Why I Quit Making Fun Bento Lunches for My Kids

I'm thickheaded sometimes, but I finally get it. It's clear as day. All of the faceless Internet trolls, who have never met my family, are making sense now. They have been trying to speak wisdom into my life for the last two years, and I haven't been willing to listen. I have now decided to quit making fun bento lunches for my kids forever... or at least until next Monday. Here are five of the actual comments made about my blog that have helped me to reevaluate my life.

1. Ain't nobody got time for that!
I finally see this now. How have I been finding time to make lasting memories with my kids when there is so much other quality stuff to do on the Internet? I mean, all of those cat videos on Facebook aren't going to watch themselves. Maybe I can finally spend hours a day searching for other parents doing awesome things on the Internet and help them see reality also. Thank you for the help, Facebook life coaches -- I salute you.

2. You must be a stay-at-home dad.
Actually I'm not, but I should probably become one. According to these wise commenters, all a stay-at-home parent does is fight boredom and try to think up things to fill up his or her schedule. There are no stay-at-home moms or dads who have to get up early, work around the house, take children to school, help with homework, or become exhausted from the long hours. According to the enlightened Internet trolls, it seems like all these parents do is sit around watching TV and looking for social media to comment on. Sounds amazing, maybe I should try it.

3. There is no way all that food looks like that after your kid takes it to school.
First, thanks for going to my kids' school and watching them eat lunch to update me on how it looked. That's not creepy at all. Second, I guess science has proven it is physically impossible for bread and cheese to stay together. We can split the atom, but can't make peanut butter stick to apples. I promise I will never again rebel against these scientific food laws that these school lunch sages have apparently been studying.

4. Shouldn't you be doing more important things with your kids?
This one really hit me hard. I write about parenting, so I should know about priorities. I make these lunches once a week, on Sunday nights, after my kids go to bed. I mean, there's so much I can do with my children at that time of day. The possibilities are endless. I can go in their rooms and watch them sleep or even wait outside their doors for them to wake up in the morning. Here's to you, Internet trolls, for helping me get my parenting priorities back in order.

5. If PB&J on white bread and a Twinkie in a brown paper bag were good enough for me as a kid, that's good enough for my children.
This type of solid reasoning might be the thing that finally helped me change my thinking. Why let the nutritional discoveries we have made in the last 30 years change our mindset on kids' school lunches? It's not like we live in an obese society or anything. In fact, this reasoning should help us get back to the good old days of believing the Earth is flat, using leeches to cure diseases, and not using seat belts. Let's throw out those cell phones, too, because any societal advances after 1980 certainly can't be trusted. If white bread and Twinkies were good enough for us growing up, dang it, they're good enough for everyone!

I hope I've convinced you never to make lunchtime fun for your kids, or even to try and do special things for them. These Internet gurus are obviously speaking rock-solid truth that cannot be argued with. If strangers on the Internet don't know what's best for our families, then who does? So I pledge to give up this ridiculous hobby forever.

On second thought, maybe I will just keep making fun lunches for my kids, tell my children that I love them, and pass on ideas to help other parents do the same.

This was originally posted on LunchboxDad.com

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