Death of the American Bake Sale

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a little friend’s elementary school band performance. There is something so earnest and sweet, both ridiculous and admirable about those little children laboriously pumping out Claire de Lune, it brought tears to my eyes. When I think of those innocent grade school bands, the old time Alexander’s Ragtime Band comes to mind. Maybe I’m an old foof, but the traditional tunes of yesteryear and all their connotations of band shells in the park and community picnics by the river just seem like good old America.

When the proud parents and their tone-deaf children trooped into the gym for the art show and bake sale, I hustled over to check out the goodies. There, my eyes were sadly met by a sight so peculiar, so off-putting, I was taken aback. Where were the lumpy muffins, the mystery cookies or slightly titled homemade cakes? In the place of time honored home baked goods sprawled a table filled with store bought bakery items, boxed and sealed.

Once, in the not so distant but somehow more innocent past, I worked a bake table at my eldest son’s middle school. They’d gone all out, tons of stuff – sheet cakes, pink cupcakes, butterscotch brownies and peanut butter cookies, so much they could not sell it all. Toward the end of the evening, the woman in charge worried about what to do with all the leftovers. Usually, they got hauled down to the teachers’ lounge but it was a Friday and the kids were off on Monday. It wouldn’t work.

Someone else mentioned that I had a bake sale at another school on Saturday morning. A quick plan was thrown into motion. All the trays and boxes of home made desserts made their way into my van and the entire mess wound up the next day at the elementary school. Folks at the elementary school were glad to have it. The layout was a generous calorie-fest of home baked treats and I was a hero!

When son #3 was very young, I took him and a little friend to their elementary school playground on a day off to run wild and unfettered on the playground equipment. While walking across campus, they began to gently nudge one another and poke one another in the arm. They each cast wary glances, looking over their shoulders like criminals on watch for the fuzz. Every little poke elicited gales of laughter. So what was so wildly hilarious? I mean, it was cute but there was a devilish look in their eyes that made no sense.

“Why is that so funny?” I asked.

They looked at one another sheepishly with a should-we-tell-her glint in their eyes. Can she be trusted?
"We're not allowed to touch one another,” my little curly haired angel explained.

“What do you mean?”

He looked confused and repeated himself. How could I not understand such a simple explanation. They were not allowed to touch one another in any way. No tag, no bump, no pinching, poking, no squeeze of the arm, no prodding, no hugging – no touching. They laughed because they were breaking school rules on school grounds. They were not allowed to play tag at recess because they had to touch one another if they played tag.

They were not allowed to play dodge ball at recess because someone might get hit with the ball!

If you send cupcakes to school for a party they must be manufactured. Bake sales sell only processed boxed or sealed items. When my son, a senior in high school, wanted to bring cookies to an art class critique session, we had to buy cookies at the Dollar store.

“We’re not allowed to bring in home made stuff,” he explained.
Why? Well, you don’t know what’s in home made cupcakes, do you? Anything could be used as an ingredient! Heroin! Anthrax! Peanuts!

Store bought food products list the ingredients – you know exactly what’s in them, even if you can’t pronounce it. We have to maintain safe standards for our children. People who make homemade items could be diseased (think Typhoid Mary) or crazy (think ground glass, rat poison, and razor blades) or terrorists (think planes crashing into the Twin Towers somehow all tucked away in a strawberry cupcake).

When the PTA decided to buy a bench for Mrs. S to sit on and watch the kiddies play at recess, the style of the bench became the subject of a heated debate. One faction did not want a back on the bench, for safety’s sake, they said.

They claimed that a kid might come running toward the bench, jump up on the seat and launch themselves off the back of the bench. They could get hurt! It was dangerous.

I pointed out that if there was no back on the bench, they would definitely jump up on it. Also, poor Mrs. S, overworked teacher of an over crowded Kindergarten, might just lean back on the bench, unconsciously expecting a back on the bench and would fall backwards, ass over tincups. Now, Mrs. S was a big woman. She could have been a linebacker. My suggestion elicited a few full blown laughs, maybe one set of eyebrows bunched in consideration, but a lot of eye rolls. I was being ridiculous. A troublemaker.

Standard policy at our local public school: if you are physically attacked by another student – a bully, a nut, a friend – you are not allowed to defend yourself. You must immediately fall to the ground and curl up into a fetal position. Any defensive stance, any push, shove, any standing up to the punk or hitting back earns you punishment equal to that of the aggressor.

One afternoon, at the elementary school, the class bully (a big, boned hulk) attacked a smaller, albeit, slightly annoying child. The attacked child crumbled onto the ground as school rules dictate. Of course, the aggressor did what most bullies do, he advanced on his victim, halted, and drew back one leg ready to kick the smaller child.

I heard from several sources how my little 9-year-old son, Ajax, stepped up in front of the fallen kid and took the kick. The little tacker had a fierce yet amused look in his eye – he laughed in the bully’s face. The look in his eye, his brave actions as he advanced on the bully was enough to back the punk down. His interference was against school policy but his attitude alone, the few steps he took toward the brute frightened and thrilled fellow students. They no longer feared the bully. His days as an intimidating, cruel, pushy brat were numbered.

His teacher was proud of him that day. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to say so. Ajax was famous for a couple of weeks. They know that that stupid rule turned a victim into a punching bag. What does any self-loathing bully do to a fallen victim? Kick him of course.

I’m glad my youngest will finish high school this year. He’s leaving bizarro world, a school system that no longer makes sense, a school that punishes kids for silly pranks and forbids homemade brownies. (A fellow student was expelled when he hid his friend’s backpack. The backpack was found, apparently abandoned in the hall – it could have been a bomb!)

But what has all this to do with bake sales? It's the obsession with safety, the mistaken idea that we can protect our children from any threat by passing ridiculous rules. A few years back, when a fellow student was known to have a peanut allergy, no one brought peanut butter to class. I never kept peanut butter in the house because one of my son's friends had an allergy. We adapted to the needs of the particular child.

There was something beautiful about those bake sales, the sweet generosity, the tiny thrill of a busy mom at seeing her cake swept up first, the glint in the buyer’s eye when the lady behind the table said, "that’s not from a box; it’s from scratch."

But scratch is forbidden. Standing up to bullies is forbidden. A back on a bench for an older, over-worked teacher is forbidden. Alexander’s Ragtime Band played by tone deaf children on warm spring evenings has gone the way of the Dodo, replaced by esteem-building feel-good songs, tuneless drivel sung by bored children to safety obsessed parents and thwarted teachers.

The last time I went to a bake sale, I handed the PTA mom $10.00. I held no purchase, no Ding-Dongs, no HoHos, no Little Debbies. She looked at me quizzically.

“I baked my own cake, donated it in absentia, left it home and am now buying it,” I said.

Revolutionary times call for revolutionary deeds.