Parenting can be hard enough without being “lunch box shamed”

It seems like a very strange thing to food shame a preschooler, but here we are. “I’ve been lunchbox shamed,” read my friend’s caption on the picture she posted to social media of her child’s lunchbox, showing a sticker attached to the front of the lunchbox.

“Lunchbox reminder! Today you packed some really great lunchbox options. However, Mini Rice Cakes (pure milk chocolate) is not in line with our healthy lunchbox guidelines. Please save these foods for home and refer to our healthy lunchbox guidelines for an alternative.”

Chocolate mini rice cakes, purchased at the supermarket and marked “lunchbox friendly” didn’t meet the cut apparently. Anyone else remember when lunch was a Four’N Twenty, can of Coke and a vanilla slice?

Before my kid started school, he did a year at kinder. Nude lunches, we were told, were the ideal; lunches with zero packaging or plastic. Desperate to please and show how little my job affected my parenting, I did this religiously, until I opened the kinder fridge one day and saw tens of lunchboxes all lined up: they contained pouches of yoghurt, packs of chips, muesli bars and lots of sugar-heavy bliss balls. Thank goodness, I sighed.

Before I stopped tying myself in knots trying to create the perfect bento-nude-no processed sugar-aspirational-love-filled lunchbox that apparently reflected all my anxieties as a parent, I joined a few lunchbox inspiration groups on social media to keep up with the Joneses.

But now, I’m watching as more parents from around Australia post their hurt, mortification and embarrassment, having been the recipient of a lunchbox shaming sticker. These are the parents who care enough that they choose to spend their spare time in social media groups chatting lunchbox ideas. I can’t help but feel that this strategy needs an urgent rethink.

It’s the perfect example of a policy that looks great on paper, if you can completely divorce yourself from the fact that not everyone has the finances, nutritional education, time or inclination to spend hours each week constructing a lunchbox that jumps through someone else’s nutritional hoops.

Food is a multi-dimensional issue, driven by socio-economic status, culture, gender, education and a multitude of other factors. This sort of terse, passive-aggressive communication on a sensitive issue like what we feed our kids, has the ability to feed right into serious triggers. It also polarises food into “yes” and “no” categories, destroying the much healthier and realistic approach to eating, which is that treats are fine in moderation. When I posted about this issue online, immediately I was inundated with concerned parents saying it was going to lead to eating disorders.