Suffer the Children to Eat.

The local council in Blackpool is starting a three month pilot project in which they will provide all primary school children with a free breakfast. Too many kids are turning up hungry, apparently, having had nothing to eat since the night before.

I asked one of the people from the village school what they think the problem is. Why aren’t parents giving their children breakfast? She said the received view is that so many parents now ‘don’t have the time.’ It’s usual these days for both parents to work full time jobs so as to afford all the paraphernalia that modern culture requires you to have in order to get by in accordance with conditioned expectations. They don’t bother to have breakfast themselves, so they don’t give the kids any either. Bit sad, that.

But I also picked up on the fact that the teaching unions are heaping praise on Blackpool for taking this step. They say that children concentrate better on their school work if they’ve eaten. Ah, I see; so that’s the reason. It isn’t because the poor little mites are hungry. Well, maybe it is. Maybe it’s just that you have to come up with a plausible pragmatic argument to justify the expenditure. Simple compassion won’t do. It’s that kind of world.