Spring Break
Cupcake ban not so sweet
Brad Zambrello
Issue date: 10/29/04 Section: Commentary
What was the best part of elementary school? Learning the complex details of the English language? I don't think so. Grasping rudimentary mathematics? Probably not. Dodgeball in gym class? Definitely great, yet there was something I'm sure everyone liked just a little better.
Unquestionably, the best part of elementary school was when one of your classmates celebrated a birthday. Singing "Happy Birthday" to your peer, while gorging on the cupcakes their mom had made the night before, was a bi-weekly ritual that made enduring the rigors of multiplication and phonics just a little easier. Elementary school birthdays were great times, times when everyone was friends and the sweets were ever abundant.
However, for baked-good lovers everywhere, I have tragic news to report. Principal Robert Davis of the Meadowside School in Milford, Conn, wants to take away this childhood joy from Milford elementary school students. Davis recently passed a ban on cakes, brownies and cupcakes at his school, effectively eliminating birthday celebrations altogether. In doing so, he is taking away a fundamental American right: the ability to gorge oneself with unhealthy food to the point of a stomach rupture.
In an attempt to maintain the integrity of birthdays, an impossible task without a cake-related goody, Davis has replaced birthday sweets with "games and crafts to celebrate birthdays, holidays and special occasions." Great, birthday games and crafts. Who wants a birthday Popsicle stick house? How about a birthday handprint turkey? What about some Christmas Monopoly? Anyone?
O, fair principal, have some compassion. Even the fascist Mussolini enjoyed a cannoli from time to time.
In all seriousness, Davis' ban is well-intentioned. Considering America's immense childhood obesity "epidemic," I'm certain Davis feels he is simply doing his part to help control a problem amongst his schoolchildren. Yet, simply because a ban is well-intentioned does not mean it is justified. Davis' action is, in fact, far from justified.
Unquestionably, the best part of elementary school was when one of your classmates celebrated a birthday. Singing "Happy Birthday" to your peer, while gorging on the cupcakes their mom had made the night before, was a bi-weekly ritual that made enduring the rigors of multiplication and phonics just a little easier. Elementary school birthdays were great times, times when everyone was friends and the sweets were ever abundant.
However, for baked-good lovers everywhere, I have tragic news to report. Principal Robert Davis of the Meadowside School in Milford, Conn, wants to take away this childhood joy from Milford elementary school students. Davis recently passed a ban on cakes, brownies and cupcakes at his school, effectively eliminating birthday celebrations altogether. In doing so, he is taking away a fundamental American right: the ability to gorge oneself with unhealthy food to the point of a stomach rupture.
In an attempt to maintain the integrity of birthdays, an impossible task without a cake-related goody, Davis has replaced birthday sweets with "games and crafts to celebrate birthdays, holidays and special occasions." Great, birthday games and crafts. Who wants a birthday Popsicle stick house? How about a birthday handprint turkey? What about some Christmas Monopoly? Anyone?
O, fair principal, have some compassion. Even the fascist Mussolini enjoyed a cannoli from time to time.
In all seriousness, Davis' ban is well-intentioned. Considering America's immense childhood obesity "epidemic," I'm certain Davis feels he is simply doing his part to help control a problem amongst his schoolchildren. Yet, simply because a ban is well-intentioned does not mean it is justified. Davis' action is, in fact, far from justified.