had been stopped for shoplifting--which was pretty confusing since neither of us had left the store and he had over $30 in his pocket that I had given him earlier. Anyway, the store made me pay $200.00 to them as they can charge the parent 10x what the kid is allegedly stealing. My husband and I agreed that he had to work it off. Actually, I was quite humiliated and upset and couldn't even speak. My husband actually surprised me and was the calm one and talked to my son. Since that time, even though it was agreed that my son had to work off the $200 with chores, he refuses to do them (usually when it is just me around) and this weekend when my husband was not home, my son got very angry with me, called me names, threw my kitchen chairs around, hit things, slammed the doors, etc. My son is getting to be a good size guy and truthfully, I am not sure I could live with him alone any more. AS for protecting my son, I do. When my husband went after my son once like he was going to hit him, I stopped him and I told him that he or anyone would ever put a hand to my son. I stood my ground and looked him in his face and he knows that I am dead serious about that. Yes, I do feel that some sort of counseling is needed so we can set some guidelines as to what our rights and responsibilities are. Such as, I would never spank one of stepgrandchildren and I don't expect my husband to spank mine...he sees it differently. I have again talked with my husband and I have taken the advice of a counselor in that if my husband loves me, I should be able to get him to see my reasoning. I think he does love me because I did stand up to him and say to him that I do not want to "castrate" him in our home and make him feel like he is not the man of the house, however; I cannot raise my son in fear. I told him that I do not like his temper; I cannot deal with people with bad tempers and if he did not learn to control his temper and learn to think a bit differently, that I would have to let this relationship go. I told him that I did love being married to him and I love the large family that we have together and I love the grandkids, but if that was the way that he raised his kids (I suspect it was and I suspect that was how he was raised, also), that he needed to think differently. I also came up with some compromises for my son and our rules, which he agreed to and I did let him know firmly that we needed to work on this and that I did think counseling was needed. His daughter told me that he had tried counseling before and it failed. I have been to counseling quite a long time for the depression, etc. of my first divorce, the relationship, tragedies, etc., so I do have insight into what needs to be done. I was a very self-sufficient, independent woman, yet now at my husband's request have lowered my income and work at home. This is all right as now I am here for my son when he gets home and I am here when he goes to school, too. I wonder if my husband doesn't have a hormone or chemical or sugar imbalance that brings on his moods as he gets very upset with himself when he gets upset. I am working on the rules and have talked with my son and asked him to work with me. My son knows I love him and I will try to look after his best interests. So, I do appreciate your comments and I wanted to let you know that I will not stick my head in the sand, I am workikng to resolve the issues, I am looking into counseling, and yes, I do protect my son. But, I simply needed to know if I was being one-sided towards my son as a mom and a stepchild myself, was I being unfair to my husband? The thing is, when you talk to someone, it can get you thinking...sometimes my son is in the wrong and sometimes my husband does overreact to things and goes way out of proportion. These are the issues that need to be worked on...now, just to find the right counselor to help with that. Thanks again

Well he did act like a young Don Knots but he looked more like a young and of course chubby Dom DeLouise! Thank you everyone for your compliments you are all being so nice. It is nice when KT people can get together. We're spending the week at our place in northeast PA so it was only a 30 or so mile drive to met Susan at a restaurant. My husband and I had been cutting logs into rounds for 2 days so I told him I wanted a fun day. The kids come up tonight so tomorrow it's back to firewood duty - we rented a hydraulic log splitter and we're planning on getting 2 or 3 cords of wood split and stacked for the winter. I feel like the productive country mouse from the children's fable.

Went out to dinner to Rey's, a local restaurant with New Orleans flair. My in-laws are visiting. I had a spinach salad with warm bacon dressing, bread, broiled salmon with asparagus. They all shared a dessert of Bananas Foster. I'm not much of a dessert person and... I was stuffed. Seems all we've done for the last few days is EAT!