Why I'll Never Complain About Packing a Lunch Again

Before the start of this school year, I had not packed a school lunch since March 2020. That equals about 500 days for those counting.

Before you say, "You're so lucky," know that it's not because we started purchasing hot lunches regularly, or because I miraculously hired a chef. Instead, my two elementary school age kids had not been in the classroom for a full day for 1.5 school years, hence the no lunch packing.

In the beginning of the pandemic, the family lunch at home was kind of nice. We would all eat lunch together, and nobody was particularly picky about what we ate. Once we realized we'd be in this for the long haul, and school and work went back to its normal cadence, that stopped, and what began was more of a steady stream of interruptions when someone was hungry or had a break.

I went from being a freelance writer and mom to a short-order cook.

Now that the school year is several weeks old, I am looking back on my short-order cook days and finding myself thankful for a return to packing school lunches. Aside from getting a bit of normalcy happening in our house, I've realized for all of the complaints I had pre-March 2020, it's much easier to pack a school lunch.

The Buffet of Choices Ends

When my kids are home, I want to make sure they are well-fed, so it wasn't uncommon during the 1.5 years they were taking school from home for me to actually cook lunch. One kid wanted macaroni, and the other eggs. No problem. Heat up pizza? Sure. One cherry yogurt, one apple sliced, here you go.

This kept going and going, however. It was also an all-day eating fest, so even when I wasn't feeding them, the snack wrappers or half-eaten whatever plates would pile up everywhere.

So, you can imagine my delight when I realized the options we put into their lunchboxes are much more limited. More often than not, my little one will go for a sun butter and jelly sandwich (no peanuts allowed at school), and my oldest wants a turkey or salami sandwich. Everything also goes in one compact box so there couldn't be extra plates loitering around my sink.

We can stock up on variety packs of chips and snacks and my newest obsession, fruit jerky. That streamlines the shopping and narrows the choices. The consistency allows us to have a fridge full of grab-and-go options — cut-up fruit, prosciutto- or salami-wrapped cheese, Baby Bell or string cheese, cut up vegetables and hummus, yogurt sticks and more.

The most complicated we get in our lunchboxes is tacos. My son is a taco maniac, so any time we have leftover tacos. he is game to have them the next day.

They Can Be Picky on Their Own

I am lucky that my boys aren't particularly picky eaters. They are, however, picky kids.

What do I mean by that? They'll never complain in a restaurant, but you can make them exactly what they want at home, and then there will be something wrong with it, like the type of bread or the brand of turkey they've always been eating.

But when you pack a school lunch, that pickiness miraculously disappears because there is nobody to complain to (or at least nobody that will do anything about it).

Cleanup Is Way Easier

The thing about everyone being home is that dishes were just everywhere in the sink, even if I repeatedly taught them how to load them directly in the dishwasher. The kids would grab snacks between remote classes and leave the wrappers who knows where.

The beauty of the school lunch? It all goes into one compact box, and when they are done with it, the garbage gets dumped directly in the trash. Sure, there are times where a random sandwich crust ends up coming home, or one of my containers goes missing forever, but it's a small price to pay for the freedom of not having to do dishes for yet another meal.