Esther McCarthy: School's back — and there's no such thing as a free hot lunch

Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn

It's that time of year, gang. In a matter of days, the kids are trooping back to that building with the teachers, and the coat hooks and the weird smell and the white boards and the uber competent secretary who we all know is really in charge.

In one way, it feels like the summer has slipped through my fingers without me even realising it, but in another weird way, it feels like decades since I carefully folded the freshly laundered unifo... oh, I can’t lie to you. 

It feels like decades since I flung the tracksuits and crumpled uniforms with the obligatory itchy jumper into the back of the wardrobe and wedged it shut with a 4” x 4”, possibly still with a half-peeled mandarin in one of the pockets.

And it’s causing a whole conflict of emotions.

Not the mandarin, I’ve made my peace with mould a long time ago. But the whole going-back-to-school drama. How does it consistently catch me by surprise? Was it always this early?

I never remember going back to school in August. It feels wrong. In my brain, August is sandcastles, ice-creams for breakfast, tide clocks, and flipflops. 

Not sandwiches, my screams at breakfast, alarm clocks, and those leather black shoes that cost a fortune, that they’ll wear a grand total of once, on school photo day.

On one hand, hurray! The little darlings are someone else’s problem for a significant portion of the day. Thanks, educators!

Desperate parents won’t have to listen to ‘I’m sooooo Boooohohooorrr-red!’ any time there’s not an activity placed in front of them, the levels of which would have been incomprehensible to anyone growing up in my day.

My 10-year-old took part in seven camps this summer. Seven! He’s been ziplining, surfing, learning CPR, baking, painting, canoeing, and they got to go behind the scenes on a tour of Fota Wildlife Park and hang with actual giraffes.

(Aren’t giraffes the best? With their massive eyelashes and their Katie Price lips and their supermodel gaits. What magnificently mad-looking yokes they are.)

But do you know what he said was one of the best days? A grey Tuesday spent on the beach with two pals, just yapping and messing, no agenda, no siblings, no sunshine.

Free time, rambling, Huckleberry Finn-ing the shite out of it for themselves .

On the other hand, booooo!

Back to alarm clocks and busy-ness and homework (anyone else have an involuntary vomit reflex every time you hear that H word?) and having to partake in time-consuming personal hygiene, like washing your face and brushing your hair, to go wait at the school gate. Boooohohooorr-ring.

This year brings one big change for us: our school joins the hot meals scheme. Free lunches for all. I can’t wait to see how that pans out. 

My teacher friends are divided. One told me it eats (no pun intended) into her teaching time, and she says it’s a sin how much of the food ends up binned.

For her school’s situation, she wonders if the money might be better spent on basics such as extra classroom supports or sports equipment.

But from the parent side? I have to admit, I can see the appeal. No more stopping with the coffee cup half to your lips in the middle of the day, breaking out in a sweat trying to remember if you put peanut butter on his crackers when there’s a severe allergy in the school.

No more praying that the congealed starch on the pasta left over from the night before will have magically degloopified itself in time for lón beag.

And no more trying to figure out the difference between the apple they’ll eat and the apple they won’t eat, when they are, in fact, identical apples.

I’m sure plenty of other parents will welcome it too. If you’ve got three or four kids in primary school, not having to pack lunches every morning is a gift, not to mention the savings on groceries.

For families struggling with the insane cost of living, the scheme means kids get at least one hot meal a day without question. That’s hard to argue with.

My son’s take on it? That fella is delighted with himself. He’s blessed with a healthy appetite, shall we say, and he didn’t lick that off a stone.

As for me, I’m waiting to see the nutritional value of the choices and if we make it to Christmas before the novelty wears off. And the question nags at me: Is this really the best use of such a budget? 

Schools are rattling tins at the school gate to pay for paint and photocopying, while the Government is focused on pies and pastas. Equal meals for all is a grand idea, but equal resources for education might matter more.

Because, lads, here’s the thing: there’s no such thing as a free hot lunch. Someone’s paying for it.

And judging by the voluntary contributions letters that are ready to land any day now, it’s still us.